How Allies Used Math Against German Tanks

Pepebuho writes "This an article about how the allies were able to estimate the number of German tanks produced in World War 2 based on the serial numbers of the tanks. Neat! Godwin does not apply."

Comments

Who's to say

[BigJClark]

Well good for the bean counters then. I'm sure a vastly more important question would be, "where is the largest concentration of tanks?"

Re:Who's to say

[bigstrat2003]

Not to mention, if you have an idea of how much total strength the enemy has, you know how committed they are to a location where you know their strength. If your enemy has 90% of their estimated force in one location, you know that you can (if you want) hit them with a counterattack in another location unopposed.

The information is far more relevant than the GP thinks.

Re:Who's to say

[hawguy]

Only morons put data in a serial number, it's one of the most fundamental mistakes of database planning.

There are lots of valid reasons to put data in a serial number -- especially in 1941.

If you're maintaining a battalion's worth of tanks, it's useful to know where your tank was manufactured and if it was manufactured around the same time as the other 5 tanks in your battalion that had bad drive gears.

It's not like they could have done a simple database lookup to find the assembly history of each tank. And generating a unique series of serial numbers across multiple factories would not have been trivial.

Of course, they ended up in inadvertently revealing secret information, but maybe they didn't think it was all that secret and assumed that observation alone would provide that data. (which didn't turn out to be true).

Note for world domination: encrypt serial no.'s!

[fantomas]

Note to self for world domination plans: don't stamp my robots/tanks/drones with plain text serial numbers, always encrypt! :-)

just miss out the occasional numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

You could of course use this to make your enemy overestimate the number of tanks you have by incrementing serial numbers by a random number between 1 and 10 each time you make a tank. I think there were reports of the soviets doing this during the cold war with the tail numbers of aircraft to make it look like their squadrons were bigger than they really were.

Re:Note for world domination: encrypt serial no.'s

[by (1706743)]

Actually, I think the best course of action would be to stamp false serial numbers / easy-to-decrypt serial numbers. Giving the enemy false information is likely better than none at all.

Of course, I guess that means the "real" serial numbers will have to be encrypted...

Re:Same method used for Soviet Bombers

[LWATCDR]

Do you have a source because what you are saying is physically impossible?
Tail numbers are on the vertical stabilizer. You can only read them from the side not from the top. Think about the slant range involved and do the math. We are talking about 1950s/ tech so think solid lenses and film with not digital image processing.

Now if the pictures where from a U2 or if they put the numbers on the wing, that is a bit more reasonable but not from an early spy satellite.

Re:Godwin does not apply?

[RealGrouchy]

Here we go. Only three posts in, proving the point that any Internet discussion about Nazis inevitably produces a debate about the applicability of Godwin's Law.

- RG>

Re:Dangerous Assumption

[h4rr4r]

They were Germans. Case settled.

To this day German castles are restored to what they looked like in what ever year they want them to look like because they recored the location of every thing and number all the artworks and other items.

Project Corona

[Anonymous Coward]

1959 - still in "1950s".

Though, it is probably more likely the GP is referring to U-2 photos.

Re:Can US win a future war like it did in WW II?

[maxwell demon]

With just as many nukes pointing to the US, I'd not be so sure.

Re:Note for world domination: encrypt serial no.'s

[NoSig]

The system was used for something like sending pictures of suspected card counters and other cheats back and forth

Card counters aren't cheats, it's just that casinos don't like them because they do the same thing with skill that a casino does with manipulating the game. If anything, the casino is cheating.

Re:Note for world domination: encrypt serial no.'s

[demonlapin]

If the Nazis had taken Britain and the Caucasus, what do you think are the chances that the US would have tried to invade from across the Atlantic? It's one thing to island hop the Pacific; it's another to jump the entire Atlantic in one go.

Re:Look at the board

[Skrapion]

If you want a unique random number, just pick a random number and make sure it hasn't been used before. GUIDs aren't magical; they're actually less unique than the simple method I just described. Too many people used GUIDs for poor reasons.

Besides, if you used traditional GUIDs, you would not only be exposing when the tank was made, but also where it was made.