Radio

Prerequisites

Requires:

Internal Combustion
Telegraph

Statistics

Gives:

Submarine
Sonar Buoy
Fascism

Gameplay

Diesel-powered Submarines represent a stealthy new development in naval combat. With them in the water, no ship is safe.

Sonar Buoys make it possible to detect enemy underwater units from very far away. This can give players enough time to meet an invading force with proper defenses.

Made possible partly by the mass media radio, Fascism is a particularly harsh form of Government, in which personal freedom and privacy are continuously under attack. The military runs the Government, and is, understandably, very strong.

Historical

Communication from long distances without physical contact is very old, dating back to fire and smoke signals used by the Greeks and Romans for signaling. These could only convey simple messages and then only if the meaning of the signs sent was agreed upon in advance. In 1887 Heinrich Hertz, building on Maxwell’s electromagnetic theories about light, discovered waves in the air around a discharging Leyden Jar. Working from those findings in turn, Guglielmo Marconi in 1895 developed wireless telegraphy. In 1901 Reginald Fessenen patented a high-frequency alternator, and in 1906 the first radio broadcast was sent out from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Broadcast radio quickly became the first instant mass media in history, capable of reaching virtually the entire population of a country simultaneously. This feature was much appreciated by propagandists, and increasingly a country’s leader was selected by which candidate for leadership could most convincingly use the new medium. In war, the first use of radio communications was by navies, principally because early radio sets and their power sources were much too large and heavy to be easily transported on land! Radio made it possible to direct and control large fleets and flotillas well out of sight of each other, and was particularly important in scouting and for coordinating submarine attacks against convoys. The military use of radio also spawned radio interception, ciphers, and all the paraphernalia of electronic warfare.