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Your summary is a bit inaccurate in places.
Whilst the initial British work was DEFINITELY based on Polish techniques, their later work (late 1940 onwards) used different techniques (but which were only possible due to the information provided by the POLES and by the initial work on Enigma using POLISH methods). In addition, it was the whole organisation of "BP" (Bletchley Park) and its outstaions that were required to make the system work. It required the intercept (and D/F) stations, the secure communications, huge numbers of specialist (and secretarial/admin) workers, the HUGE cardexes and specialist intelligence analysts (before the word was invented). Turing was important for specific events and especially for computers ( ALONG WITH PERCY FLOWERS ! ) - BUT he was never one of the key code breakers or leaders of the effort.
The first "proper" British Bombes were three rotor based machines - these did the large majority of the enigma code-breaking during the war. The British then produced four rotor bombes specifically to deal with the 4-rotor Kriegsmarine (and then later other small scale German use services). The British four rotor bombes were relatively slow and the US produced their own faster 4-rotor bombe, which not only was more efficient, but were more reliable. (Any of the 4-rotor ones could be locked to provide 3-rotor solutions.)
Heath Robinson, Colossus I and, OF COURSE, Colossus II all totally out performed the bombes (no real comparison) - but they still needed the HUGE infrastructure of BP both to get the raw data and to process it.
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The enigma of the Enigma
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Dave Saxton
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Re: The enigma of the Enigma
Thanks Phil,
Also in the notes of the Rejewski paper there is commentary by some of the British people involved.
Also in the notes of the Rejewski paper there is commentary by some of the British people involved.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Mostlyharmless
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Re: The enigma of the Enigma
We need to be careful to distinguish between the Enigma family of machines and the Lorenz SZ40, SZ42A and SZ42B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_SZ40/42 which were attacked using Colossus and Heath-Robinson.
As far as I know, all the breaks into German military Enigma used either the indicators, which was the original Polish method, or used cribs and the British Bombes, which were very different from the Polish machines. The method of using cribs was developed logically by Alan Turing together with Gordon Welchman, who supplied the critical Diagonal Board, http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe1.htm. The Bombes were designed and built by a team of engineers led by Harold 'Doc' Keen http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe2.htm and details of how they worked are given by http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe3.htm, http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe4.htm and http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe5.htm.
Note that Turing's crib method was hugely helped by the earlier breaks via the indicators which showed some likely cribs to try and by the Polish triumph of establishing the wiring of the rotors.
As mentioned, there were later and better American Bombes following and improving the basic British design. There were also two much more advanced American machines aimed at Enigma codes called Autoscritcher and the Superscritcher which arrived very late in WW2 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.js ... ber=150065 or for German speakers http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoscritcher.
ps. I should add Duenna http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duenna. There is a description of what Duenna may be doing as "Hand Duenna" by C.H. O'D Alexander https://cryptocellar.web.cern.ch/crypto ... duenna.pdf.
As far as I know, all the breaks into German military Enigma used either the indicators, which was the original Polish method, or used cribs and the British Bombes, which were very different from the Polish machines. The method of using cribs was developed logically by Alan Turing together with Gordon Welchman, who supplied the critical Diagonal Board, http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe1.htm. The Bombes were designed and built by a team of engineers led by Harold 'Doc' Keen http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe2.htm and details of how they worked are given by http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe3.htm, http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe4.htm and http://www.ellsbury.com/bombe5.htm.
Note that Turing's crib method was hugely helped by the earlier breaks via the indicators which showed some likely cribs to try and by the Polish triumph of establishing the wiring of the rotors.
As mentioned, there were later and better American Bombes following and improving the basic British design. There were also two much more advanced American machines aimed at Enigma codes called Autoscritcher and the Superscritcher which arrived very late in WW2 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.js ... ber=150065 or for German speakers http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoscritcher.
ps. I should add Duenna http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duenna. There is a description of what Duenna may be doing as "Hand Duenna" by C.H. O'D Alexander https://cryptocellar.web.cern.ch/crypto ... duenna.pdf.