Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts

Monday, August 9, 2021

TTP - Thousand Talents Scam - Qiming

21-12-23 How China's Biggest Spies were CAUGHT in 2021 - serpentza > .
23-8-27 [Qiming is new name for TTP intellectual poaching plan] - Update > .
23-4-16 R-U Hybrid Warfare: P00paganda, cyber, hybrid methods - Perun > .
22-11-19 G20 '22 Biden-Xi meeting = "start of a new Cold War" - Times > .
22-9-21 Western scholars debate decoupling; Xi plots tech dominance - Digging > .
22-3-24 Chinese Influence Over Australian Universities | JoAnd > . full > .

TTP - Thousand Talents Scam ..

In response to widespread Western negative reaction and pushback, Xina has attempted to duck beneath the radar by relabeling its scheme to poach intellectuals and steal intellectual property. The current iteration of the program is called Qiming, administered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Qiming Venture Partners (啟明創投; Qǐmíng chuàngtóu) is a Xina based Venture capital firm. It primarily invests in Technology, Internet and Healthcare related companies across Xina. It is headquartered in Shanghai with offices in Beijing, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. It mainly focuses on investments in China. Investors include Princeton University, Duke University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2017, it set up its American branch, Qiming Venture Partners (USA). The branch is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California.

The Thousand Talents Plan or Thousand Talents Program (TTP), or Overseas High-Level Talent Recruitment Programs was established in 2008 by the central government of China to recognize and recruit leading international experts in scientific research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Both the United States and Canada have warned that China intends to use scientists who are involved with this plan to gain access to new technology for economic and military advantage.


The success of the program in recruiting U.S.-trained scientists back to China has been viewed with concern from the U.S., with a June 2018 report from the National Intelligence Council declaring an underlying motivation of the program to be “to facilitate the legal and illicit transfer of US technology, intellectual property and know-how” to China

In January 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Charles M. Lieber, the chair of Harvard University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, for lying about his ties to the program

In May 2020, the FBI arrested a former researcher at the Cleveland Clinic for failing to disclose ties to the Thousand Talents Program. 

In June 2020, it was reported that the National Institutes of Health had investigations into the behavior of 189 scientists. In November 2020, Song Guo Zheng, a TTP participant, pled guilty to making false claims to the FBI about his ties to the Chinese government during his employment at Ohio State University.

In November 2019, the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held an open hearing on the China's Talent Recruitment Plans, including the TTP, and called the programs a threat to national security. The report from the hearing cited TTP contracts as violating research values, TTP members willfully failing to disclose their membership to their home institutions, and cited numerous cases against TTP members for theft of intellectual property and fraud. One TTP member stole proprietary defense information on U.S. military jet engines. The report indicated that "TTP targets U.S.-based researchers and scientists, regardless of ethnicity or citizenship, who focus on or have access to cutting-edge research and technology."

In August 2020Canadian Security Intelligence Service warned both Canadian universities and Canadian research institutions of the TTP, saying that it recruited researchers and scientists around the world to persuade them to share their research and technology — either willingly or by coercion.

The program grew out of the "Talent Superpower Strategy" of the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2007. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and State Council of the People's Republic of China elevated the program in 2010 to become the top-level award given through China's National Talent Development Plan to strengthen innovation and international competitiveness within China. In 2019, the program was re-branded as the "National High-end Foreign Experts Recruitment Plan." The United Front Work Department's Western Returned Scholars Association is the official representative body for program participants.

1000 Talent Plan professorship is the highest academic honor awarded by the State Council, analogous to the top-level award given by the Ministry of Education. The program includes two mechanisms: resources for permanent recruitment into Chinese academia, and resources for short-term appointments that typically target international experts who have full-time employment at a leading international university or research laboratory.

The program has three categories:
  • Innovative 1000 Talents plan (Long term / Short term) – for Chinese scholars below 55 years of age
  • Foreign 1000 Talents plan (Long term / Short term) – for foreigners only below 55 years of age
  • Young scholar 1000 Talents plan or Overseas Young Talents Project of China — for those below 40 years of age
The program has been praised for recruiting top international talent to China, but also criticized for being ineffective at retaining the talent.

Conflict of interest and fraud concerns: Although the program has successfully attracted top international talent to China, its efficacy in retaining these talented individuals has been questioned, with many of the most talented scientists willing to spend short periods in China but unwilling to abandon their tenured positions at major Western universities. Additionally, some Thousand Talents Plan Professors have reported fraud in the program including misappropriated grant funding, poor accommodations, and violations of research ethicsDismissals due to undisclosed connections to the TTP have taken place. Individuals who receive either of China's two top academic awards, the Thousand Talents Professorship and the Changjiang (Yangtze River) Scholar award, have become targets for recruitment by China's wealthiest universities so frequently that the Ministry of Education issued notices in both 2013 and 2017 discouraging Chinese universities from recruiting away top talent from one another [poaching].

Friday, July 9, 2021

TTC - EU-US Trade and Technology Council

2021 Why the Global Chip Shortage Is Hard to Overcome | WSJ > .
23-12-6 Biden's Inflation Reduction Act: impact on world | FT > .
23-8-29 Understanding the Limits of Innovation || Peter Zeihan >> .
23-7-25 Silicon Triangle | USA, Taiwan, Xina: Semiconductors - Hoover > . full > .
23-4-16 R-U Hybrid Warfare: P00paganda, cyber, hybrid methods - Perun > .
23-3-2 Xina Leads US in Key Technology Research: Report | Focus > .
23-2-7 Why Xina is losing the microchip war - Vox > .
23-1-28 West Strangles Xina's Semiconductor Ambitions - Update > .
23-1-23 Xina’s Two-Year Tech Crackdown Winds Up | WSJ > .
22-12-6 Biden's Pro-American Present for Europe - PZ > .
22-10-12 Biden Bans Xina's Access to Advanced Semiconductors | Zeihan - now > .
22-8-28 Chip War - XiXiP vs CHIPS and Science Act - Update > .


22-8-9 The CHIPS and Science Act (or Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act), also known as simply the CHIPS Act, is a U.S. federal statute enacted by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 9, 2022. The act provides billions of dollars in new funding to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the United States.

It channeled more than $52 billion into researching semiconductors and other scientific research, with the primary aim of countering Xina. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 64–33 on July 27, 2022. On July 28, the $280 billion bill passed the House by a vote of 243–187–1.

The bill was considered amidst a global semiconductor shortage and intended to provide subsidies and tax credits to chip makers with operations in the United States. The Department of Commerce was granted the power to allocate funds based on companies' willingness to sustain research, build facilities, and train new workers.

The CHIPS Act includes $39 billion in tax benefits and other incentives to encourage American companies to build new chip manufacturing plants in the US. Companies are subjected to a ten-year ban prohibiting them from producing chips more advanced than 28-nanometers in Xina and Russia if they are awarded subsidies under the act.

America COMPETES Act of 2022 – original House version
United States Innovation and Competition Act – original Senate version

20-6-15 EU-US launch Trade and Technology Council to lead values-based global digital transformation:

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President Joe Biden of the United States have launched the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) at the US-EU Summit in Brussels on June 15, 2021.

The TTC will serve as a forum for the United States and European Union to coordinate approaches to key global trade, economic, and technology issues and to deepen transatlantic trade and economic relations based on shared democratic values.

Main goals of the TTC
  • Expand and deepen bilateral trade and investment
  • Avoid new technical barriers to trade
  • Cooperate on key policies on technology, digital issues and supply chains
  • Support collaborative research
  • Cooperate on the development of compatible and international standards
  • Facilitate cooperation on regulatory policy and enforcement
  • Promote innovation and leadership by EU and US firms
This new Council will meet periodically at political level to steer the cooperation. It will be co-chaired by European Commission Executive Vice-President and EU Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager; European Commission Executive Vice-President and EU Trade Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis; US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken; US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo; and US Trade Representative, Katherine Tai. Other Members of the College and of US Departments will be invited as appropriate, ensuring focused discussions on specific issues in a whole-of-government approach.

In parallel, the EU and the US have set up a Joint Technology Competition Policy Dialogue that will focus on developing common approaches and strengthening the cooperation on competition policy and enforcement in the tech sectors.


Chip shortage addressed by US-EU tech alliance: Manufacturing more computer chips in Europe and the US will be one of the key focuses of a new technology alliance between the two. The Trade and Technology Council (TTC) was unveiled following talks between European commissioner Margrethe Vestager and US President Joe Biden. The group will also seek to set common standards for new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Both sides are concerned by the rise of China as a technology superpower.

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Catalina - ASW

Catalina Flying Boat

Coastal Command - ASW
https://youtu.be/uTE-jHVIKJU?t=19m3s
Inside The Cockpit - Short Sunderland - MAH > .
Sub Chasers of the Civil Air Patrol > .
Why Aircraft Patrols Were a Source of Fear for Nazi U-Boats > .
Why Depth Charges Don't Have to Touch a Submarine to Sink It > .

Catalina - ASW

Other work by the Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) indicated that on average if the trigger depth of aerial-delivered depth charges (DCs) were changed from 100 feet to 25 feet, the kill ratios would go up. The reason was that if a U-boat saw an aircraft only shortly before it arrived over the target then at 100 feet the charges would do no damage (because the U-boat wouldn't have had time to descend as far as 100 feet), and if it saw the aircraft a long way from the target it had time to alter course under water so the chances of it being within the 20-foot kill zone of the charges was small. It was more efficient to attack those submarines close to the surface when the targets' locations were better known than to attempt their destruction at greater depths when their positions could only be guessed. Before the change of settings from 100 feet to 25 feet, 1% of submerged U-boats were sunk and 14% damaged. After the change, 7% were sunk and 11% damaged. (If submarines were caught on the surface, even if attacked shortly after submerging, the numbers rose to 11% sunk and 15% damaged). Blackett observed "there can be few cases where such a great operational gain had been obtained by such a small and simple change of tactics".
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"The "exchange rate" ratio of output to input was a characteristic feature of operational research. By comparing the number of flying hours put in by Allied aircraft to the number of U-boat sightings in a given area, it was possible to redistribute aircraft to more productive patrol areas. Comparison of exchange rates established "effectiveness ratios" useful in planning. The ratio of 60 mines laid per ship sunk was common to several campaigns: German mines in British ports, British mines on German routes, and United States mines in Japanese routes."

http://www.feightstudios.com/navalasw.htm .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research .

Friday, February 28, 2020

AI Weaponry

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24-4-5 Israel's Lavender System, AI Targeting, Battlefield Informatics - McBeth > .

Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), AI algorithms,




Biden urged to back AI weapons to counter China and Russia threats

The US and its allies should reject calls for a global ban on AI-powered autonomous weapons systems, according to an official report commissioned for the American President and Congress. It says that artificial intelligence will "compress decision time frames" and require military responses humans cannot make quickly enough alone. And it warns Russia and China would be unlikely to keep to any such treaty. [Yup! WW2 demonstrated that belligerents take advantage of appeasers, and the CCP and Kremlin have repeatedly proved untrustworthy.]

Critics, such as Prof Noel Sharkey, spokesman for the Campaign To Stop Killer Robots, claim the proposals risk driving an "irresponsible" arms race, which could lead to the "proliferation of AI weapons making decisions about who to kill." [Unfortunately, China and Russia are as unlikely to honor the terms of a ban as Hitler and Stalin were likely to honor the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.]

The report counters that if autonomous weapons systems have been properly tested and are authorised for use by a human commander, then they should be consistent with International Humanitarian Law.

Much of the 750-page report focuses on how to counter China's ambition to be a world leader in AI by 2030. It says that senior military leaders have warned the US could "lose its military-technical superiority in the coming years" if China leapfrogs it by adopting AI-enabled systems more quickly - for example by using swarming drones to attack the US Navy.

The report predicts AI will transform "all aspects of military affairs", and talks of rival algorithms battling it out in the future. Although it warns that badly-designed AI systems could increase the risk of war, it adds that "defending against AI-capable adversaries without employing AI is an invitation to disaster". It does, however, draw the line at nuclear weapons, saying these should still require the explicit authorisation of the president. 

The report maintains that the White House should press Moscow and Beijing to issue public commitments of their own over this matter.

Not all the report's proposals focus on the military, suggesting that the US's non-defence spending on AI-related research and development be doubled to reach $32bn (£23bn) a year by 2026.

Other proposals include:
  • creating a new body to help the president guide the US's wider AI policies
  • relaxing immigration laws to help attract talent from abroad, including an effort to increase a "brain drain" from China
  • creating a new university to train digitally-talented civil servants
  • accelerating the adoption of new technologies by the US's intelligence agencies
The report also focuses on the US's need to restrict China's ability to manufacture state-of-the-art computer chips. It advises that the US must keep at least two generations ahead of China's micro-electronics manufacturing capabilities. To do this, it says the government needs to offer large tax credits to companies which build new chip fabrication plants on US soil.

President Biden has already ordered a review of the US semiconductor industry, and last week pledged support for a $37bn plan by Congress to boost local output.

The report contends that export restrictions need to be put in place to prevent China being able to import the photolithography machines required to make the most advanced types of chips with the smallest transistors. This, it says, will require the co-operation of the governments of the Netherlands and Japan, whose companies specialise in these tools.

China's semiconductor-makers have been seeking out second-hand photolithography equipment to do this, buying up as much as 90% of available stock, according to a report in Nikkei Asia. However, these older machines are not capable of producing the most advanced chips, which are prized for use in both the latest smartphones and other consumer gadgets, as well as military applications.

In addition, the report says US firms that export chips to China should be compelled to certify they are not used to "facilitate human rights abuses", and should submit quarterly reports to the Department of Commerce listing all chip sales to China. This follows allegations that chips from American firms Intel and Nvidia were used to conduct mass surveillance against China's Uighur ethnic minority in its Xinjiang region.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Future Battle? - Seabed Mining

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24-1-9 Deep Sea Mining: do we really need it? - Our Metallic Earth > .
Mining the deep sea: the true cost to the planet | Economist > .Lanthanides - REEs - Omnia per Scientiam >> .
Energy Challenges - Omnia per Scientiam >> .

To meet the world's growing demand for batteries, private companies have turned their attention to mining the ocean floor. But this practice could come at a greater cost to the planet than it's worth.

Terrestrial mining doesn’t have a perfect record, it comes with a long list of environmental and human rights abuses, including pollution and child labor. All this to dig up raw materials like nickel, manganese, and cobalt that are necessary for our lithium-ion batteries.

Some strategies for a carbon-free future depend on making these batteries in much larger numbers and using them as a power source for electric cars or a storage method for electricity generated by renewables. 

But another source of these materials could lie at the bottom of the ocean. Potato-sized lumps called polymetallic nodules are rich in manganese, copper, cobalt, nickel, and other precious metals; and they are found in abundance in some areas like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone that stretches from Hawaii to Mexico.

History’s Largest Mining Operation Is About to Begin
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/... .
"Regulations for ocean mining have never been formally established. The United Nations has given that task to an obscure organization known as the International Seabed Authority, which is housed in a pair of drab gray office buildings at the edge of Kingston Harbour, in Jamaica. Unlike most UN bodies, the ISA receives little oversight."

Treasure and Turmoil in the Deep Sea
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/op... .
"As a result of the mining, animals already living near their physiological limits would be eating mouthfuls of poisonous dirt for breakfast, respiring through clogged gills and squinting through a muddy haze to communicate."

Seabed mining is coming — bringing mineral riches and fears of epic extinctions
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158... .
"The sea floor there boasts one of the world’s largest untapped collections of rare-earth elements. Some 4,000 metres below the ocean surface, the abyssal ooze of the CCZ holds trillions of polymetallic nodules — potato-sized deposits loaded with copper, nickel, manganese and other precious ores."

21-7-1 First seabed mines may be step closer to reality

The tiny Pacific nation of Nauru has created shockwaves by demanding that the rules for deep sea mining are agreed in the next two years. Environmental groups warn that [regulations concerning seabed mining] will lead to a destructive rush on the mineral-rich seabed "nodules" that are sought by the mining companies. But United Nations officials overseeing deep sea mining say no venture underwater can start for years.

[Partnered with DeepGreen], Nauru, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, has called on the International Seabed Authority - a UN body that oversees the ocean floor - to speed up the regulations that will govern deep sea mining. Nauru has activated a seemingly obscure sub-clause in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that allows countries to pull a 'two-year trigger' if they feel negotiations are going too slowly. Nauru, which is partnered with a mining company, DeepGreen, argues that it has "a duty to the international community" to make this move to help achieve "regulatory certainty". It says that it stands to lose most from climate change so it wants to encourage access to the small rocks known as nodules that lie on the sea bed.

[The nodules] are rich in cobalt and other valuable metals that could be useful for batteries and renewable energy systems in the transition away from fossil fuels. The nodules, a habitat for countless forms of life, are estimated to have formed over several million years so any recovery from mining will be incredibly slow. Scientists say they're far from gaining a complete understanding of the ecosystems in the abyssal plains - but already know they're far more vibrant and complex than previously thought.

Still unknown are the impacts of giant machines' stirring up plumes of sediment that are likely to drift over vast distances underwater. Researching this question is a difficult and slow task - and is unlikely to be fully answered within the two-year period initiated by Nauru.

DSM - Deep Sea Mining ↠
Future Battle? - Seabed Mining ..

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Radio Research Station at Ditton Park, Slough

The Radio Research Station at Ditton Park, Slough

Unique record of the Earth’s ionosphere – the electrified region of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, was painstakingly recorded from 1933 onwards at the Radio Research Station near Slough.

Scientists at the RRS were monitoring the ionosphere as it was then vital for long-distance radio communications. Shortwave radio is reflected by the ionosphere and allows the signal to be transmitted long distances over the horizon.

They had noted that the density of the ionosphere was extremely variable and had set up the monitoring station in order to look for patterns in this variability. Much of this is due to changes in solar activity.

The ionosphere is created when x-rays and extreme ultraviolet light from the sun are absorbed by our atmosphere, electrifying it. We now know, thanks to a fleet of spacecraft monitoring the sun, that not all of this variability can be explained by solar activity. Attention is increasingly turning to sources from the lower atmosphere and the ground.

But where to find ground events capable of leaving a signature at the edge of space? The answer lies in the past. World War Two witnessed an explosive arms race, which culminated, in its most extreme form, in the atomic bomb.

But most destructive energy still came from conventional weapons. Allied aircraft dropped over 2.75m tons of TNT, the equivalent of 185 Hiroshimas.

The RAF’s four-engined Lancaster bomber with its 11-ton payload could deliver more explosive energy than any other aircraft in World War II. The American Liberator could carry six tons, the Luftwaffe’s Heinkel 111 four.

Individual British bombs also grew more deadly. In 1944, two six-ton “Tallboys” capsized the German Tirpitz battleship, and the 11-ton “Grand Slam” could start landslides. Such seismic events were, of course, few and far between. Most of Bomber Command’s effort was targeted not at specific installations, but whole cities.

Here, too, the scale of ordnance was devastating. The RAF and US Air Force dropped 42,500 tons of high explosive on Berlin alone, plus 26,000 tons of incendiary bombs.

So-called “blockbuster” bombs – two, four or even six-ton barrels of boosted TNT – fused to explode a few hundred feet up, would blow off roof tiles and shatter windows within 500 metres.

Direct hits pulverised whole apartment blocks. Aircraft flying a mile above the blasts could have parts blown off and the pressure wave could even collapse the lungs of those caught within it.

Subsequent incendiaries would then penetrate structures, designed to set off a firestorm. This only fully succeeded twice – in Hamburg in August 1943 and Dresden in February 1945 – when tens of thousands perished.

The strategic bombing war documents numerous other area bombing raids, each of which involved hundreds of aircraft and up to 2,000 tons of high explosive.

The German authorities’ punctilious recording of the times and payloads of raids, coupled with RAF Bomber Command mission logs, made it possible to construct a database of possible ground events which might have produced shockwaves capable of being detected in the ionosphere.

Ionospheric records from the Radio Research Station are now archived by the UK Solar System Data Centre at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK. The record shown below is for 08:30 on September 8, 1940, the morning after the start of the London Blitz when 700 tons were dropped by the Luftwaffe.

By combining data from 152 major bombing raids, it was possible to determine that the ionosphere was weakened, albeit only slightly, by these events.

https://theconversation.com/world-war-ii-bombing-raids-in-london-and-berlin-struck-the-edge-of-space-our-new-study-reveals-103951

RDF

Scanning Chain Home Installations - The Last Zeppelin Raid 1939 - mfp > .


Radar is an object-detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, or velocity of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. A radar system consists of a transmitter producing electromagnetic waves in the radio or microwaves domain, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna (often the same antenna is used for transmitting and receiving) and a receiver and processor to determine properties of the object(s). Radio waves (pulsed or continuous) from the transmitter reflect off the object and return to the receiver, giving information about the object's location and speed.

Radar was developed secretly for military use by several nations in the period before and during World War II. The term RADAR was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging. The term radar has since entered English and other languages as a common noun, losing all capitalization.

The modern uses of radar are highly diverse, including air and terrestrial traffic control, radar astronomy, air-defence systems, antimissile systems, marine radars to locate landmarks and other ships, aircraft anticollision systems, ocean surveillance systems, outer space surveillance and rendezvous systems, meteorological precipitation monitoring, altimetry and flight control systems, guided missile target locating systems, ground-penetrating radar for geological observations, and range-controlled radar for public health surveillance. High tech radar systems are associated with digital signal processing, machine learning and are capable of extracting useful information from very high noise levels.

Other systems similar to radar make use of other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. One example is "lidar", which uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light from lasers rather than radio waves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/radar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSajdavR6Yw >


RADAR
Naval (ASV) and airborne (AI) RADAR
https://youtu.be/uTE-jHVIKJU?t=26m39s .


RADAR - Kammhuber Line - German night air defense system
The Kammhuber Line was the Allied name given to the German night air defense system established in July 1940 by Colonel Josef Kammhuber. It consisted of a series of control sectors equipped with radars and searchlights and an associated night fighter. Each sector would direct the night fighter into visual range with target bombers.
.........
When Germany organised its air defences into the Kammhuber Line, it was realised by the British (Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS)) that if the RAF bombers were to fly in a bomber stream they could overwhelm the night fighters who flew in individual cells directed to their targets by ground controllers. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimise RAF losses.

British intelligence soon discovered the nature of the Kammhuber Line and started studying ways to defeat it. At the time RAF Bomber Command sent in their planes one at a time to force the defenses to be spread as far apart as possible, meaning that any one aircraft had to deal with little concentrated flak. This also meant the Himmelbett centres were only dealing with perhaps one or two planes at a time, making their job much easier.

At the urging of R.V. Jones, Bomber Command reorganized their attacks into streams of bombers – the so-called Bomber stream, carefully positioned so the stream flew down the middle of a single cell. Data provided to the British scientists allowed them to calculate that the bomber stream would overwhelm the six potential interceptions per hour that the German "Tame Boar" (Zahme Sau) night fighters could manage in a Himmelbett zone. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimise RAF losses. The introduction of Gee radio navigation in 1942 allowed the RAF bombers to fly by a common route and at the same speed to and from the target, each aircraft being allotted a height band and a time slot in a bomber stream to minimize the risk of collision. The first use of the bomber stream was the first 1,000 bomber raid against Cologne on the night of 30/31 May 1942. This tactic was extremely effective, leading to fighting between Kammhuber and Erhard Milch, his boss.

Although the success rate of the Line dropped, the network of radars and plotting stations continued to prove their worth. Now when a raid started, night fighters from any base within range were directed into the stream, where it was hoped they would be able to find aircraft with their radar. At the same time a massive building program started to add hundreds of Würzburgs to the system, although the infrastructure needed was extensive. The boxes were initially the radius of the Würzburg radars, about 22 miles, but more powerful radar later on made the boxes up to 100 miles across. Eventually, the line of boxes was several deep, especially around larger towns and the Ruhr valley. Once again the system started to score increasing successes against the British raids.

The British were ready for this development, and as soon as the rates started to improve – for the Germans – they introduced "Window". Dropping strips of foil from a number of "lead" bombers, the German radar operators saw what appeared to be a stream entering their box, each packet of chaff appearing to be a bomber on their displays. Night fighters were then sent to attack this stream, only to find empty space. Just as the fighters reached the false stream, the "real" stream appeared hundreds of miles away, too far to be attacked. The first time this was used was during Operation Gomorrah (a week-long bombing campaign against Hamburg) and proved spectacularly effective. The German radar operators eventually learned to spot the lead bombers at the edge of the windowing, making it less effective. The British had held back from introducing Window for over a year lest the technique be adopted by the Germans and used against British cities.

A more sophisticated method for blinding the German radar was "Mandrel", a jamming signal broadcast from aircraft accompanying the bomber stream or later certain bombers themselves. This progressed into jamming techniques against individual German radar types and spoofing radars to see bomber streams that weren't there. The British also attacked the communications between ground stations and fighters, with Operation Corona, broadcasting false directions in authentic accents over the radio.

One other element was long-range nightfighters operating against the German nightfighters, using a system called "Serrate" to home in on the German nightfighter radar signals. At least three squadrons equipped with Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito were part of No. 100 Group RAF supporting Bomber Command with electronic countermeasures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research
.......
The Line was very effective at first, but was soon rendered useless by a simple change in tactics. The RAF directed all of its bombers to fly in a single stream, overwhelming the sectors, who could only intercept a single aircraft at a time. This led to a dramatic drop in interception rates compared to the raid size. The Line was eventually turned into a radar network, and the night fighters improved with their own radar sets to allow them to hunt on their own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammhuber_Line

RDF – Plane Safety ‘38

Battle Stations - Radar - Documentary + Rare Bonus Footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRvcLNLe3VU
Under The Radar - Radar Technological Evolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSajdavR6Yw

Chain Home:

Early Radar Memories .
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/early-radar-memories.html
Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Chain Home .
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/08/stories-of-the-battle-of-britain-1940-chain-home.html
“The Spies Who Lost the Battle of Britain” .
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/11/the-spies-who-lost-the-battle-of-britain.html
Aboukir’s High-Altitude Spitfire .
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/aboukirs-high-altitude-spitfire.html
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/deflating-british-radar-myths-of-world-war-ii.html

Filter Room
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/battle-of-britain/11865303/The-Battle-of-Britain-as-it-happened-on-September-15-1940-live.html .

Boffins Beat Belligerents >> .
RAF Uxbridge - WW2 command centre > .

RDF – Plane Safety ‘38 > .

RDF - New Forest
New Forest, WW2 ..

Early Radar Memories
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/early-radar-memories.html
Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Chain Home
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/08/stories-of-the-battle-of-britain-1940-chain-home.html
“The Spies Who Lost the Battle of Britain”
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/11/the-spies-who-lost-the-battle-of-britain.html
Aboukir’s High-Altitude Spitfire
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/aboukirs-high-altitude-spitfire.html


http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/deflating-british-radar-myths-of-world-war-ii.html




RAF Bawdsey > .

1940s: Radar, RAF High Speed Launch (HSL), AFS, 1941 Jowett pump, Austin 12 taxi, Austin K Fire Truck, WLA & David Brown VAK1 tractor, cavity magnetron & H2S, Daimler Scout Car (Dingo), Bren Gun, gas turbine = Whittle jet engine, Gloster Pioneer & Meteor, ejector seat, Aston Martin DB1 & DB2 & DBR1

https://www.youtube.com/user/EnginePorn/playlists?view=1&shelf_id=0&sort=dd .

Of zoos and fire-fighting, today and in wartime
https://web.archive.org/web/20110902160428/http://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/of-zoos-and-fire-fighting-today-and-in-wartime/

Britain's greatest machines - 1940s > .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWSMJFeBfj4&list=PLrWZd-gHTah5CuJVlQgNFmk5jeh0-7mNx

Monday, August 26, 2019

Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS)


CC-ORS & optimal convoy size

Blackett's team at Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) included two future Nobel prize winners and many other people who went on to be pre-eminent in their fields. They undertook a number of crucial analyses that aided the war effort. Britain introduced the convoy system to reduce shipping losses, but while the principle of using warships to accompany merchant ships was generally accepted, it was unclear whether it was better for convoys to be small or large. Convoys travel at the speed of the slowest member, so small convoys can travel faster. It was also argued that small convoys would be harder for German U-boats to detect. On the other hand, large convoys could deploy more warships against an attacker. Blackett's staff showed that the losses suffered by convoys depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy. Their conclusion was that a few large convoys are more defensible than many small ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research .

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Operations Research

..
Operational Research 'ORigin Story' - OR Society > .



Operations research, or operational research (OR) in British usage, is a discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. Further, the term operational analysis is used in the British (and some British Commonwealth) military as an intrinsic part of capability development, management and assurance. In particular, operational analysis forms part of the Combined Operational Effectiveness and Investment Appraisals, which support British defense capability acquisition decision-making.

It is often considered to be a sub-field of applied mathematics.The terms management science and decision science are sometimes used as synonyms.

Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, and mathematical optimization, operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex decision-making problems. Because of its emphasis on human-technology interaction and because of its focus on practical applications, operations research has overlap with other disciplines, notably industrial engineering and operations management, and draws on psychology and organization science. Operations research is often concerned with determining the extreme values of some real-world objective: the maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost). Originating in military efforts before World War II, its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries.
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Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be considered the origin of modern operations research with economic order quantity developed by Ford W. Harris in 1913. Operational research may have originated in the efforts of military planners during World War I (convoy theory and Lanchester's laws). Percy Bridgman brought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences.

Modern operational research originated at the Bawdsey Research Station in the UK in 1937 and was the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent, A. P. Rowe. Rowe conceived the idea as a means to analyse and improve the working of the UK's early warning radar system, Chain Home (CH). Initially, he analysed the operating of the radar equipment and its communication networks, expanding later to include the operating personnel's behaviour. This revealed unappreciated limitations of the CH network and allowed remedial action to be taken.
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In the World War II era, operational research was defined as "a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control". Other names for it included operational analysis (UK Ministry of Defence from 1962) and quantitative management.

During the Second World War close to 1,000 men and women in Britain were engaged in operational research. About 200 operational research scientists worked for the British Army.

Patrick Blackett worked for several different organizations during the war. Early in the war while working for the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) he set up a team known as the "Circus" which helped to reduce the number of anti-aircraft artillery rounds needed to shoot down an enemy aircraft from an average of over 20,000 at the start of the Battle of Britain to 4,000 in 1941.

In 1941, Blackett moved from the RAE to the Navy, after first working with RAF Coastal Command, in 1941 and then early in 1942 to the Admiralty

Blackett's team at Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) included two future Nobel prize winners and many other people who went on to be pre-eminent in their fields. They undertook a number of crucial analyses that aided the war effort. Britain introduced the convoy system to reduce shipping losses, but while the principle of using warships to accompany merchant ships was generally accepted, it was unclear whether it was better for convoys to be small or large. Convoys travel at the speed of the slowest member, so small convoys can travel faster. It was also argued that small convoys would be harder for German U-boats to detect. On the other hand, large convoys could deploy more warships against an attacker. Blackett's staff showed that the losses suffered by convoys depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy. Their conclusion was that a few large convoys are more defensible than many small ones.

While performing an analysis of the methods used by RAF Coastal Command to hunt and destroy submarines, one of the analysts asked what colour the aircraft were. As most of them were from Bomber Command they were painted black for night-time operations. At the suggestion of CC-ORS a test was run to see if that was the best colour to camouflage the aircraft for daytime operations in the grey North Atlantic skies. Tests showed that aircraft painted white were on average not spotted until they were 20% closer than those painted black. This change indicated that 30% more submarines would be attacked and sunk for the same number of sightings. As a result of these findings Coastal Command changed their aircraft to using white undersurfaces.

Other work by the CC-ORS indicated that on average if the trigger depth of aerial-delivered depth charges (DCs) were changed from 100 feet to 25 feet, the kill ratios would go up. The reason was that if a U-boat saw an aircraft only shortly before it arrived over the target then at 100 feet the charges would do no damage (because the U-boat wouldn't have had time to descend as far as 100 feet), and if it saw the aircraft a long way from the target it had time to alter course under water so the chances of it being within the 20-foot kill zone of the charges was small. It was more efficient to attack those submarines close to the surface when the targets' locations were better known than to attempt their destruction at greater depths when their positions could only be guessed. Before the change of settings from 100 feet to 25 feet, 1% of submerged U-boats were sunk and 14% damaged. After the change, 7% were sunk and 11% damaged. (If submarines were caught on the surface, even if attacked shortly after submerging, the numbers rose to 11% sunk and 15% damaged). Blackett observed "there can be few cases where such a great operational gain had been obtained by such a small and simple change of tactics".


Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS), analyzed a report of a survey carried out by RAF Bomber Command. For the survey, Bomber Command inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by German air defences was noted and the recommendation was given that armour be added in the most heavily damaged areas. This recommendation was not adopted because the fact that the aircraft returned with these areas damaged indicated these areas were not vital, and adding armour to non-vital areas where damage is acceptable negatively affects aircraft performance. Their suggestion to remove some of the crew so that an aircraft loss would result in fewer personnel losses, was also rejected by RAF command. Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armour be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The untouched areas of returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft. This story has been disputed, with a similar damage assessment study completed in the US by the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University and was the result of work done by Abraham Wald.

When Germany organized its air defences into the Kammhuber Line, it was realized by the British that if the RAF bombers were to fly in a bomber stream they could overwhelm the night fighters who flew in individual cells directed to their targets by ground controllers. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimize RAF losses.

The "exchange rate" ratio of output to input was a characteristic feature of operational research. By comparing the number of flying hours put in by Allied aircraft to the number of U-boat sightings in a given area, it was possible to redistribute aircraft to more productive patrol areas. Comparison of exchange rates established "effectiveness ratios" useful in planning. The ratio of 60 mines laid per ship sunk was common to several campaigns: German mines in British ports, British mines on German routes, and United States mines in Japanese routes.

Operational research doubled the on-target bomb rate of B-29s bombing Japan from the Marianas Islands by increasing the training ratio from 4 to 10 percent of flying hours; revealed that wolf-packs of three United States submarines were the most effective number to enable all members of the pack to engage targets discovered on their individual patrol stations; revealed that glossy enamel paint was more effective camouflage for night fighters than traditional dull camouflage paint finish, and the smooth paint finish increased airspeed by reducing skin friction.

On land, the operational research sections of the Army Operational Research Group (AORG) of the Ministry of Supply (MoS) were landed in Normandy in 1944, and they followed British forces in the advance across Europe. They analyzed, among other topics, the effectiveness of artillery, aerial bombing and anti-tank shooting.

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...