Talk: Reconstruction of a WWII Turing-Welchman Bombe

John Harper

The Turing-Welchman Bombes were used during WWII to find the settings on German Enigma machines, so that German messages could be read by the Allies. It is often said that the intelligence gained at Bletchley Park helped us win the war. John will explain briefly how the Bombes worked, followed by how SMEE members made many parts without which the reconstructed Bombe would not have been completed.

The machine has been demonstrated by a team of operators almost every day since the official 'switch on' by HRH The Duke of Kent on Tues 17 July 2008. Many live challenges have been made where the machine successfully found the Enigma setting of messages enciphered by GCHQ on three occasions and once by German Computer Museum

First day of the Society's basic introduction to model engineering workshop practice

The Challenges of Building Larger Models

David Hatherill

The talk will be a look at the challenges of building larger models, and why they are different from building smaller models, but not necessarily any easier to make.  It will include a review of costs, materials, tools and machinery required, and of course techniques used.

the talk will be split into two parts with the first part as a lecture, and the second part as examples where people are welcome to ask questions as we go along.