FURTHER GERMAN COUNTERMEASURES.  
         
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  DECOY/DUMMY SITES.  
  Decoy installations have been around probably as long as military forces have existed, but the Wehrmacht cultivated this art to a level, which I have not found comparable.  It should come as no surprise to any reader that the Germans had manuals, standards, standard types and procedures for the construction and function of decoys.  The purpose of the decoy is to divert the attention away from the real thing, and in this context deceive pilots in attacking aircraft to attack the decoy or make photo interpreters mis-identify the facility/installation.  The fidelity of the decoy depends of the observing sensor, which until WW 2 mainly had been visual.  With the advent of radar and infra-red observation equipment the challenge of producing a credible decoy became greater.  
     
  Visual dummy sites.  
  These were the most commonly used.  Airfields in Denmark frequently had more than one dummy site, some of them quite elaborate with airfield lightning, lit buildings with "poor blackout" measures, taxing aircraft with navigation lights etc.  Some examples of visual dummy sites are given below.  
         
 

 

 
 

A dummy site (Resenfelde) for Grove about 20 km North of the airfield.  The triangular pattern of the 3 runways is still visible to-day.  2002.

  A dummy Flak position in the same site.  Here the constructor has cut corners.  The 5 gun positions should have been in a pentagon with the 6'th in the center.  2002.  
         
 

 

 
  The South dummy for Grove.  The construction in the lower part of the picture could be the dummy for GYGES, the GefStd of Jafü Däne. 1945.  

Dummy for a Kriegsmarine Flak battery.  1998.

 
         
  Radar dummy sites.      
  If I were to identify the singular most important piece of equipment facilitating the Night Bomber Offensive against Germany it would be the H2S ground mapping radar.  Without it the Bomber Stream would have been hard to form, and target acquisition and marking would have been very difficult except on clear nights.  Unfortunately a sample had fallen into German hands in early 1943 and a special commission, (Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft "Rotterdam" (A.G.R.)) or "Rotterdam Committee", was established in order to recommend countermeasures and other types of exploitation of the H2S.  One of the recommendations was the construction of very elaborate dummy sites intended to emulate factories and built-up areas.  
         
  GERMAN MEASURES AIMED AT COMPLICATING TARGET ACQUISITION AND BOMBING, Schein Signal Rakete (SSR). German codename LEIMRUTE.  
  The RAF bombing technique entailed that Pathfinders identified and marked the target.  Identification was done visually if possible and the aim point was then marked with Ground Markers (RAF codeword NEWHAVEN), which was pyro technique of various colors dropped at the aim point.  Succeeding bombers with less experienced crews would then bomb the aim point.  When the Markers were about to extinguish, the next group of Pathfinders in the stream would arrive and back up the marking.  If the target was obscured by a thin layer of clouds identification would be by H2S/Oboe, but ground markers could still be used, as they would glow through thin clouds (RAF codeword PARRAMATTA/Musical PARRAMATTA if Oboe was used).  With a heavy cloud cover H2S/Oboe would be used again, but the aim point would be marked with a Skymarker (RAF codeword WANGANUI/Musical WANGANUI if Oboe was used) a flare suspended under a parachute.  The bombardiers would set their sights to "No-Wind", and aim at the Skymarker.  In order to prevent German deception, Markers in various combination of colors were used.  The Germans, however, quickly built up units (see below), which were organized and equipped to place dummy Ground Markers in the correct color combination, in open terrain, somewhere up-stream.  
     
 

Please also see: Navigation and target marking

 
     
 

 
 

The principle in Skymarking.

 
     
  Decoy Skymarkers.  
  Whereas decoy Ground Markers were easy to emplace, decoy Skymarking was more of a challenge, but it was solved.  In 2003 one of my friends (Mr. Martin Reimers), involved in the same line of work, heard accounts of German Anti Aircraft Rocket batteries in the southernmost part of Denmark.  This was substantiated by WW 2 intelligence reports from the Danish Resistance movement.  Through interview with witnesses and photo interpretation he discovered the following.  SSR sites in Denmark.  

 

  In the area just north of Flensburg there had in fact been established 4 rocket batteries.  Each consisted of 6 to 12 launch pads of concrete with a 2,5 m diameter.  In the last part of the war rockets were indeed fired from the batteries resulting in spectacular fireworks.  Based on recent research ("Hitting the Mark, but missing the Target: Luftwaffe Deceptive Operations 1939 -1945", E. Westermann) this apparently was a standard configuration in the SSR-sites.  
         
 

 

 
 

The rocket batteries North of Flensburg

 

The battery at Mulsmark.  1945.

 
         
 

 

 
 

Artists impression of the battery at Mulsmark.

 

A 12 launcher battery NE of Schönwalde, via Mr Jürgen Zapf with his kind permission.

 
         
  Further research lead my friend to a chicken shed where he was presented with this large "box" bearing the inscription "RK15SD" and the remains of a rocket.  
         
 

 

 
 

Combined transportation box and launcher.  ©Torben Ølholm 

 

Rocket remains.  © Martin Reimers

 
         
  Problem was: What was a RK15SD rocket.  Mr. Friderich Lenz, Dusseldorf was able to provide the answer based on the inscription on the "launcher"; it was nothing less than a Raketenscheinsignalgeschoss also called Scheinsignalrakete:  
 

 

 
     
  The rocket.   The rocket in launch position.  
     
  The rockets were used either to simulate Skymarkers or quickly disperse Ground Markers.  
         
     A careful study of the map: "Bodenorganisation Grossraum-Nachtjagd/Luftflotte Reich, Südblatt, Aug 1944", which is an annex to "Fliegerhorste", K. Ries & W. Dierich, Moterbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, reveals the positions given through the link below.  Notice that most sites must be intended for deceptive target sky-marking, since the sites were located W or NW of the towns they were intended to protect.  This would probably be "up-stream" for the attacking aircraft, and if the deception was successful it would exacerbate "creep-back".  
         
         
   
         
     Another most relevant question was: "Who controlled the sites and initiated the fake marking".  Thanks to Eric Zeppenfeld this problem was solved as well.  All types of decoy sites were operated and serviced by L.S. (Luftschutz) Kompanien z.b.V. which were under tactical control of the Flak.Abt. defending the target.   
         
 

Location of Scheinsignalraketen sites.

 
         
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