| Enigma Home Page Break a key with bombe: Old versions of the bombe: War time report: Tools: |
IntroductionThe Turing/Welcham Bombe is a cryptanalysis machine build to break an Enigma key. The bombe is a machine made up of several Enigma linked together by electric cables. The relative position of the rotors of each Enigma and the cables that connect them derive from a Menu. This Menu is created from a cryptogram / crib pair. The crib being the plain text of the cryptogram or part of it. During a bombe job, the machine explores all the possible positions (26x26x26) of the rotors of the first enigma, the rotors of the other enigma also rotate but always keeping the same relative position to the first one. When the bombe stops, it thereby indicates a plausible position which sometimes corresponds to the solution: that is to say: the correct order of the rotors (Walzenlage), one stecker and also the correct relative position of the internal wiring of the rotors of the different Enigma (but the ringstellung is unknown or partly unknown). The rest of the key must be found by another methods. To fully understand the theory on which the bombe is designed, it is necessary to understand: Description and setting of the BombeBombe locationThe first bombes were homed in Hut 1 which was on the BP campus. Then for security reasons (we feared a bombardment), they were scattered outside (in out stations). BP kept some bombes in Hut 11. From the end of 1943, the American navy (Op-20-G) made available to BP its 4-rotor bombes which were located in Washington. Out Stations in England
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