Police were forced to use personal mobile phones to organise their response to the summer riots after their multi-billion pound radio system failed, it has been reported.
Some forces were even unsure of how many officers were on duty after the collapse of the official Airwave communication system, The Observer has revealed.
It says a leaked review by the Police Federation into August's unrest details failings which help explain why police were constantly playing catch-up.
The newspaper also says: "The Airwave network was supposed to improve the way emergency services in London responded to a crisis after damning criticism for communication failures following the 7 July bombings in 2005."
The internal review also reveals that after the trouble erupted, "forces often did not know how may officers they had on or off shift" and senior officers took charge in some places "often without the local knowledge of the areas", making it easier to be outmanoeuvred by rioters.
It also concluded that severe equipment shortages among officers meant they were unable to be mobilised in a public order capacity, Press Association reported.
Scotland Yard last week released an interim report into the riots which found there were not enough officers to deal with the unprecedented scale and spread of the disorder.
Chiefs also said intelligence gathering "could not cope with the scale and speed of the spread of disorder".