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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."
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I have an uncle with a small lighting business. He has one truck, proudly labeled #6. I guess the German's didn't think about their tanks as an advertising canvas.
This is very similar to the method that the CIA used to get a seat at the Big Boys table in U.S. Intelligence operations in the 1950s. When OSS became the CIA after WWII, they became a junior member of the U.S. Intelligence operations. In the 1950s, the Defense Intelligence Agency (I may have the wrong department, but it was the organization that got the lion's share of the U.S. Intelligence budget) estimated how many intercontinental bombers the Soviets had by looking at the size of the factories where they produced them and estimating how many the U.S. could produce in a factory of that many square feet. The CIA wanted to get a bigger chunk of the Intelligence budget, so they started looking at satellite photos of the Russian bombers. They noticed that the numbers on the tails of Soviet bombers went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5....11,12, 13, 14, 15,...21, 22, 23, 24, 25, etc. Based on this they determined that the Soviets had many fewer bombers than earlier estimates. When other sources provided corroborating evidence, the CIA was able to get a bigger chunk of the Intelligence budget. Of course, they then made the same sort of mistake in estimating ICBMs that they had corrected with this methodology.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It can work backwards. At the Battle of Verdun in WW1, Petain (who only became an anti-hero in WW2) rotated French regiments through the Verdun front (a system called noria) so that whole regiments would not be destroyed. The Germans left their troops in battle till all were killed. From captured French uniforms and the number of regiments recorded, they greatly over-estimated the size of the French defense.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I read the title as 'Meth':
For once a misreading made perfect sense in the summary title's context: use of amphetamines throughout World War II on land and air personnel is well-documented. There's a phrase one hears infrequently that amphetamines 'won the Battle of Britain' - fending off constant attack from the Luftwaffe made necessary the use of stimulants as hiring and training a new pilot took too long. Whether it really did tip the scales in that battle we'll never know. As one would expect abuse orose within both Allied and Axis forces, and the spike in use persisted after the war. The Vietnam conflict saw American troops use methamphetamine very widely, and today the drug is popular amongst the poor as a relatively inexpensive stimulant.
If there's anything that isn't widely known by the public and merits publicizing it's history of drugs such as this in the context of 20th century events like warfare. What laid ground for a forerunner to the modern drugs situation to me represents a phenomena of greater gravity than the serial numbers of tanks which one would expect would be used simply through using good old oxymoronic common sense.
Presently there's a drug by the name of 'Modafinil' which mimics amphetamine but removes almost entirely the euphoric element and much of the crash that accompanies sudden cessation. It has been around for a number of years, and sees much use in modern conflicts. It also has much off-label use, and has even been used by astronauts to cope with heavy exercise regimens.
That's exactly why the Soviet Navy gave their ships non-sequential pennant (hull) numbers, and frequently re-assigned them. They would also sometimes paint one number on one side of the bow, and different on the other.
Security is a difficult business.
Intelligence can also be a weird business... I once read an account of how the CIA broke into a warehouse rented by the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in order to examine (very closeup and very clandestinely) a high fidelity mock-up/prototype of a satellite the Soviets had on tour. The idea was to gather information on any real cable, connectors, or other hardware on the bird - as well as to collect any serial numbers, drawing numbers, etc.. that they could find. (It's not uncommon for such to contain 'real' items that have been discarded from production or operational use.)
You'd be surprised what a trained and knowledgeable analyst can derive from just a few seemingly unconnected bits of information.