Happy Thursday everyone
Today I am going to talk about radios, the importance of communication and Blitzkrieg.
The key to German swift victory over the French in WWII was communication. Every tank crew had its own radioman who relayed information to the tank commander. The whole tactical process was actually quite slow and it is called blitzkrieg or lightning warfare, because nothing in that time could be compared with it. A division commander would give orders to his radio operator who would then in turn relay the information to all tank radio operators, who each relayed the orders to their tank commanders, assuming the communication went trough smoothly and flawlessly to all radios. It was a very clunky technology with many flaws, but still light years ahead of what the French were using. Which was flags.
A crew member would go outside the turret hatch and use a flag to signal other tanks the orders. Not only was he in much grater danger being exposed on top of the tank and could easily be picked off by machinegun fire from German tanks, not all tank crews received the orders because in all the commotion of the battle they couldn't pay attention to everything that was going on, or sometimes orders were misinterpreted which resulted in some french tanks attacking and moving forward, others staying still and others retreating.
French tanker using flags to communicate, circa 1940 colorized
(I know it isn't a French tank in the photo, I found it and I had to use it)
Jokes aside this is how it actually looked like.
With all the chaos and commotion the Germans swiftly defeated the French. The main reason for the French loss being bad and slow communication on their side and way better and way faster communication on the German side. (Yes Germans had better tanks which gave them another edge, but still the German radios made the biggest difference) I have to note that some (but very few) French tanks had radios, but even then they used Morse code to communicate which admittedly gave them more range but was very impractical during combat.
Even in modern warfare we are still facing trouble with communication. So many things go wrong with modern radios. The battery runs out to fast, the nature of the field causes transmission interference or it doesn't go trough at all, an antenna or a connector can get damaged, your headset doesn't work, device simply won't turn on, or will turn on and won't work for some technical reason or other, enemy EMP can disable you device, etc. I am not saying things are that bad, if they were, armies would still be using runners to relay messages and orders, I am simply saying that a lot of things can go wrong with your radio when you need it the most.
Communication can save many lives in combat and the lack of it can cost many lives as well. This applies to the civilian life as well, if you need an ambulance and don't have any signal on your phone it may be the reason you don't survive.
As a prepper, one of the crucial skills (in my opinion) is to know how to use radios for communication, so you can call for help in an emergency or communicate with your team in SHTF situation.
Good communication is the key to winning battles in warfare. Nowadays we cannot even live without modern communication, imagine your life without the internet and all the smartphones and a ton of other technology. We are so used to it that I imagine things wouldn't be pretty if we were suddenly cut off from all the modern ways we use to communicate with one another. And you wouldn't be seeing this post 😉
I hope you enjoyed my post and have a nice rest of the day :)
Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wwiipics/comments/s3ycg2/french_renault_r_35_light_tank_no_50254_commanded
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/hedniv/french_tanker_using_flags_to_communicate_circa/