Oh. Hey, March. Didn’t see you there. What’s that? It’s Thursday? Well, looks like I’ll have to cure your hunger for obscure historical events by writing about yet another crazy wartime invention; Acoustic Locators. And since you guys were so patient with my wordy post of yesterweek, I’m rewarding you with a boatload of ridiculous pictures in today’s edition of Historical Thursday. Enjoy!
Before the advent of radar, but after the advent of planes dropping bombs on things, it was pretty difficult to detect where enemy aircraft were. Visual location was out of the question since by the time you saw the planes, it would be much too late, so we decided to turn to everyone’s favorite sense, hearing.
Acoustic locators are, not surprisingly, exactly what they sound (get it?) like. The locator is a large, semi-portable listening device with anywhere from 2 to 6 horns attached. The user inserts the two ends into his ears and listens intently for the slow drone of aircraft aka impending doom.
The Americans, English, French and Czech all had their own version of locators, but leave it to the Japanese to make the most over the top version. Dubbed the Japanese War Tuba, this machine seemingly straight out of a Dr. Suess book sent up a resounding call of “WTF?” around the world. It shows the Emperor of Japan inspecting some of his army’s newly built acoustic locators.
But there were more permanent listening devices built to help detect aircraft. Acoustic mirrors, similar to those we played with at science centers during our childhood, are massive concrete structures designed to capture sounds from miles away. With a microphone placed at their center, a listener could detect enemy aircraft from up to 20 miles away and even figure out their direction of travel. While these were successful at first, they quickly became obsolete as faster aircraft became more common in the 1930s.
Thanks to user dainwrk for the idea!
Pictures and Information courtesy of: The Chive and Wikipedia.
As always, if YOU have an idea for a Historical Thursday, let me know at thereifixedit@gmail.com
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This is neat. I love historical thur, keep it up!
Sew, did anyone of those guys hear the words of the Creator?
Something about apologising for the inconvenience….oh wait, wrong book.
Here they were, ears the size of a small planet…
Just his stomach grumbling…
Guess these guys didn’t enjoy the 4th of July…
Back in the ’70s I was in an National Guard Unit which was designated as Target Acquisition. Our job was to find enemy artillery. We had three companies. Radar, sight, and sound. Radar watched for rounds in flight and used computers to pinpoint their origin. Sight, the company I was in, watched for the muzzle flash of artillery, and sound deployed sensitive microphones. Acoustic technology was still being used during the Cold war to ID targets. It may still be used today.
I remember seeing a pic in the late 80s/early 90s in either PopScience or PopMechanics of an M113 with an acoustic array (looked like someone stuck a four-blade helicopter rotor on it) being developed by the IDF for Early Warning/Anti Aircraft. I cannot find anything online though.
OK, I want to be the first….
Can you hear me now?
….Good….
DA PLANE…. DA PLANE…
Can you hear me now?
The Japanese version remembers me of the devices used by Donald Sutherland in the Cloudbusting video from Kate Bush.
Came here to say this. Nice to know I’m not the only one.
They use arrays of microphones to pinpoint snipers. (see URL)
thats some dr seuss stuff right there.
Very, very cool. Like a little slice of the History Channel. Thank you.
If the history channel still did history.
And MTV had music, and FN still had News, and TLC still had learn-able content…
Quite a trend.
WHY IS EVERYBODY SHOUTING ?????????
is this guy listening for the ricolah guy?
My grandparents had some old (circa 1940, 1941) Popular Mechanics in their cellar. As a kid, I would read through them. One of the magazines had an article on these devices. The ones they highlighted were much more sophisticated than just sticking something in one’s ear, they were large acoustic microphones with electronic amplifiers. The operator wore headphones to listen for incoming planes in order to prepare anti-aircraft fire.
What I would give to shoot a 16th century cannon right beside one of those guys with hoses stuffed into their ears!
Throw a big rock in there while he’s listening.
“To combat these nefarious hearing devices, the enemy began to drop hoards of vuvuzelas on these stations to combat the improvised security network, rendering the operators both deaf and insane.”
Then after the war was over, all of those devices were adapted to form one kick ass brass orchestra.
thus was the birth of the Brass Bonaza (clickie)
it be funny if some body just clapped and or shouted in there.
(its only funny cus the users head cud explode)
I guess that’s how the enemies would fight back. Wait for someone to put one of these things in, then shout as loud as you can.
This idea is still sort of in use, but underwater. Its called SOSUS, its made up of microphones placed along the US coast to monitor other countries submarines that might attack us.
Acoustic locators were also used against artillery. During WWI it was not uncommon to listen for where the enemy artillery was firing from by having a number of listening posts at the front. And then consolidating the time and direction of their listenings in order to determine where the enemy might be shooting from. Then you would give that info to you own artillery so they hopefully would be able to take out he enemy artillery.
If you hear the artillery isn’t it a little late to be doing anything about it?
It’s called “counter battery fire”. You locate the enemy’s artillery as it fires to fix location and destroy it.
Shells from artillery guns fly at supersonic speeds, so if you hear the report from enemy artillery it means the shell didn’t land on you. They either missed you or were aiming at another target.
Finally, a way to “hear” into the future.
-or-
YES! YES! I CAN HEAR YOU NOW!!!
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Commanding officer: “What do you hear private?”
Private: “Everything, sir!”