German Naval Grid Reference (German:''Gradnetzmeldeverfahren''), was a system for referencing a location on a map. Introduced initially by the German

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

just before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, it was used widely in the German armed forces until 1943. Each armed force had its own version of this reference. The reference used in the ’Gradnetzmeldeverfahren’ can be viewed as a short form of the position in full, without a real translation or encoding. In the

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

version, the entire globe was divided into large square sectors (assuming a

Mercator projection The Mercator projection () is a cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and s ...

), each with its unique two-letter designation (e.g. AE, AF, BA, BB, etc.) with each square called a quadrant 486 nautical miles to a side. E.g CA covered the East Coast of the United States from about Portsmouth, Hampshire south to Cape Fear, North Carolina. Each such sector was further sub-divided into a 3 x 3 matrix, so that there were nine squares. Each of the nine squares were again divided into nine smaller squares. This was known as a Grid, so that there were now 81 total grid squares within a sector. Each grid was given a two-digit designation, so the Grid System would now have two alphabets and two digits. Each of these Grids were again divided in the same manner – first into a 3 x 3 matrix, and then each matrix was divided into nine squares, so that a further 81 squares were formed within the Grid. Each newly formed square was again given a two digit designation. The complete Grid System would now read as two alphabets with four digits. This can be referred to as the patrol zone. Thus the ''Kriegsmarine'' could pinpoint any location on the globe using six characters, a very useful tool when using radio. Its precision was to the level of six nautical miles within a grid. This was how locations were communicated to naval units, particularly

U-boats U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare rol ...

. Thus grid location AN1879 denoted a location east of Northern

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, just below

Scapa Flow Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay a ...

. For example, major grid AJ is located south of Greenland. Each submarine was equipped with an Adressbuch to decipher the locations. As the war advanced, the Germans suspected that the Allies were deciphering their patrol reports. As a precautionary measure they transmitted patrol zones by using coded sectors. Thus instead of transmitting the actual patrol zone, they would use an offset, so that any zone that was transmitted over the waves would be an offset of a secret location. This secret location was changed at random intervals, and U-boat captains would calculate the new patrol zone based on the offset.

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