Modern warfare will be fought with unmanned aerial vehicles, computer superiority systems and artificial intelligence. A few years ago, we saw unprecedented progress on this scale until then, with the deployment of weapons and systems to the battlefield. We’re currently talking about autonomous submarines, radars, laser weapons, and drones that can act as a fleet of ships to mix up space warfare.

But in the Ukraine war, Russia continues to use something as old as Morse code. And in the midst of technological warfare, this makes sense.

Rewind to the 19th century. In the first quarter of the 19th century, there were developments in electromagnetic telegraphy that allowed pulses of electric current to be sent over cables. In these early machines, operators had to pay attention to the electrical pulses reflected in the system, but they also had to write the message. In 1837, painter Samuel Morse, physicist Joseph Henry, and engineer Alfred Vail developed an electric telegraph that drew a system of lines and dots on a tape.

This system was used for a few years until it was noticed that the receiving device made noise as it marked the tape, and short pulses were called ‘dit’ and long pulses or dashes were called ‘dah’. Moreover, they realized that operators know how to decode code better when the code is spoken than when it is written and the language is optimized.

II. World War. Radiotelegraphy was (and still is) an extremely versatile system that required very little energy to operate over long distances, so it has been widely used since its inception. But baptism of fire and where it became very important was in both the First and Second World Wars. It was used primarily to send messages between naval bases and warships, as well as between ships.

Radio communication was old and unprotected, so Morse code became the leading role because encrypted messages could be sent. It was used for messages between ships as well as with long-range aircraft. Morse fell into disuse at the beginning of the 21st century, but there are still those who use it officially and licenses continue to be issued.

Russia in Ukraine. Thus we come to the current war, the most technological war experienced by many fronts in different parts of the world. One of these is the event in Eastern Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine. And it has been discovered that in this hyper-technological age, Morse code is still used in conflict.

In particular, Russian bombers or Baltic Fleet ships transmitting to control centers and headquarters on the ground. This may seem like an oxymoron when talking about the use of autonomous vehicles in warfare, but ultimately it shows that ‘traditional’ solutions can continue to be used if they work. He was hunted thanks to a weather forecast message to all Russian ships in the Baltic Sea.

Efficient and safe. Important to understanding why Russia continues to use Morse is that over the years it has become more like spoken language transmission rather than written transmission, so trained operators can easily decipher messages. Another very important point is that the amount of energy it needs to operate is almost negligible. It also uses very narrow bandwidth and is easy to encrypt.

All these elements allow this communication system, which has a history of more than 150 years and has been replaced by more modern technologies in every field, to continue its existence in the current war conflict.

Image | Ezel

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