Though wireless communication was in early development during World War I, the technology could have made a profound impact on tactical operations and on the entire strategic conduct of the war. Providing details on how and why the technology did not fulfill its promise as a great military tool until years later, the book points primarily to the British army's institutional bias against wireless communication as the technology's downfall, reinforced by the crude, unreliable wireless sets with which the army began the war. It also demonstrates how improved wireless communications between infantry, command, artillery and air observation could have improved the flexibility, accuracy and effectiveness of the British military strategy in the German Spring Offensive, the Hundred Days Counteroffensive and the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele, and Cambrai.

The late Mike Bullock was a retired bank director. He lived in Warwickshire, England.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments     

Preface     

Introduction     


1. Military Wireless Before the War     

2. Operational Signals-Pre-war and Early Mobile Warfare     

3. Operational Signals-Static Warfare in 1915     

4. 1915-The RFC Invents Wireless Telephony     

5. Operational Signals on the Somme     

6. A Counterfactual-The Somme with Wireless Telephony     

7. Operational Signals in 1917     

8. A Counterfactual-Passchendaele and Cambrai with Wireless Telephony     

9. Operational Signals in 1918     

10. A Counterfactual-The German Spring Offensive and Hundred Days with Wireless Telephony     

11. Command, Control and Communications     

12. Intercept, Encryption and Jamming     

13. An Assessment of Wireless as It Was Actually Employed     


Conclusion     

Appendix A: Wireless Technology     

Appendix B: Signal Service Units, 1914     

Appendix C: Signals Service Units Later in the War     

Chapter Notes     

Bibliography     

Index