The Klein Heidelberg.

  
         
 

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  The information on this page is based mainly on "Air Scientific Intelligence Report, Interim Report, Heidelberg" IIE/79/22 dated 24.11.44, which again was based on a POW interrogation report of a Klein Heidelberg (KH) operator from Vaudricourt (Stellung SKORPION).  
         
  The KH was a passive system, which exploited the transmissions from the British Chain Home (CH) radarstations.  The first system to become operational was the one at  BULLDOGGE in August 1943, the rest of the systems were mounted by the end of the year.  The Stellungen equipped with Klein Heidelberg were: BIBER in the Netherlands, BREMSE in Belgium, BULLDOGGE, SKORPION, AUERHAHN and TAUSENDFÜSSLER in France.  
         
  The system worked on the following principle.  The pulse and the reflection of an aircraft having been hit by the same pulse from a CH station was displayed on the range scope.  The range to the CH station was known, and the length traveled by the reflected pulse defines the eccentricity in an ellipse whose foci are the CH station and the KH station, the position of the aircraft is thus the cut between the ellipse and the bearing to the aircraft.  
         
  The KH antenna was mounted on a Wassermann S tower, in some sites this antenna was retained, in a "back-to-back" configuration.  The Wassermann S was mounted on a L 480 bunker.  
         
     
  A "normal" Wassermann S at SCHAKAL (The Skaw).   A Klein Heidelberg in TAUSENDFÜSSLER near Cherbourg. Please note the much wider and more "open" antenna.  In this site the Wassermann S antenna was retained on the back-side.  
         
     
  The Klein Heidelberg at BIBER, please note the absence of the Wassermann S antenna.  © Jeroen Rijpsma, with his kind permission.   A post-war allied sketch.  
         
 

 
  The L 480 at SCHAKAL (the Skaw).  
         
  Map of Klein Heidelberg Stellungen.  
         
  Technical description.  
         
 

For an in depth study (the "wizzard's" appreciation), please see the document found via the link below.  The authors warmly welcomes any corrections, additions and comments.

  
     
  Klein Heidelberg – a WW2 bistatic radar system that was decades ahead of its time.  
 

 
         
         
   
         
 

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