title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: The leveling system was described by Ryckert as "stand[ing] out from the open-world pack". Moriarty praised the system for its use of the Face system and the ability to replay missions if unsatisfied. Petit agreed and enjoyed the "pleasant sense of growth" given to Shen by the experience system during the campaign. Pinsof called the system "one of the greatest innovations "Sleeping Dogs" brings to the genre". Jon Blyth of "Official Xbox Magazine" liked the "pleasingly absurd" missions needed to gain Face.


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: Moriarty lauded the game's depiction of Hong Kong as "alive and well-populated" and liked the AI, the setting, and the voice acting, in particular the use of Cantonese and English. "Edge" gave similar praise: "Offering a view of Asia through the filter of its action film industry, this is a depiction of Hong Kong that could have come straight from the reel." Pinsof acclaimed the city's scale and AI.


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: Shen and the other characters were mostly well received. Cooper applauded the conflicted nature of Shen's personality as a result of being in an overwhelming situation, arguing that this detail solidified him as a developed and likable protagonist. Cooper found the Triad members unsatisfactory by comparison, comparing them unfavorably with "Grand Theft Auto" characters. "Edge" called Shen an engaging protagonist and complimented the other characters, whose voice actors brought life to the characters. Blyth described the cast, aside from Shen, as "brilliantly recognizable stereotypes that have been given enough extra edge for you to care about them", and felt the attitude shifts of some characters were distracting and unrealistic. Wilson said that the characters were "fleshed out brilliantly". Pinsof claimed that the game's premise "grants a perfect excuse for Shen to do terrible things while remaining a sympathetic, level-headed lead." Kelly thought Shen's two-faced nature was the main entertainment factor of the missions. Whitehead found the player's ability to switch allegiances as needed to wear away at "the already fragile grasp the narrative has on Shen's conflicted loyalties."


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: Moriarty criticized the game's draw distance and texture loading and Whitehead noted some framerate and environmental glitches. Petit said that, in spite of generally convincing non-player character design, "character models look like plastic dolls when viewed up close, and some gestures characters make are rigid and unnatural." "Edge" stated that character animations in a variety of contexts look "robotic", and Kelly said that "everything in the distance looks like it's been smeared in Vaseline." Pinsof described the graphics as "gorgeous" and conducive to an immersive experience in Hong Kong. Moriarty noted that the game's camera was particularly problematic when driving and less so during combat. Cooper and "Edge" also criticized the camera.


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: In the UK, "Sleeping Dogs" was the best-selling game in the week of its release, and had the fifth-highest first-week sales of any game released in 2012. It retained the top spot during its second week, despite sales dropping by 15%. It returned to the top spot after four weeks on sale. "Sleeping Dogs" sales rose by 8%, despite five weeks in the chart, defeating new release "Tekken Tag Tournament 2". "Sleeping Dogs" was the 20th-best-selling title of 2012 in the UK and the best-selling original game. According to NPD Group, "Sleeping Dogs" was the sixth-best-selling game in the US in August 2012 at 172,000 copies. PC sales for "Sleeping Dogs" were not counted, as it is only available by download in the US.


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: According to Square Enix, "Sleeping Dogs" had sold 1.5 million copies by the end of September 2012. Square Enix president Yoichi Wada defended the game's sales and said that the firm might have had unreasonably high expectations for the game. He saw "Sleeping Dogs" as a strong new intellectual property and said that titles such as "Sleeping Dogs" tend to sell better over long periods of time in the West, unlike in Japan where most lifetime sales are achieved in the first months. On March 26, 2013, Square Enix announced that the game was expected to sell about 1.75 million copies in 2013. On September 10, 2013, the company announced that "Sleeping Dogs", alongside "Tomb Raider" and "", had been successful in their game development, but did not meet sales expectations, and were considered by the publisher "failures".


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: In early 2013, United Front was working on a sequel to "Sleeping Dogs". The game would have picked up after the original game, once again following the exploits of Wei Shen. He would be joined by a "conflicted, corrupt partner" named Henry Fang, as they explored China's Pearl River Delta. The player would have the ability to arrest any NPC in the world, and influence a branching storyline that swapped between both Shen and Fang. The game was said to be United Front's most ambitious game, which would have included a second screen app for mobile devices that would be able to interact with the world of the game; playing as inspector Jane Teng, the player would "manage the police force and try to control territories" from a mobile device, with the choices made in the game affecting gameplay in "Sleeping Dogs 2". The mobile game could be played on its own, with the hope being the free-to-play game would point players towards the console game. Plans for the sequel were eventually scrapped in late 2013 before the project went into production.


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: "Triad Wars" is a canceled spin-off to "Sleeping Dogs", which was scheduled to be released in 2015. The game was initially planned to be released as a PC online game with more massively multiplayer online (MMO) elements, with the central goal being to "rise to power as a criminal kingpin of the Triad underworld". It featured the same map as the original "Sleeping Dogs".


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: In October 2013, United Front Games confirmed that a game, titled "Triad Wars", set within "Sleeping Dogs" universe was in production. The developer confirmed that it would be published by Square Enix, and would be shown to the public in 2014. "Triad Wars" was described by the developers as "something we've wanted to do for ages but just never had the chance. But now we do." United Front Games teased that "Triad Wars" would be a PC online game on September 19, 2014. An announcement trailer premiered on September 22, 2014. In early 2015, the game entered its beta-testing stage. It was announced in December 2015 that the game would be shutting down. Developer United Front Games announced the closure on Twitter and the "Triad Wars" forums. The developers published a statement saying "We've loved seeing how you've played "Triad Wars" but we know it wasn't right for many of you."


title: Sleeping Dogs (video game)

text: In March 2017, a live action film adaptation of the game was announced. It is being produced by Neal Moritz, with Donnie Yen starring as Wei Shen. A release date for the film has yet to be announced. In February 2018 Yen stated on various social media accounts that the film was in production.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Bush are an English rock band formed in London, England in 1992. Their current lineup consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Gavin Rossdale, lead guitarist Chris Traynor, bassist Corey Britz, and drummer Nik Hughes.


title: Bush (British band)

text: In 1994, Bush found immediate success outside the UK with the release of their debut album, "Sixteen Stone", which is certified six times multi-platinum by the RIAA. They went on to become one of the most commercially successful rock bands of the 1990s, selling over ten million records in the United States and 20 million records worldwide.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Despite their success in the US (especially in the mid-1990s), the band were considerably less popular in their home country and they have enjoyed only marginal success there.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Bush have had numerous top ten singles on the "Billboard" rock charts and one No. 1 album with "Razorblade Suitcase" in 1996. The band broke up in 2002 but reformed in 2010, and have released five albums since then: "The Sea of Memories" (2011), "Man on the Run" (2014), "Black and White Rainbows" (2017), "The Kingdom" (2020), and "The Art of Survival" (2022).


title: Bush (British band)

text: After leaving his band Midnight, Gavin Rossdale met former King Blank guitarist Nigel Pulsford at a Wembley performance by Baby Animals supporting Bryan Adams in November 1991. The two musicians became friends over a shared appreciation for several artists, including Big Black, The Fall, Pixies, and The Velvet Underground. They formed a new band which they called Future Primitive. Describing the early sound of the group, one British record label executive said years later, "They weren't what they are today – they were a little like the more commercial side of INXS". To complete the lineup, the pair recruited bassist Dave Parsons, and drummer Robin Goodridge joined in mid-1993 shortly before Bush were signed. While still known as Future Primitive, the band released the song "Bomb", later to be featured on the band's debut, as a single through Rossdale's own Mad Dog Winston Records. Rossdale's goal was for Bush to sign with 4AD because of his love for their bands Cocteau Twins, Pixies and Throwing Muses.


title: Bush (British band)

text: In 1993, the band was signed by Rob Kahane, who had a distribution deal with Disney's Hollywood Records. The band completed recording its debut album "Sixteen Stone" in early 1994. However, the death of Disney executive Frank G. Wells eliminated a supporter for Kahane, and executives at Hollywood deemed Bush's album unacceptable for release. Consequently, the bandmates took jobs performing menial labour. Interscope Records ultimately decided to release the album, and at the end of 1994, Kahane sent an advance copy of the album to a friend at influential Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM, which added the song "Everything Zen" to its rotation.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On the "Billboard" charts (North America), "Sixteen Stone" peaked at No. 4 on the Heatseekers and "Billboard" 200 charts. The album spawned two Top 40 singles. After about six months of promotion for "Sixteen Stone", the album began to sell well, once "Comedown" and "Glycerine" struck America. Additionally, "Little Things" and "Machinehead" both charted well in North America.


title: Bush (British band)

text: In Canada, the band were initially forced to release "Sixteen Stone" under the name Bush, as the 1970s Canadian band Bush still held the rights to the name "Bush" in the Canadian market. The dispute arose after the British band's lawyers threatened to intervene to prevent the Canadian band from reissuing its 1970 album, although it was entirely between the bands' lawyers as Rossdale and Domenic Troiano, the leader of the Canadian band, both expressed a willingness to negotiate a solution. In 1997, after the band's second album "Razorblade Suitcase" also bore the X, Rossdale and Troiano directly negotiated an agreement under which the British band were allowed to drop the X in exchange for donating $20,000 each to the Starlight Foundation and the Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund. Both "Sixteen Stone" and "Razorblade Suitcase" were then reissued without the X.


title: Bush (British band)

text: In late 1996 Bush released the first single "Swallowed" from their second album titled "Razorblade Suitcase." The song spent seven weeks on top of the Modern Rock Tracks chart. This was followed by single "Greedy Fly". The album hit number 1 in America and placed high in many European countries. "Razorblade Suitcase" featured American recording engineer Steve Albini, a move which was viewed negatively by critics. Albini had worked with Nirvana on their final studio album, "In Utero", three years before. Bush later released the remix album "Deconstructed". The album saw Bush re-arranging their songs into dance and techno stylings. The album went platinum less than a year after release.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Following the completion of touring, Rossdale went into seclusion in Ireland, where he worked on material for the group's next album, periodically sending demo tapes of his works in progress to his bandmates. The group finally convened to record in London in August 1998, where the band reteamed with "Sixteen Stone" producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley.


title: Bush (British band)

text: The release of "The Science of Things" was stymied by a court battle between the band and Trauma Records. The case was settled in early 1999 and the album was finally released that October. "The Science of Things" was a major departure in several forms from Bush's first two albums. Like the multi-platinum successes of Bush's first two albums, this album also reached platinum status. Also, while the band's previous albums were strongly influenced by grunge, "The Science of Things" featured some electronic music influences in addition to the sound defined by Bush's earlier work. For example, although lead single "The Chemicals Between Us" had a prominent guitar riff, it also had many electronic elements usually found in dance music. Although the album had a few hit songs, it failed to chart in the top 10.


title: Bush (British band)

text: The band's performance at Woodstock '99, however, helped "The Science of Things" achieve platinum status despite its slow start. Three singles were released from "The Science of Things", most notably "The Chemicals Between Us", which spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Modern Rock Tracks and peaked at No. 67 on the US Hot 100. "Warm Machine" was the second single released. "Letting the Cables Sleep", the third single, reached No. 4 on the Modern Rock Tracks and also received considerable airplay, and appeared in an episode of the medical drama series "ER".


title: Bush (British band)

text: In October 2001, now on the Atlantic Records record label, Bush released its next album, "Golden State". While the album attempted to return to the simple, catchy sound of the band's debut, it failed to achieve the same commercial success as the band's previous releases. Several singles were released, most notably the hit "The People That We Love (Speed Kills)", but none were mainstream successes. The album was the band's least successful, selling only 380,000 copies in the US. "The People That We Love (Speed Kills)" was used in the game "". In January 2002, Pulsford retired after the release of "Golden State" to spend more time with his family. Chris Traynor filled in for him for the subsequent tour, which would turn out to be Bush's last for eight years. Due to declining record sales and a lack of support from Atlantic Records, Bush disbanded in 2002. In 2005, a greatest hits album called "The Best of '94–'99" and a live album called "Zen X Four" were released.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Gavin Rossdale formed a new band, Institute, in 2004, serving as their lead vocalist and guitarist, just as in Bush. Chris Traynor also joined the band, as lead guitarist. In addition to playing in Institute, Traynor also joined the reunited metal band Helmet in 2004 on bass; he quit the band in 2006. Institute released one album, "Distort Yourself", but failed to achieve much commercial success in spite of opening for U2's Vertigo Tour at some shows. Institute broke up in 2006 and Rossdale then embarked on a solo career. In 2007, he covered the John Lennon song "Mind Games" for the Lennon tribute album "". His first solo album, "Wanderlust", supported by leading single "Love Remains the Same", was released in June 2008. Rossdale also ventured into acting, appearing in the films "Zoolander", "Little Black Book", "The Game of Their Lives", "Constantine", "How to Rob a Bank" and others.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Robin Goodridge recorded with the British rock band Elyss in 2004, although they have not released any new material since. In 2006, Goodridge began drumming for indie rock band Spear of Destiny, and appeared on their 2007 album, "Imperial Prototype". During the summer of 2008, he toured the UK with British rock band Stone Gods after their current drummer Ed Graham reportedly fell ill. On 29 July it was announced that Graham had left the band and on 6 October 2008, the band's website announced that Goodridge had joined the band. Nigel Pulsford has spent most of his time since leaving Bush raising his children with his wife. In an interview with Blender, Gavin Rossdale admitted that the likelihood of a Bush reunion was "very high". He then added "quite high". In a November 2008 interview, Rossdale revealed that he had tried to contact the other members of Bush, "I reached out to them".


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 22 June 2010, it was announced that Bush would play their first show in eight years at the second-annual Epicenter Music Festival in Fontana, California on 25 September 2010. A new album, then-titled "Everything Always Now", was also announced as well as a new single "Afterlife". Founding members Nigel Pulsford and Dave Parsons both decided not to rejoin the band.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Pulsford's and Parsons' successors were Chris Traynor and Corey Britz respectively. Traynor had also stood in for Pulsford during the Golden State tour. The new line-up played seven shows in 2010, performing songs from Bush's previous four albums as well as a new song, "Afterlife".


title: Bush (British band)

text: Gavin announced on radio that their new album had been named "The Sea of Memories" and was released in September and managed to peak at No. 18 on the "Billboard Top 200". The first single of the album, "The Sound of Winter" was released in July 2011 and reached number one on the "Billboard" Alternative Songs chart. On 19 November 2011, Bush performed a live set for "Guitar Center Sessions" on DirecTV. The episode included an interview with program host, Nic Harcourt. Their song "Into The Blue" was featured on The Avengers soundtrack album released on 1 May 2012. They toured with Nickelback on their Here and Now Tour.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 26 March 2014, it was reported that Bush had begun recording their sixth studio album with producer Nick Raskulinecz. Gavin Rossdale announced on 18 August 2014 that the new album, "Man on the Run", was available for pre-order in both digital and deluxe edition CD form. A day later, the band revealed that the lead single from the album would be "The Only Way Out". In November 2014 the band announced tour dates for the early months of 2015 beginning on 30 January. In June 2016, Bush released a music video for the new song "People At War".


title: Bush (British band)

text: In January 2017, it was reported that Bush had mastered and completed work on their seventh studio album. On 6 February 2017, the band announced the title, release date of 10 March 2017, and track listing for their seventh studio album, "Black and White Rainbows". The lead single from the album, "Mad Love", was released the same day.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 2 April 2018 a tour of the United States of America, called "Revolution 3 Tour," was announced for the summer. They performed as co-headliners with Stone Temple Pilots and The Cult.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Rossdale also revealed that he was working on some material called "heavier" than the recent productions in anticipation of a forthcoming band album.


title: Bush (British band)

text: In May 2019, Bush set "The Mind Plays Tricks on You" as the title of their new studio album, tentatively due in early 2020.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Drummer Robin Goodridge departed from the band in 2019. With Goodridge's departure, Rossdale became the only original member of Bush remaining in the band.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 10 May 2019, it was announced that a song, "Bullet Holes", would feature in the film "". The song and music video were released on 17 May 2019. Rossdale claimed in late May that the new album, featuring songwriting from Tyler Bates, was influenced by Bush's presence on music festivals dominated by primarily metal bands, and that he had been specifically listening to System of a Down during the writing process for the new album.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 3 March 2020 the band released a new single, "Flowers on a Grave" and announced their new album was re-titled "The Kingdom". The album was released on 17 July 2020.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 7 March 2022, Bush announced a United States tour with Alice in Chains and Breaking Benjamin, to run from August to October.


title: Bush (British band)

text: On 27 July 2022, Bush announced that their ninth studio album, "The Art of Survival", would be released on 7 October, and released the lead single, "More Than Machines." The second single, "Heavy Is the Ocean," was released on 16 September.


title: Bush (British band)

text: Bush have been described as post-grunge, grunge, alternative rock, and hard rock. One of the first bands to be described as post-grunge, Bush were labeled almost pejoratively as such. Matt Diehl of "Rolling Stone" described Bush as "the most successful and shameless mimics of Nirvana's music". In the book "Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota", Chuck Klosterman wrote, "Bush was a good band who just happened to signal the beginning of the end; ultimately, they would become the grunge Warrant". In the book "Accidental Revolution: The Story of Grunge", Kyle Anderson wrote about Bush's album "Sixteen Stone", writing:


title: Bush (British band)

text: Bush have noted Nirvana's music as a key influence in their work, but remained insistent that their style is original. Talking to "The Morning Call" in February 1996, lead guitarist Nigel Pulsford remarked "Nirvana was a big influence. They acted as a catalyst, put the guitar band back in vogue and inspired us to perform". Of the similarities in the music of the two acts, Gavin Rossdale told "Rolling Stone" that he "hoped" there was an element of Nirvana in Bush but also that felt he "had [his] own thing". In 2011, Rossdale proclaimed Pixies as "the most influential band" to him. In addition, members of Bush have cited artists including The Beatles, Big Black, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, PJ Harvey, Hole, Hüsker Dü, Jane's Addiction, My Bloody Valentine, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, The Replacements, Sex Pistols, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Soul Asylum, Soundgarden, and Neil Young as influential or inspirational.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which account for more than 80% of its revenue. TI also produces TI digital light processing technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers, and multi-core processors. The company holds 45,000 patents worldwide as of 2016.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Texas Instruments emerged in 1951 after a reorganization of Geophysical Service Incorporated, a company founded in 1930 that manufactured equipment for use in the seismic industry, as well as defense electronics. TI produced the world's first commercial silicon transistor in 1954, and the same year designed and manufactured the first transistor radio. Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TI's Central Research Labs. TI also invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, and introduced the first single-chip microcontroller in 1970, which combined all the elements of computing onto one piece of silicon.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1987, TI invented the digital light processing device (also known as the DLP chip), which serves as the foundation for the company's DLP technology and DLP Cinema. TI released the popular TI-81 calculator in 1990, which made it a leader in the graphing calculator industry. Its defense business was sold to Raytheon Company in 1997; this allowed TI to strengthen its focus on digital solutions. After the acquisition of National Semiconductor in 2011, the company had a combined portfolio of 45,000 analog products and customer design tools. In the stock market, Texas Instruments is often regarded as an indicator for the semiconductor and electronics industry as a whole, since the company sells to more than 100,000 customers.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Patrick E. Haggerty in 1951. McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941. In November 1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division, which focused on electronic equipment. By 1951, the L&M division, with its defense contracts, was growing faster than GSI's geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc. Because a firm named General Instrument already existed, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year. From 1956 to 1961, Fred Agnich of Dallas, later a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, was the Texas Instruments president. Geophysical Service, Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments. Early in 1988, most of GSI was sold to the Halliburton Company.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1930, J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, an early provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939, the company reorganized as Coronado Corp, an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc (GSI), now as a subsidiary. On December 6, 1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H. B. Peacock purchased GSI. During World War II, GSI expanded its services to include electronics for the U.S. Army, Army Signal Corps, and U.S. Navy. In 1951, the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, spun off to build seismographs for oil explorations and with GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company.


title: Texas Instruments

text: An early success story for TI-GSI came in 1965 when GSI was able (under a Top Secret government contract) to monitor the Soviet Union's underground nuclear weapons testing under the ocean in Vela Uniform, a subset of Project Vela, to verify compliance of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, and GSI continued to provide seismic services. After selling (and repurchasing) GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, after which sale GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In early 1952, Texas Instruments purchased a patent license to produce germanium transistors from Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of AT&T, for $25,000, beginning production by the end of the year. Haggerty brought Gordon Teal to the company due to his expertise in growing semiconductor crystals while at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Teal's first assignment was to direct TI's research laboratory. At the end of 1952, Texas Instruments announced that it had expanded to 2,000 employees and $17 million in sales.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Among his new hires was Willis Adcock, who joined TI early in 1953. Adcock, who like Teal was a physical chemist, began leading a small research group focused on the task of fabricating grown-junction, silicon, single-crystal, small-signal transistors. Adcock later became the first TI Principal Fellow.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In January 1954, Morris Tanenbaum at Bell Telephone Laboratories created the first workable silicon transistor. This work was reported in the spring of 1954, at the IRE off-the-record conference on solid-state devices, and was later published in the "Journal of Applied Physics". Working independently in April 1954, Gordon Teal at TI created the first commercial silicon transistor and tested it on April 14, 1954. On May 10, 1954, at the Institute of Radio Engineers National Conference on Airborne Electronics in Dayton, Ohio, Teal presented a paper: "Some Recent Developments in Silicon and Germanium Materials and Devices".


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1954, Texas Instruments designed and manufactured the first transistor radio. The Regency TR-1 used germanium transistors, as silicon transistors were much more expensive at the time. This was an effort by Haggerty to increase market demand for transistors.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Jack Kilby, an employee at TI, invented the integrated circuit in 1958. Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated circuit in July 1958, and successfully demonstrated the world's first working integrated circuit on September 12, 1958. Six months later, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor (who went on to co-found Intel) independently developed the integrated circuit with integrated interconnect, and is also considered an inventor of the integrated circuit. In 1969, Kilby was awarded the National Medal of Science, and in 1982 he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame. Kilby also won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part of the invention of the integrated circuit. Noyce's chip, made at Fairchild, was made of silicon, while Kilby's chip was made of germanium. In 2008, TI named its new development laboratory "Kilby Labs" after Jack Kilby.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 2011, Intel, Samsung, LG, ST-Ericsson, Huawei's HiSilicon Technologies subsidiary, Via Telecom, and three other undisclosed chipmakers licensed the C2C link specification developed by Arteris Inc. and Texas Instruments.


title: Texas Instruments

text: The 7400 series of transistor-transistor logic chips, developed by Texas Instruments in the 1960s, popularized the use of integrated circuits in computer logic. The military-grade version of this was the 5400 series.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Texas Instruments invented the hand-held calculator (a prototype called "Cal Tech") in 1967 and the single-chip microcomputer in 1971, was assigned the first patent on a single-chip microprocessor (invented by Gary Boone) on September 4, 1973. This was disputed by Gilbert Hyatt, formerly of the Micro Computer Company, in August 1990, when he was awarded a patent superseding TI's. This was overturned on June 19, 1996, in favor of TI (note: Intel is usually given credit with Texas Instruments for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor).


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single-chip linear predictive coding speech synthesizer. In 1976, TI began a feasibility study of memory-intensive applications for bubble memory then being developed. They soon focused on speech applications. This resulted in the development the TMC0280 one-chip linear predictive coding speech synthesizer, which was the first time a single silicon chip had electronically replicated the human voice. This was used in several TI commercial products beginning with Speak & Spell, which was introduced at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1978. In 2001, TI left the speech synthesis business, selling it to Sensory Inc. of Santa Clara, California.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In May 1954, Texas Instruments designed and built a prototype of the world's first transistor radio, and, through a partnership with Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis, Indiana, the 100% solid-state radio was sold to the public beginning in October of that year.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In the 1960s, company president Pat Haggerty had a team that included Jack Kilby to work on a handheld calculator project. Kilby and two other colleagues created the Cal-Tech, a three-pound battery-powered calculator that could do basic math and fit six-digit numbers on its display. This 4.25 x 6.15 x 1.75 inch calculator's processor would originate the vast majority of Texas Instruments’ revenue.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1973, the handheld calculator SR-10 (named after slide rule) and in 1974, the handheld scientific calculator SR-50 were issued by TI. Both had red LED-segments numeric displays. The optical design of the SR-50 is somewhat similar to the HP-35 edited by Hewlett-Packard before in early 1972, but buttons for the operations "+", "–", ... are in the right of the number block and the decimal point lies between two neighboring digits.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI continued to be active in the consumer electronics market through the 1970s and 1980s. Early on, this also included two digital clock models - one for desk and the other a bedside alarm. From this sprang what became the Time Products Division, which made LED watches. Though these LED watches enjoyed early commercial success due to excellent quality, it was short-lived due to poor battery life. LEDs were replaced with LCD watches for a short time, but these could not compete because of styling issues, excessive makes and models, and price points. The watches were manufactured in Dallas and then Lubbock, Texas. Several spin-offs of the Speak & Spell, such as the Speak & Read and Speak & Math, were introduced soon thereafter.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1979, TI entered the home computer market with the TI-99/4, a competitor to such entries as the Apple II, TRS-80, and the later Atari 400/800 series and VIC-20. It discontinued the TI-99/4A (1981), the sequel to the 99/4, in late 1983 amid an intense price war waged primarily against Commodore. At the 1983 Winter CES, TI showed models 99/2 and the Compact Computer 40 (CC-40), the latter aimed at professional users. The TI Professional (1983) ultimately joined the ranks of the many unsuccessful DOS and x86-based—but non-compatible—competitors to the IBM PC (the founders of Compaq, an early leader in PC compatibles, all came from TI). The company for years successfully made and sold PC-compatible laptops before withdrawing from the market and selling its product line to Acer in 1998.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI entered the defense electronics market in 1942 with submarine detection equipment, based on the seismic exploration technology previously developed for the oil industry. The division responsible for these products was known at different times as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group, and the Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG).


title: Texas Instruments

text: During the early 1980s, TI instituted a quality program which included Juran training, as well as promoting statistical process control, Taguchi methods, and Design for Six Sigma. In the late '80s, the company, along with Eastman Kodak and Allied Signal, began involvement with Motorola, institutionalizing Motorola's Six Sigma methodology. Motorola, which originally developed the Six Sigma methodology, began this work in 1982. In 1992, the DSEG division of Texas Instruments' quality-improvement efforts were rewarded by winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for manufacturing.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI developed the AAA-4 infrared search and track device in the late '50s and early '60s for the F-4B Phantom for passive scanning of jet-engine emissions, but it possessed limited capabilities and was eliminated on F-4Ds and later models.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1956, TI began research on infrared technology that led to several line scanner contracts and with the addition of a second scan mirror the invention of the first forward looking infrared (FLIR) in 1963 with production beginning in 1966. In 1972, TI invented the common module FLIR concept, greatly reducing cost and allowing reuse of common components.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI went on to produce side-looking radar systems, the first terrain-following radar and surveillance radar systems for both the military and FAA. TI demonstrated the first solid-state radar called Molecular Electronics for Radar Applications. In 1976, TI developed a microwave landing system prototype. In 1984, TI developed the first inverse synthetic aperture radar. The first single-chip gallium arsenide radar module was developed. In 1991, the military microwave integrated circuit program was initiated a joint effort with Raytheon.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1961, TI won the guidance and control system contract for the defense suppression AGM-45 Shrike antiradiation missile. This led later to the prime on the high-speed antiradiation missile (AGM-88 HARM) development contract in 1974 and production in 1981.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1964, TI began development of the first laser guidance system for precision-guided munitions, leading to the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). The first LGB was the BOLT-117.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1969, TI won the Harpoon (missile) Seeker contract. In 1986, TI won the Army FGM-148 Javelin fire-and-forget man portable antitank guided missile in a joint venture with Martin Marietta. In 1991, TI was awarded the contract for the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1988, TI paid the U.S. government $5.2 million "to settle allegations one of its divisions overcharged the government on contracts for guided missiles sold to the Navy".


title: Texas Instruments

text: Because of TI's research and development of military temperature-range silicon transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), TI won contracts for the first IC-based computer for the U.S. Air Force in 1961 (molecular electronic computer) and for ICs for the Minuteman Missile the following year. In 1968, TI developed the data systems for Mariner Program. In 1991 TI won the F-22 Radar and Computer development contract.


title: Texas Instruments

text: As the defense industry consolidated, TI sold its defense business to the Raytheon Company in 1997 for $2.95 billion. The Department of Justice required that Raytheon divest the TI Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) operations after closing the transaction. The TI MMIC business accounted for less than $40 million in 1996 revenues, or roughly 2% of the $1.8 billion in total TI defense revenues, and was sold to TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. Raytheon retained its own existing MMIC capabilities and has the right to license TI's MMIC technology for use in future product applications from TriQuint.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Shortly after Raytheon acquired TI DSEG, Raytheon then acquired Hughes Aircraft from General Motors. Raytheon then owned TI's mercury cadmium telluride detector business and infrared (IR) systems group. In California, it also had Hughes infrared detector and an IR systems business. When again the US government forced Raytheon to divest itself of a duplicate capability, the company kept the TI IR systems business and the Hughes detector business. As a result of these acquisitions, these former arch rivals of TI systems and Hughes detectors work together.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Immediately after acquisition, DSEG was known as Raytheon TI Systems (RTIS). It is now fully integrated into Raytheon and this designation no longer exists.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI was active in the area of artificial intelligence in the 1980s. In addition to ongoing developments in speech and signal processing and recognition, it developed and sold the Explorer computer family of Lisp machines. For the Explorer, a special 32-bit Lisp microprocessor was developed, which was used in the Explorer II and the TI MicroExplorer (a Lisp Machine on a NuBus board for the Apple Macintosh). AI application software developed by TI for the Explorer included the gate assignment system for United Airlines, described as "an artificial intelligence program that captures the combined experience and knowledge of a half-dozen United operations experts." In software for the PC, they introduced "Personal Consultant", a rule-based expert system development tool and runtime engine, followed by "Personal Consultant Plus" written in the Lisp-like language from MIT known as Scheme, and the natural language menu system NLMenu.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI was a major original-equipment manufacturer of sensor, control, protection, and RFID products for the automotive, appliance, aircraft, and other industries. The Sensors & Controls division was headquartered in Attleboro, Massachusetts.


title: Texas Instruments

text: By the mid-1980s, industrial computers known as PLC's (programmable logic controllers) were separated from Sensors & Controls as the Industrial Systems Division, which was sold in the late 1980s to Siemens.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 2006, Bain Capital LLC, a private equity firm, purchased the Sensors & Controls division for $3.0 billion in cash. The RFID portion of the division remained part of TI, transferring to the Application Specific Products business unit of the Semiconductor division, with the newly formed independent company based in Attleboro taking the name Sensata Technologies.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 1997, TI sold its software division, along with its main products such as the CA Gen, to Sterling Software, which is now part of Computer Associates. However, TI still owns small pieces of software, such as the software for calculators such as the TI Interactive!. TI also creates a significant amount of target software for its digital signal processors, along with host-based tools for creating DSP applications.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 2000, Texas Instruments first implemented an e-commerce platform on TI.com as a way to sell its Code Composer Studio™ software tool directly to customers. With TI.com, purchase managers and design engineers have access to TI products that are immediately available for shipping. The platform has grown to include tens of thousands of TI analog and embedded processing products. In 2020, TI added several features, including full and custom quantity reels, multiple payment options, lines of credit, and flat-rate shipping.


title: Texas Instruments

text: On August 6, 1999, TI announced the restatement of its results for parts of 1998 and the first quarter of 1999 after a review by the Securities and Exchange Commission over the timing of charges for a plant closing and writedown.


title: Texas Instruments

text: For the fiscal year 2017, Texas Instruments reported earnings of US$3.682 billion, with an annual revenue of US$14.961 billion, an increase of 11.9% over the previous fiscal cycle. TI shares traded at over $82 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$88.0 billion in October 2018. As of 2018, TI ranked 192nd on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Today, TI is made up of four divisions: analog products, embedded processors, digital light processing, and educational technology.


title: Texas Instruments

text: As of January 2021, the industrial market accounts for 41 percent of the company's annual revenue while the automotive market accounts for 21 percent.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI's remaining businesses consisting of DLP products (primarily used in projectors to create high-definition images), calculators and certain custom semiconductors known as application-specific integrated circuits.


title: Texas Instruments

text: DLP is a trademark under which Texas Instruments sells technology regarding TVs, video projectors, and digital cinema. On February 2, 2000, Philippe Binant, technical manager of Digital Cinema Project at Gaumont in France, realized the first digital cinema projection in Europe with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by TI. DLP technology enables a diverse range of display and advanced light control applications spanning industrial, enterprise, automotive, and consumer market segments.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI has produced educational toys for children, including the Little Professor in 1976 and Dataman in 1977.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI produces a range of calculators, with the TI-30 being one of the most popular early calculators. TI has also developed a line of graphing calculators, the first being the TI-81, and most popular being the TI-83 Plus (with the TI-84 Plus being an updated equivalent).


title: Texas Instruments

text: Many TI calculators are still sold without graphing capabilities. The TI-30 has been replaced by the TI-30X IIS. Also, some financial calculators are for sale on the TI website.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In 2007, TI released the TI-Nspire family of calculators and computer software that has similar capabilities to the calculators.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Less than 3% of Texas Instruments’ overall revenue comes from calculators, part of the $1.43 billion revenue in the "Other" section in the company's 2018 annual report. Nevertheless, the calculators are a lucrative product. For example, estimates have a $15 to $20 cost to produce TI-84 Plus which likely has a profit margin of at least 50%.


title: Texas Instruments

text: Throughout the 1980s, Texas Instruments worked closely with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) to develop a calculator to become the educational standard. In 1986, Connecticut School Board became the first to require a graphing calculator on state-mandated exams. Chicago Public Schools gave a free calculator to every student, beginning in the fourth grade, in 1988. New York required the calculator in 1992 for its Regents exams after first allowing it the previous year. The College Board required calculators on the Advanced Placement tests in 1993 and allowed calculators on the SAT a year later. Texas Instruments provides free services to the College Board, which administers AP tests and the SAT, and also has a group called Teachers Teaching for Technology (T3), which educates teachers on how to use its calculators.


title: Texas Instruments

text: In the 1990s, with the advent of TI's graphing calculator series, programming became popular among some students. The TI-8x series of calculators (beginning with the TI-81) came with a built-in BASIC interpreter, through which simple programs could be created. The TI-83 was the first in the series to receive native assembly. Around the same time that these programs were first being written, programmers began creating websites to host their work, along with tutorials and other calculator-relevant information. This led to the formation of TI calculator webrings and eventually a few large communities, including ticalc.org.


title: Texas Instruments

text: The TI community reached the height of its popularity in the early 2000s, with many new websites and programming groups being started. In fact, the aforementioned community sites were exploding with activity, with close to 100 programs being uploaded daily by users of the sites. Also, a competition existed between both sites to be the top site in the community, which helped increase interest and activity in the community.


title: Texas Instruments

text: One of the common unifying forces that has united the community over the years has been the rather contentious relationship with TI regarding control over its graphing calculators. TI graphing calculators generally fall into two distinct groups—the older ones powered by the Zilog Z80 and the newer ones running on the Motorola 68000 series. Both lines of calculators are locked by TI with checks in the hardware and through the signing of software to disable use of custom operating systems. However, users discovered the keys and published them in 2009. TI responded by sending invalid DMCA takedown notices, causing the Texas Instruments signing key controversy.


title: Texas Instruments

text: TI has the largest market share in the analog semiconductor industry, accounting for over $10 billion of the total US$57 billion market in 2020.


title: Texas Instruments

text: On April 4, 2011, Texas Instruments announced that it had agreed to buy National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion in cash. TI paid $25 per share of National Semiconductor stock, which was an 80% premium over the share price of $14.07 as of April 4, 2011 close. The deal made TI the world's largest maker of analog technology components.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif (Motif E501 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature) that occurs in the folklore of various northern European cultures. Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by a ghostly or supernatural group of hunters engaged in pursuit. The leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Odin in Germanic legends, but may variously be a historical or legendary figure like Theodoric the Great, the Danish king , the Welsh psychopomp , biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel, or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul or spirit either male or female. The hunters are generally the souls of the dead or ghostly dogs, sometimes fairies, valkyries, or elves.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Seeing the Wild Hunt was thought to forebode some catastrophe such as war or plague, or at best the death of the one who witnessed it. People encountering the Hunt might also be abducted to the underworld or the fairy kingdom. In some instances, it was also believed that people's spirits could be pulled away during their sleep to join the cavalcade.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The concept was developed by Jacob Grimm in his (1835) on the basis of comparative mythology. Grimm believed that a group of stories represented a folkloristic survival of Germanic pagan tradition, but comparable folk myths are found throughout Northern, Western and Central Europe. Grimm popularised the term ('Wild Hunt') for the phenomenon.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Based on the comparative study of the German folklore, the phenomenon is often referred to as (German: 'Wild Hunt/chase') or ('Raging Host/army'). The term 'Hunt' was more common in northern Germany and 'Host' was more used in the south; with however no clear dividing line since parts of southern Germany know the 'Hunt', and parts of the north know the 'Host'. It was also known in Germany as the ('Wild Army'), its leader was given various identities, including Wodan (or "Woden"), Knecht Ruprecht (compare Krampus), Berchtold (or Berchta), and Holda (or "Holle"). The Wild Hunt is also known from post-medieval folklore.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In England, it was known as (Old English: 'Herla's assembly'), "Woden's Hunt", "Herod's Hunt", "Cain's Hunt", the "Devil's Dandy Dogs" (in Cornwall), "Gabriel's Hounds" (in northern England), and "" (in North America).


title: Wild Hunt

text: The names (Norwegian: 'noisy riders', 'The Ride of Asgard'), and or (Swedish: 'the hunt of Odin' or 'wild hunt') are also attested.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In the Welsh folklore, was depicted as a wild huntsman riding a demon horse who hunts souls at night along with a pack of white-bodied and red-eared 'dogs of hell'. In Arthurian legends, he is the king of the Underworld who makes sure that the imprisoned devils do not destroy human souls. A comparable Welsh folk myth is known as (Welsh: 'hounds of Annwn').


title: Wild Hunt

text: In France, the 'Host' was known in Latin sources as , and in Old French as (the 'household or retinue of Hellequin'). The Old French name was probably borrowed from Middle English (Old English ) by the Romance-speaking Norman invaders of Britain. Other similar figures appear in the French folklore, such as , a hunter who chased with dogs in the forest of Fontainebleau, and a Poitou tradition where a hunter who has faulted by hunting on Sunday is condemned to redeem himself by hunting during the night, along with its French Canadian version the .


title: Wild Hunt

text: In West Slavic Central Europe it is known as or (Czech: 'wild hunt', 'baiting'), "dzëwô/dzëkô jachta" (Kashubian: 'wild hunt'), "Dziki Gon" or (Polish), Дзiкае Паляванне (Belarusian: 'wild hunt') and (Slovene: 'the wild hunting party' or 'wild hunt'). Other variations of the same folk myth are ('Dead hunt'), ('infernal hunt'), or ('wild hunt') in Italy; (from , Galician: 'the old army'), , and ('troop, company') in Galicia; in Asturias; ('troop of ghosts') in León; and ('war company') or ('deadly retinue') in Extremadura.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In the Netherlands and Flanders (in northern Belgium), the Wild Hunt is known as the Buckriders (Dutch: Bokkenrijders) and was used by gangs of highwaymen for their advantage in the 1700s.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The concept of the Wild Hunt was first documented by the German folklorist Jacob Grimm, who first published it in his 1835 book "Deutsche Mythologie". It was in this work that he popularized the term "Wilde Jagd" ("Wild Hunt") for the phenomenon. Grimm's methodological approach was rooted in the idea – common in nineteenth-century Europe – that modern folklore represented a fossilized survival of the beliefs of the distant past. In developing his idea of the Wild Hunt, he mixed together recent folkloric sources with textual evidence dating to the Medieval and Early Modern periods. This approach came to be criticized within the field of folkloristics during the 20th century, as more emphasis was placed on the "dynamic and evolving nature of folklore".


title: Wild Hunt

text: Grimm interpreted the Wild Hunt phenomenon as having pre-Christian origins, arguing that the male figure who appeared in it was a survival of folk beliefs about the god Wodan, who had "lost his sociable character, his near familiar features, and assumed the aspect of a dark and dreadful power... a specter and a devil." Grimm believed that this male figure was sometimes replaced by a female counterpart, whom he referred to as Holda and Berchta. In his words, "not only Wuotan and other gods, but heathen goddesses too, may head the furious host: the wild hunter passes into the wood-wife, Wôden into "frau Gaude"." He added his opinion that this female figure was Woden's wife.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Discussing martial elements of the Wild Hunt, Grimm commented that "it marches as an army, it portends the outbreak of war." He added that a number of figures that had been recorded as leading the hunt, such as ""Wuotan, Huckelbernd, Berholt," bestriding their "white war-horse", armed and spurred, appear still as "supreme directors of the war" for which they, so to speak, give license to mankind."


title: Wild Hunt

text: Grimm believed that in pre-Christian Europe, the hunt, led by a god and a goddess, either visited "the land at some holy tide, bringing welfare and blessing, accepting gifts and offerings of the people" or they alternately float "unseen through the air, perceptible in cloudy shapes, in the roar and howl of the winds, carrying on "war", "hunting" or the game of "ninepins", the chief employments of ancient heroes: an array which, less tied down to a definite time, explains more the natural phenomenon." He believed that under the influence of Christianisation, the story was converted from being that of a "solemn march of gods" to being "a pack of horrid spectres, dashed with dark and devilish ingredients". A little earlier, in 1823, Felicia Hemans records this legend in her poem "The Wild Huntsman", linking it here specifically to the castles of Rodenstein and Schnellerts, and to the Odenwald.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In the influential book "Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen" (1934), Otto Höfler argued that the German motifs of the 'Wild Hunt' should be interpreted as the spectral troops led by the god Wuotan, which had a ritualistic counterpart in the living bands of ecstatic warriors (Old Norse "berserkir"), allegedly in a cultic union with the dead warriors of the past.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Hans Peter Duerr (1985) noted that for modern readers, it "is generally difficult to decide, on the basis of the sources, whether what is involved in the reports about the appearance of the Wild Hunt is merely a demonic "interpretation" of natural phenomenon, or whether we are dealing with a description of ritual processions of humans changed into demons." Historian Ronald Hutton noted that there was "a powerful and well-established international scholarly tradition" which argued that the Medieval Wild Hunt legends were an influence on the development of the Early Modern ideas of the Witches' Sabbath. Hutton nevertheless believed that this approach could be "fundamentally challenged".


title: Wild Hunt

text: An abundance of different tales of the Wild Hunt has been recorded in Germany. The leader, often called "der Schimmelreiter", is generally identified with the god Wotan, but sometimes with a feminine figure: the wife of Wotan, Holda ('the friendly one'; also Holle or Holt), Fru Waur, or Fru Gode in Northern Germany; or Perchta (the bright one; also Berchta, Berhta or Berta) in Southern Germany. The leader also is sometimes an undead noble, most often called Count Hackelberg or Count Ebernburg, who is cursed to hunt eternally because of misbehaviour during his lifetime, and in some versions died from injuries of a slain boar's tusk.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Dogs and wolves were generally involved. In some areas, werewolves were depicted as stealing beer and sometimes food in houses. Horses were portrayed as two-, three-, six-, and eight-legged, often with fiery eyes. In the 'Host' variants, principally found in southern Germany, a man went out in front, warning people to get out of the streets before the coming of the Host's armed men, who were sometimes depicted as doing battle with one another. A feature peculiar to the 'Hunt' version, generally encountered in northern Germany, was the pursuit and capture of one or more female demons, or a hart in some versions, while some others did not have prey at all.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Sometimes, the tales associate the hunter with a dragon or the devil. The lone hunter ("der Wilde Jäger") is most often riding a horse, seldom a horse-drawn carriage, and usually has several hounds in his company. If the prey is mentioned, it is most often a young woman, either guilty or innocent. Gottfried August Bürger's ballad "Der wilde Jäger" describes the fate of a nobleman who dares to hunt on the Sabbath and finds both a curse and a pack of demons deep in the woods.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The majority of the tales deal with some person encountering the Wild Hunt. If this person stands up against the hunters, he will be punished. If he helps the hunt, he will be awarded money, gold, or, most often, a leg of a slain animal or human, which is often cursed in a way that makes it impossible to be rid of it. In this case, the person has to find a priest or magician able to ban it or trick the Wild Hunt into taking the leg back by asking for salt, which the hunt can not deliver. In many versions, a person staying right in the middle of the road during the encounter is safe.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In Scandinavia, the leader of the hunt was Odin and the event was referred to as "Odens jakt" ("Odin's hunt") and "Oskoreia" (from "Asgårdsreien" – "the Asgard Ride"). Odin's hunt was heard but rarely seen, and a typical trait is that one of Odin's dogs was barking louder and a second one fainter. Besides one or two shots, these barks were the only sounds that were clearly identified. When Odin's hunt was heard, it meant changing weather in many regions, but it could also mean war and unrest. According to some reports, the forest turned silent and only a whining sound and dog barks could be heard.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In western Sweden and sometimes in the east as well, it has been said that Odin was a nobleman or even a king who had hunted on Sundays and therefore was doomed to hunt down and kill supernatural beings until the end of time. According to certain accounts, Odin does not ride, but travels in a wheeled vehicle, specifically a one-wheeled cart.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In parts of Småland, it appears that people believed that Odin hunted with large birds when the dogs got tired. When it was needed, he could transform a bevy of sparrows into an armed host.


title: Wild Hunt

text: If houses were built on former roads, they could be burnt down, because Odin did not change his plans if he had formerly travelled on a road there. Not even charcoal kilns could be built on disused roads, because if Odin was hunting the kiln would be ablaze.


title: Wild Hunt

text: One tradition maintains that Odin did not travel further up than an ox wears his yoke, so if Odin was hunting, it was safest to throw oneself onto the ground in order to avoid being hit, a pourquoi story that evolved as an explanation for the popular belief that persons lying at ground level are safer from lightning strikes than are persons who are standing. In Älghult in Småland, it was safest to carry a piece of bread and a piece of steel when going to church and back during Yule. The reason was that if one met the rider with the broad-rimmed hat, one should throw the piece of steel in front of oneself, but if one met his dogs first, one should throw the pieces of bread instead.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In the Peterborough Chronicle, there is an account of the Wild Hunt's appearance at night, beginning with the appointment of a disastrous abbot for the monastery, Henry d'Angely, in 1127:


title: Wild Hunt

text: Reliable witnesses were said to have given the number of huntsmen as twenty or thirty, and it is said, in effect, that this went on for nine weeks, ending at Easter. Orderic Vitalis (1075–c. 1142), an English monk cloistered at St Evroul-en-Ouche, in Normandy, reported a similar cavalcade seen in January 1091, which he said were "Herlechin's troop" ("familia Herlechini"; cf. Harlequin).


title: Wild Hunt

text: While these earlier reports of Wild Hunts were recorded by clerics and portrayed as diabolic, in late medieval romances, such as "Sir Orfeo", the hunters are rather from a faery otherworld, where the Wild Hunt was the hosting of the fairies; its leaders also varied, but they included Gwydion, Gwynn ap Nudd, King Arthur, Nuada, King Herla, Woden, the Devil and Herne the Hunter. Many legends are told of their origins, as in that of "Dando and his dogs" or "the dandy dogs": Dando, wanting a drink but having exhausted what his huntsmen carried, declared he would go to hell for it. A stranger came and offered a drink, only to steal Dando's game and then Dando himself, with his dogs giving chase. The sight was long claimed to have been seen in the area. Another legend recounted how King Herla, having visited the Fairy King, was warned not to step down from his horse until the greyhound he carried jumped down; he found that three centuries had passed during his visit, and those of his men who dismounted crumbled to dust; he and his men are still riding, because the greyhound has yet to jump down.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The myth of the Wild Hunt has through the ages been modified to accommodate other gods and folk heroes, among them King Arthur and, more recently, in a Dartmoor folk legend, Sir Francis Drake. At Cadbury Castle in Somerset, an old lane near the castle was called King Arthur's Lane and even in the 19th century, the idea survived that on wild winter nights the king and his hounds could be heard rushing along with it.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In certain parts of Britain, the hunt is said to be that of hell-hounds chasing sinners or the unbaptized. In Devon these are known as Yeth (Heath) or Wisht Hounds, in Cornwall Dando and his Dogs or the Devil and his Dandy Dogs, in Wales the Cwn Annwn, the Hounds of Hell, and in Somerset as Gabriel Ratchets or Retchets (dogs). In Devon the hunt is particularly associated with Wistman's Wood.


title: Wild Hunt

text: According to scholar Susan Greenwood, the Wild Hunt "primarily concerns an initiation into the wild, untamed forces of nature in its dark and chthonic aspects."


title: Wild Hunt

text: The role of Wotan's Wild Hunt during the Yuletide period has been theorized to have influenced the development of the Dutch Christmas figure Sinterklaas, and by extension his American counterpart Santa Claus, in a variety of facets. These include his long white beard and his gray horse for nightly rides.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Various practitioners of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca have drawn upon folklore involving the Wild Hunt to inspire their own rites. In their context, the leader of the Wild Hunt is the goddess Hecate. The anthropologist Susan Greenwood provided an account of one such Wild Hunt ritual performed by a modern Pagan group in Norfolk during the late 1990s, stating that they used this mythology "as a means of confronting the dark of nature as a process of initiation." Referred to as the "Wild Hunt Challenge" by those running it, it took place on Halloween and involved participants walking around a local area of woodland in the daytime, and then repeating that task as a timed competition at night, "to gain mastery over an area of Gwyn ap Nudd's hunting ground". If completed successfully, it was held that the participant had gained the trust of the wood's spirits, and they would be permitted to cut timber from its trees with which to make a staff. The anthropologist Rachel Morgain reported a "ritual recreation" of the Wild Hunt among the Reclaiming tradition of Wicca in San Francisco.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The "Åsgårdsreien", Peter Nicolai Arbo's 1872 oil painting, depicts the Scandinavian version of the Wild Hunt, with Odin leading the hunting party. This painting is featured on the cover of Bathory's 1988 album, "Blood Fire Death".


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt is the subject of Transcendental Étude No. 8 in C minor, ""Wilde Jagd"" (Wild Hunt) by Franz Liszt, and appears in Karl Maria von Weber's 1821 opera "Der Freischütz" and in Arnold Schönberg's oratorio "Gurre-Lieder" of 1911. César Franck's orchestral tone poem "Le Chasseur maudit" ("The Accursed Huntsman") is based on Gottfried August Bürger's ballad "Der wilde Jäger".


title: Wild Hunt

text: In act 1 of Richard Wagner's 1870 opera "Die Walküre", Siegmund relates that he has been pursued by “Das wütende Heer”, which is an indication to the audience that it is Wotan himself who has called up the storm which has driven him (Siegmund) to Hunding's dwelling.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The subject of Stan Jones' American country song "" of 1948, which tells of cowboys chasing the Devil's cattle through the night sky, resembles the European myth.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Swedish folk musician The Tallest Man on Earth released an album in 2010 entitled "The Wild Hunt", and in 2013 the black metal band Watain, also Swedish, released an album with the same title.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt appears in Marvel Comics, primarily the "Thor" series, and is led by Malekith the Accursed, the Dark Elf King of Svartalfheim and one of Thor's archenemies.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In Mike Mignola's comic book series Hellboy, two versions of the Wild Hunt myth are present. In "", the hero receives an invitation from British noblemen to partake in a giant hunting called "The Wild Hunt", after the legend of "Herne, god of the Hunt". In "", Hellboy encounters "King Vold, the flying huntsman" whose figure is based on the Norwegian folktale of "The Flying Huntsman (headless King Volmer and his hounds)" according to Mignola.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt was adapted for the Grace Note portion of "The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II" anime adaptation with the 4th and 5th episodes where Lord El-Melloi II (voiced by Daisuke Namikawa) helps a fellow magus teacher by the name of Wills Pelham Codrington (voiced by Tomoaki Maeno) in a case involving his father's home where the leylines have become unstable. It is there they encounter Black Dogs, the incarnation of lightning who have been killing people in the vicinity. With the help of his allies, Wills, and a fairy they encounter names Faye, Lord El-Melloi II manages to solve the case and avert the threat.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The MTV series "Teen Wolf" features the Wild Hunt as the main villains of the first half of season 6. It takes the legend a bit further, claiming that the Wild Hunt erases people from existence, and those taken by the Wild Hunt become members after they are erased and forgotten.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt features heavily in Netflix's "Little Witch Academia" episode "Sky War Stanship", in which the main protagonist Akko Kagari and Constanze Amalie Von Braunschbank Albrechtsberger partake in the hunt itself.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit", while traveling through Mirkwood, the dwarves and Bilbo encounter a deer running through the forest, which knocks Bombur into the enchanted river. After they pull him out, they hear far off the sound of a "great hunt" and the baying of dogs going past them.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The hunt plays an important role in four of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels: (2005 "Dead Beat", 2006 "Proven Guilty", 2012 "Cold Days" and 2020 "Battle Ground"), In Butcher's cosmos, Santa Claus and Odin are the same being. He shares leadership of the hunt with the Elf King.


title: Wild Hunt

text: Αustralian writer Tim Winton's "The Riders (1994)," which was shortlisted for the 1995 Booker Prize, mentions a vision of the Wild Hunt that becomes the basis for the main character's own 'wild hunt' of the story.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In The Wheel of Time series (1990-2013), there are stories to frighten children saying that Darkhounds run the night in the "Wild Hunt", with the Dark One himself the hunter.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt features in "The Witcher" series of fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, published in English between 2007 and 2018.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The Wild Hunt has appeared in various publications , among them Alan Garner's 1963 novel "The Moon of Gomrath", Uladzimir Karatkievich's "King Stakh's Wild Hunt", Penelope Lively's 1971 "The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy", Susan Cooper's 1973 "The Dark is Rising", Diana Wynne Jones' 1975 "Dogsbody", Brian Bates' 1983 "The Way of Wyrd", Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar trilogy (1984-1986), the third issue of Seanan McGuire's series October Daye, "An Artificial Night," Fred Vargas's 2011 "The Ghost Riders of Ordebec", Laurell K. Hamilton’s book "Mistral's Kiss (2006)" and Jane Yolen's 1995 "The Wild Hunt". It also features in Cassandra Clare's book series, The Mortal instruments (2007-2014) and "The Dark Artifices (2016-2018)", led by Gwyn ap Nudd. The "Wicked Lovely" series (2007-2013) by Melissa Marr contains a modern Wild Hunt. It is also a major plot point in Peter S. Beagle's "Tamsin". The Wild Hunt is a primary element of R. S. Belcher's novel "The Brotherhood of the Wheel" and Raymond E. Feist's 1988 novel "Faerie Tale". The Wild Hunt is also an important plot point in the Gilded Duology by Marissa Meyer.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In Clive Barker's novel 'Coldheart Canyon', the story is centered around a bizarre version of The Wild Hunt. Also in Sharyn McCrummb's novel 'GhostRiders', The Wild Hunt is depicted by Civil War soilders who are constantly reliving the war.


title: Wild Hunt

text: The hunt is featured in CD Projekt Red's 2015 role-playing video game "", based on the books, after being referenced heavily during the events and flashbacks of "The Witcher" and "".


title: Wild Hunt

text: In the original Advanced "Dungeons & Dragons" (1st Edition) expansion "Deities and Demigods" the Wild Hunt is represented under the Celtic Mythos sections as the Master of the Hunt and the Pack of the Wild Hunt. Players risk a chance of becoming the hunted, or may be compelled to join the Hunt and track down the source of the evil that summoned it, or if that evil isn't found, participate in the slaughter of an innocent person or large game animal, potentially against their alignment and will.


title: Wild Hunt

text: In "The Elder Scrolls" series of role-playing video games, the Wild Hunt is a ritual performed by the Bosmer (wood elves) for war, vengeance, or other times of desperation. The elves are transformed into a horde of horrific creatures that kill all in their path. The Daedric Lord Hircine is also inspired by the Wild Hunt, especially in "".


title: Kriegsmarine

text: 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 and the , of the , the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s. The 1919 treaty had limited the size of the German navy and prohibited the building of submarines.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In January 1939, Plan Z, a massive shipbuilding program, was ordered, calling for surface naval parity with the British Royal Navy by 1944. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z was shelved in favour of a crash building program for submarines (U-boats) instead of capital surface warships, and land and air forces were given priority of strategic resources.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The Commander-in-Chief of the (as for all branches of armed forces during the period of absolute Nazi power) was Adolf Hitler, who exercised his authority through the ('High Command of the Navy').


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Among the 's most significant ships were its U-boats, most of which were constructed after Plan Z was abandoned at the beginning of World War II. Wolfpacks were rapidly assembled groups of submarines which attacked British convoys during the first half of the Battle of the Atlantic but this tactic was largely abandoned by May 1943 when U-boat losses mounted. Along with the U-boats, surface commerce raiders (including auxiliary cruisers) were used to disrupt Allied shipping in the early years of the war, the most famous of these being the heavy cruisers "Admiral Graf Spee" and "Admiral Scheer" and the battleship "Bismarck". However, the adoption of convoy escorts, especially in the Atlantic, greatly reduced the effectiveness of surface commerce raiders against convoys.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Following the end of World War II in 1945, the 's remaining ships were divided up among the Allied powers and were used for various purposes including minesweeping. Some were loaded with superfluous chemical weapons and scuttled.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany was only allowed a minimal navy of 15,000 personnel, six capital ships of no more than 10,000 tons, six cruisers, twelve destroyers, twelve torpedo boats and no submarines or aircraft carriers. Military aircraft were also banned, so Germany could have no naval aviation. Under the treaty Germany could only build new ships to replace old ones. All the ships allowed and personnel were taken over from the "Kaiserliche Marine", renamed the" Reichsmarine".


title: Kriegsmarine

text: From the outset, Germany worked to circumvent the military restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. The Germans continued to develop U-boats through a submarine design office in the Netherlands ("NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw") and a torpedo research program in Sweden where the G7e torpedo was developed.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Even before the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 the German government decided on 15 November 1932 to launch a prohibited naval re-armament program that included U-boats, airplanes and an aircraft carrier.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The launching of the first pocket battleship, in 1931 (as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought battleship ) was a step in the formation of a modern German fleet. The building of the "Deutschland" caused consternation among the French and the British as they had expected that the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles would limit the replacement of the pre-dreadnought battleships to coastal defence ships, suitable only for defensive warfare. By using innovative construction techniques, the Germans had built a heavy ship suitable for offensive warfare on the high seas while still abiding by the letter of the treaty.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Adolf Hitler soon began to more brazenly ignore many of the Treaty restrictions and accelerated German naval rearmament. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 18 June 1935 allowed Germany to build a navy equivalent to 35% of the British surface ship tonnage and 45% of British submarine tonnage; battleships were to be limited to no more than 35,000 tons. That same year the "Reichsmarine" was renamed as the "Kriegsmarine". In April 1939, as tensions escalated between the United Kingdom and Germany over Poland, Hitler unilaterally rescinded the restrictions of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The building-up of the German fleet in the time period of 1935–1939 was slowed by problems with marshaling enough manpower and material for ship building. This was because of the simultaneous and rapid build-up of the German army and air force which demanded substantial effort and resources. Some projects, like the D-class cruisers and the P-class cruisers, had to be cancelled.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The first military action of the "Kriegsmarine" came during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the outbreak of hostilities in July 1936 several large warships of the German fleet were sent to the region. The heavy cruisers "Deutschland" and , and the light cruiser were the first to be sent in July 1936. These large ships were accompanied by the 2nd Torpedo-boat Flotilla. The German presence was used to covertly support Franco's Nationalists although the immediate involvement of the "Deutschland" was humanitarian relief operations and evacuating 9,300 refugees, including 4,550 German citizens. Following the brokering of the International Non-Intervention Patrol to enforce an international arms embargo the "Kriegsmarine" was allotted the patrol area between Cabo de Gata (Almeria) and Cabo de Oropesa. Numerous vessels served as part of these duties including . On 29 May 1937 the "Deutschland" was attacked off Ibiza by two bombers from the Republican Air Force. Total casualties from the Republican attack were 31 dead and 110 wounded, 71 seriously, mostly burn victims. In retaliation the "Admiral Scheer" shelled Almeria on 31 May killing 19–20 civilians, wounding 50 and destroying 35 buildings. Following further attacks by Republican submarines against the off the port of Oran between 15 and 18 June 1937 Germany withdrew from the Non-Intervention Patrol.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: U-boats also participated in covert action against Republican shipping as part of Operation Ursula. At least eight U-boats engaged a small number of targets in the area throughout the conflict. (By comparison the Italian "Regia Marina" operated 58 submarines in the area as part of the "Sottomarini Legionari".)


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The "Kriegsmarine" saw as her main tasks the controlling of the Baltic Sea and winning a war against France in connection with the German army, because France was seen as the most likely enemy in the event of war. But in 1938 Hitler wanted to have the possibility of winning a war against Great Britain at sea in the coming years. Therefore, he ordered plans for such a fleet from the "Kriegsmarine". From the three proposed plans (X, Y and Z) he approved Plan Z in January 1939. This blueprint for the new German naval construction program envisaged building a navy of approximately 800 ships during the period 1939–1947. Hitler demanded that the program was to be completed by 1945. The main force of Plan Z were six H-class battleships. In the version of Plan Z drawn up in August 1939 the German fleet was planned to consist of the following ships by 1945:


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The planned naval program was not very far advanced by the time World War II began. In 1939 two s and two H-class battleships were laid down and parts for two further H-class battleships and three s were in production. The strength of the German fleet at the beginning of the war was not even 20% of Plan Z. On 1 September 1939, the navy still had a total personnel strength of only 78,000, and it was not at all ready for a major role in the war. Because of the long time it would take to get the Plan Z fleet ready for action and shortage in workers and material in wartime, Plan Z was essentially shelved in September 1939 and the resources allocated for its realization were largely redirected to the construction of U-boats, which would be ready for war against the United Kingdom more quickly.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The "Kriegsmarine" participated in the Battle of Westerplatte and the Battle of the Danzig Bay during the invasion of Poland. In 1939, major events for the "Kriegsmarine" were the sinking of the British aircraft carrier and the British battleship and the loss of the at the Battle of the River Plate. Submarine attacks on Britain's vital maritime supply routes (Battle of the Atlantic) started immediately at the outbreak of war, although they were hampered by the lack of well placed ports from which to operate. Throughout the war the "Kriegsmarine" was responsible for coastal artillery protecting major ports and important coastal areas. It also operated anti-aircraft batteries protecting major ports.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In April 1940, the German Navy was heavily involved in the invasion of Norway, where it suffered significant losses, which included the heavy cruiser sunk by artillery and torpedoes from Norwegian shore batteries at the Oscarsborg Fortress in the Oslofjord. Ten destroyers were lost in the Battles of Narvik (half of German destroyer strength at the time), and two light cruisers, the "Königsberg" which was bombed and sunk by Royal Navy aircraft in Bergen, and the "Karlsruhe" which was sunk off the coast of Kristiansand by a British submarine. The "Kriegsmarine" did in return sink some British warships during this campaign, including the aircraft carrier .


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The losses in the Norwegian Campaign left only a handful of undamaged heavy ships available for the planned, but never executed, invasion of the United Kingdom (Operation Sea Lion) in the summer of 1940. There were serious doubts that the invasion sea routes could have been protected against British naval interference. The Fall of France and the conquest of Norway gave German submarines greatly improved access to British shipping routes in the Atlantic. At first, British convoys lacked escorts that were adequate either in numbers or equipment and, as a result, the submarines had much success for few losses (this period was dubbed the First Happy Time by the Germans).


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Italy entered the war in June 1940, and the Battle of the Mediterranean began: from September 1941 to May 1944 some 62 German submarines were transferred there, sneaking past the British naval base at Gibraltar. The Mediterranean submarines sank 24 major Allied warships (including 12 destroyers, 4 cruisers, 2 aircraft carriers and 1 battleship) and 94 merchant ships (449,206 tons of shipping). None of the Mediterranean submarines made it back to their home bases, as they were all either sunk in battle or scuttled by their crews at the end of the war.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In 1941 one of the four modern German battleships, sank while breaking out into the Atlantic for commerce raiding. "Bismarck" was in turn hunted down by much superior British forces after being crippled by an air-launched torpedo. She was subsequently scuttled after being rendered a burning wreck by two British battleships.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In November 1941 during the Battle of the Mediterranean, German submarine "U-331" sank British battleship "Barham", which had a magazine explosion and sank in minutes, with the loss of 862, or 2/3 of her crew.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: During 1941, the "Kriegsmarine" and the United States Navy became de facto belligerents, although war was not formally declared, leading to the sinking of the . This course of events were the result of the American decision to support Britain with its Lend-Lease program and the subsequent decision to escort Lend-Lease convoys with American war ships through the western part of the Atlantic.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent German declaration of war against the United States in December 1941 led to another phase of the Battle of the Atlantic. In Operation Drumbeat and subsequent operations until August 1942, a large number of Allied merchant ships were sunk by submarines off the American coast as the Americans had not prepared for submarine warfare, despite clear warnings (this was the so-called Second Happy Time for the German Navy). The situation became so serious that military leaders feared for the whole Allied strategy. The vast American ship building capabilities and naval forces were however now brought into the war and soon more than offset any losses inflicted by the German submariners. In 1942, the submarine warfare continued on all fronts, and when German forces in the Soviet Union reached the Black Sea, a few submarines were eventually transferred there.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In February 1942, the three large warships stationed on the Atlantic coast at Brest were evacuated back to German ports for deployment to Norway. The ships had been repeatedly damaged by air attacks by the RAF, the supply ships to support Atlantic sorties had been destroyed by the Royal Navy, and Hitler now felt that Norway was the "zone of destiny" for these ships. The two battleships and and the heavy cruiser passed through the English Channel (Channel Dash) on their way to Norway despite British efforts to stop them. Not since the Spanish Armada in 1588 had any warships in wartime done this. It was a tactical victory for the "Kriegsmarine" and a blow to British morale, but the withdrawal removed the possibility of attacking allied convoys in the Atlantic with heavy surface ships.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: With the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 Britain started to send Arctic convoys with military goods around Norway to support their new ally. In 1942 German forces began heavily attacking these convoys, mostly with bombers and U-boats. The big ships of the "Kriegsmarine" in Norway were seldom involved in these attacks, because of the inferiority of German radar technology, and because Hitler and the leadership of the "Kriegsmarine" feared losses of these precious ships. The most effective of these attacks was the near destruction of Convoy PQ 17 in July 1942. Later in the war German attacks on these convoys were mostly reduced to U-boat activities and the mass of the allied freighters reached their destination in Soviet ports.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The Battle of the Barents Sea in December 1942 was an attempt by a German naval surface force to attack an Allied Arctic convoy. However, the advantage was not pressed home and they returned to base. There were serious implications: this failure infuriated Hitler, who nearly enforced a decision to scrap the surface fleet. Instead, resources were diverted to new U-boats, and the surface fleet became a lesser threat to the Allies.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: After December 1943 when had been sunk in an attack on an Arctic convoy in the Battle of North Cape by , most German surface ships in bases at the Atlantic were blockaded in, or close to, their ports as a "fleet in being", for fear of losing them in action and to tie up British naval forces. The largest of these ships, the battleship , was stationed in Norway as a threat to Allied shipping and also as a defence against a potential Allied invasion. When she was sunk, after several attempts, by British bombers in November 1944 (Operation Catechism), several British capital ships could be moved to the Far East.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: From late 1944 until the end of the war, the surviving surface fleet of the "Kriegsmarine" (heavy cruisers: , , , , light cruisers: , , ) was heavily engaged in providing artillery support to the retreating German land forces along the Baltic coast and in ferrying civilian refugees to the western Baltic Sea parts of Germany (Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein) in large rescue operations. Large parts of the population of eastern Germany fled the approaching Red Army out of fear for Soviet retaliation (mass rapes, killings and looting by Soviet troops did occur). The "Kriegsmarine" evacuated two million civilians and troops in the evacuation of East Prussia and Danzig from January to May 1945. It was during this activity that the catastrophic sinking of several large passenger ships occurred: and were sunk by Soviet submarines, while was sunk by British bombers, each sinking claiming thousands of civilian lives. The "Kriegsmarine" also provided important assistance in the evacuation of the fleeing German civilians of Pomerania and Stettin in March and April 1945.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: A desperate measure of the "Kriegsmarine" to fight the superior strength of the Western Allies from 1944 was the formation of the "Kleinkampfverbände" (Small Battle Units). These were special naval units with frogmen, manned torpedoes, motorboats laden with explosives and so on. The more effective of these weapons and units were the development and deployment of midget submarines like the "Molch" and "Seehund". In the last stage of the war, the "Kriegsmarine" also organized a number of divisions of infantry from its personnel.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Between 1943 and 1945, a group of U-boats known as the "Monsun" Boats ("Monsun Gruppe") operated in the Indian Ocean from Japanese bases in the occupied Dutch East Indies and Malaya. Allied convoys had not yet been organized in those waters, so initially many ships were sunk. However, this situation was soon remedied. During the later war years, the "Monsun" Boats were also used as a means of exchanging vital war supplies with Japan.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: During 1943 and 1944, due to Allied anti-submarine tactics and better equipment the U-boat fleet started to suffer heavy losses. The turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic was during Black May in 1943, when the U-boat fleet started suffering heavy losses and the number of Allied ships sunk started to decrease. Radar, longer range air cover, sonar, improved tactics and new weapons all contributed. German technical developments, such as the "Schnorchel", attempted to counter these. Near the end of the war a small number of the new "Elektroboot" U-boats (types XXI and XXIII) became operational, the first submarines designed to operate submerged at all times. The "Elektroboote" had the potential to negate the Allied technological and tactical advantage, although they were deployed too late to see combat in the war.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Following the capture of Liepāja in Latvia by the Germans on 29 June 1941, the town came under the command of the "Kriegsmarine". On 1 July 1941, the town commandant "Korvettenkapitän" Stein ordered that ten hostages be shot for every act of sabotage, and further put civilians in the zone of targeting by declaring that Red Army soldiers were hiding among them in civilian attire.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: On 5 July 1941 "Korvettenkapitän" Brückner, who had taken over from Stein, issued a set of anti-Jewish regulations in the local newspaper, "Kurzemes Vārds". Summarized these were as follows:


title: Kriegsmarine

text: On 16 July 1941, "Fregattenkapitän" Dr. Hans Kawelmacher was appointed the German naval commandant in Liepāja. On 22 July, Kawelmacher sent a telegram to the German Navy's Baltic Command in Kiel, which stated that he wanted 100 SS and fifty "Schutzpolizei" (protective police) men sent to Liepāja for "quick implementation Jewish problem". Kawelmacher hoped to accelerate killings complaining: "Here about 8,000 Jews... with present SS-personnel, this would take one year, which is untenable for [the] pacification of Liepāja." Kawelmacher on 27 July 1941: "Jewish problem Libau largely solved by execution of about 1,100 male Jews by Riga SS commando on 24 and 25.7."


title: Kriegsmarine

text: In post-war 1945, U-boat Commander Heinz-Wilhelm Eck of was tried and executed with two of his crewmen for shooting at survivors; was alleged to have shot at sunken ship survivors, but as the vessel was lost at sea with its crew, there was no investigation.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: After the war, the German surface ships that remained afloat (only the cruisers and , and a dozen destroyers were operational) were divided among the victors by the Tripartite Naval Commission. The US used the heavy cruiser in nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll in 1946 as a target ship for the Operation Crossroads. Some (like the unfinished aircraft carrier ) were used for target practice with conventional weapons, while others (mostly destroyers and torpedo boats) were put into the service of Allied navies that lacked surface ships after the war. The training barque SSS "Horst Wessel" was recommissioned USCGC "Eagle" and remains in active service, assigned to the United States Coast Guard Academy. The British, French and Soviet navies received the destroyers, and some torpedo boats went to the Danish and Norwegian navies. For the purpose of mine clearing, the Royal Navy employed German crews and minesweepers from June 1945 to January 1948, organized in the German Mine Sweeping Administration, the GMSA, which consisted of 27,000 members of the former "Kriegsmarine" and 300 vessels.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The destroyers and the Soviet share light cruiser were all retired by the end of the 1950s, but five escort destroyers were returned from the French to the new West German navy in the 1950s and three 1945 scuttled type XXI and XXIII U-boats were raised by West Germany and integrated into their new navy. In 1956, with West Germany's accession to NATO, a new navy was established and was referred to as the "Bundesmarine" (Federal Navy). Some "Kriegsmarine" commanders like Erich Topp and Otto Kretschmer went on to serve in the "Bundesmarine". In East Germany the "Volksmarine" (People's Navy) was established in 1956. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, it was decided to use the name "Deutsche Marine" (German Navy).


title: Kriegsmarine

text: By the start of World War II, much of the "Kriegsmarine" were modern ships: fast, well-armed and well-armoured. This had been achieved by concealment but also by deliberately flouting World War I peace terms and those of various naval treaties. However, the war started with the German Navy still at a distinct disadvantage in terms of sheer size with what were expected to be its primary adversaries – the navies of France and Great Britain. Although a major re-armament of the navy (Plan Z) was planned, and initially begun, the start of the war in 1939 meant that the vast amounts of material required for the project were diverted to other areas. The sheer disparity in size when compared to the other European powers navies prompted German naval commander in chief Grand Admiral Erich Raeder to write of his own navy once the war began "The surface forces can do no more than show that they know how to die gallantly." A number of captured ships from occupied countries were added to the German fleet as the war progressed. Though six major units of the "Kriegsmarine" were sunk during the war (both "Bismarck"-class battleships and both "Scharnhorst"-class battleships, as well as two heavy cruisers), there were still many ships afloat (including four heavy cruisers and four light cruisers) as late as March 1945.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Some ship types do not fit clearly into the commonly used ship classifications. Where there is argument, this has been noted.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: Construction of the was started in 1936 and construction of an unnamed sister ship was started two years later in 1938, but neither ship was completed. In 1942 conversion of three German passenger ships ("Europa", "Potsdam", "Gneisenau") and two unfinished cruisers, the captured French light cruiser and the German heavy cruiser , to auxiliary carriers was begun. In November 1942 the conversion of the passenger ships was stopped because these ships were now seen as too slow for operations with the fleet. But conversion of one of these ships, the "Potsdam", to a training carrier was begun instead. In February 1943 all the work on carriers was halted because of the German failure during the Battle of the Barents Sea which convinced Hitler that big warships were useless.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: All engineering of the aircraft carriers like catapults, arresting gears and so on were tested and developed at the "Erprobungsstelle See" Travemünde (Experimental Agency Sea in Travemünde) including the airplanes for the aircraft carriers, the Fieseler Fi 167 ship-borne biplane torpedo and reconnaissance bomber and the navalized versions of two key early war "Luftwaffe" aircraft: the Messerschmitt Bf 109T fighter and Junkers Ju 87C Stuka dive bomber.


title: Kriegsmarine

text: The "Kriegsmarine" completed four battleships during its existence. The first pair were the 11-inch gun , consisting of the and , which participated in the invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung) in 1940, and then in commerce raiding until the "Gneisenau" was heavily damaged by a British air raid in 1942 and the "Scharnhorst" was sunk in the Battle of the North Cape in late 1943. The second pair were the 15-inch gun , consisting of the and . The "Bismarck" was sunk on her first sortie into the Atlantic in 1941 (Operation Rheinübung) although she did sink the battlecruiser "Hood" and severely damaged the battleship "Prince of Wales", while the "Tirpitz" was based in Norwegian ports during most of the war as a fleet in being, tying up Allied naval forces, and subject to a number of attacks by British aircraft and submarines. More battleships were planned (the H-class), but construction was abandoned in September 1939.