IRL did they send out such messages

[Von Tonner]

I received a radio message which got me wondering. Some of you might have also received it. It goes on about a practice beach assualt the Marines did and how there was equipment failure, bad weather, nothing went right etc, etc

My question is. Would such info be sent out to troops willy nilly much like reading a newspaper? Surely such info would be on a 'need to know' basis. There is always the risk of capture, even for submarine personel and one runs up the risk of this important assesment of beach landing capabilities been involuntrary passed on through interogation. I can understand chatter about happenings back home such as who won what game which is of little interest to the Japs - but the above message is loaded with info the Japs would give anything to know.

Anyone know if this type of 'top secret' info was sent out over the wires to all the troops like it is portrayed in the game?

[tomoose]

You're quite right in assuming that this type of info would not be transmitted. Why risk advertising your mistakes to the enemy?

There's no way in RL they would transmit a message like that particularly regarding problems/failures etc. As an example, the "practice" landing prior to the Normandy invasion was kept under wraps for a long time due to the errors and accidents/deaths that occurred.

[Von Tonner]

No, I'm not playing stock. I have modded to TM, RFW, and RSR. But I am sure you are right Tomoose, it would be foolish if not criminal to put this stuff out on the wires. Think of the lives one is putting at risk.

[seafarer]

:hmm: who knows, certainly more idiotic information was openly given to the enemy. Congressman Andrew J. May gave away the fact that Japanese depth charges were being fused too shallow in a 1943 press conference (the IJN did not believe US subs could dive as deep as they did). That was published in a number of news papers, including papers in Hawaii. Admiral Lockwood later estimated that blunder may have cost the US as many as 10 boats.

Tokyo Rose got a lot of her info by listening to US mainland-based short-wave broadcasts, which some WWII accounts refer to as a leaking sieve of valuable information.

[M. Sarsfield]

Shocker... you'll always have talking heads that need to be the first ones to blab a story, regardless of the consequences.

[Sailor Steve]

If the message was addressed directly to you it would have been coded. If not; well, it might be an intentional fake.

[tomoose]

...they kept the BS messages to a minimum as ANY transmission regardless of content had the potential to be intercepted and pinned down.
I believe that was one of the big blunders of Admiral Lutjens on the Bismarck. He sent off a long-winded message and the Brits were able to locate the signal origin with direction finding. Consequently the Brit fleet, which was actually heading in the wrong direction at the time, were able to turn about and re-acquire the Bismarck.

[seafarer]

True, but the messages sent to the boats did not offer anything for the hunters in terms of location information since the boats are not transmitting anything. The germans were quite prolific in their shore-based traffic, supposedly to keep the boats informed and not thinking that their codes were or could be compromised. The massively powerful low frequency transmitter, Nauen and later Goliath even allowed u-boat reception underwater, so BdU could keep jabbering away at his boats (oblivious to the allies listening in).

[tomoose]

...the Brits turned the wrong way after the intercept due to a plotting error. A subsequent spotting by a Coastal Command aircraft got them turned around and back in the hunt.

The message didn't need to contain location information, the signal itself given a few intercept stations could be geographically pinpointed. I say 'pinpointed' in the broad sense as intercept stations in different locations in Britain could give lines of bearing on the signal then when they all intersect there's your target although the intersection could still be a relatively large area but good enough combined with other intelligence to figure out where the ship is at and/or where it's going.

The same process applies to subs/u-boats, assuming they acknowledge a message. I'm sure though that part of their training was to keep the messages short and to the point so as not to stay on the air too long.