Kammhuber Line

Kammhuber Line, Allied name for German defence system organized by General J. Kammhuber in the summer of 1940 to intercept RAF bombers taking part in the strategic air offensive against Germany. Originally there were three zones, each of which had anti-aircraft and searchlight units, and two radar sets which controlled night fighters circling a radio beacon while waiting to be directed on to their targets. This proved highly successful and was expanded into a system called Raumnachtjagd (sector night fighting, or box system). This consisted of a series of overlapping defensive areas, or ‘boxes’, each of which had radar sets and a control officer who directed the fighters on to their targets with the help of a plotting table (see Figure ). These defensive boxes stretched from Denmark to beyond Paris. In some places there were two rows of them near the coast and, to protect certain German cities, a further one inland. However, in July 1943, during the Hamburg raid, British bombers used WINDOW to block the radar (see electronic warfare), and by the time of the Peenemünde raid in August the line had almost been abandoned and nearly all the German fighters had adopted a new tactic (see Wilde Sau).