Missed Signals on the Western Front: How the Slow Adoption of Wireless Restricted British Strategy and Operations in World War I

Though the medium of wireless communication was in relative infancy 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.

Table of Contents:
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