Airborne Cigar
When used properly, the system made enemy night fighter communications almost impossible. The Germans referred to ABC as ‘dudelsack’, German for bagpipes, in reference to the warbling sound of the transmitters. The system was later supplanted by Jostle IV, which barraged the entire band, beginning on 30 June 1944.
About Airborne Cigar in brief
Airborne Cigar was a World War II electronic countermeasure system. It was used to jam Luftwaffe ground-to-air radios operating in the very high frequency band. When used properly, the system made enemy night fighter communications almost impossible. ABC was operated primarily by No. 101 Squadron RAF, part of the specialist No. 100 Group RAF. The system was later supplanted by Jostle IV, which barraged the entire band, beginning on 30 June 1944. The ABC systems moved to No. 462 Squadron RAAF in March 1945. After the war they were moved to no. 199 Squadron RAF and in 1958 to No 18 Squadron RAF. They ended their long career on the Vickers Valiant. The Germans referred to ABC as ‘dudelsack’, German for bagpipes, in reference to the warbling sound of the transmitters. The first example was set up at Sizewell and went into operation on the night of 3031 July 1943. The Admiralty complained, as they relied on Y service intercepts to track E-boat operations. This was among the first many cases where the group was forced to demonstrate that their loss of intelligence would have a greater impact than the loss of jamming. A lack of Cigar allowed a serious operation to continue for more than a year. In this case, the Admiralty was offended that they had to continue a more serious operation for longer than the time it took for Cigar to be used to track the E-boats.
The Cigar system was eventually replaced by the ‘Jostle V’ system, which was used until the end of the war in 1945. The ‘Cigar system’ was later replaced by a new system known as the � ‘Tinsel’. This consisted of an HF receiver that the operator could scan through the German frequencies listening for any signals. When they found one being used, they would set their transmitter to the same frequency and send out a signal from a microphone next to the aircraft’s engine. The frequencies being used by the controllers were not searched out by the radio operator in the aircraft but instead by the Y service signals intercept stations in England. These were then forwarded to aircraft in coded terms during the half-hour scheduled Group Operational messages sent from Bomber Command. This resulted in the “Special Tinsel” concept, introduced in June 1943. Because VHF transmitters of the required power were large, this was built into a ground-based operation for the first time in July 1943, when it was first used on the day of the Battle of the Somme. The Tinsel system became increasingly effective, and by the spring of 1943, the Y Service was reporting that more and more of the successes being reported by German night fighters were those operating on the newer VHF bands.
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This page is based on the article Airborne Cigar published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
