C-52 (cipher machine)

The device is mechanical, but when combined with an electric keyboard attachment, the B-52, the resultant system is termed the BC-52.

The C model had a fixed stepping system with a large wheel cycle due to the mutually prime factors in the pin counts.

The early CX models used the control bars also for encryption but due to complications in creating acceptable lug settings later CX models used these bars only for controlling of the wheel stepping.

There is some speculation that the CX-52 might have been broken by the signals intelligence services of Communist East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.

[2] Many of the C-52 and CX-52 machines sold by Crypto AG were compromised to benefit the US and British national signals intelligence agencies, National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), respectively.

The CX-52
A combination of a C-52 cipher machine with a B-52 keyboard attachment, such as pictured here, was denoted the BC-52.
A Hell 54, a licensed German copy of the C-52
Hagelin CX-52 from the Argentine Computer Museum, exhibited at Ekoparty 2023