TL;DR: IJN radars suck. Funny considering most other radar technologies in WWII were heavily based on work done by Japanese scientists Uda Shintarou and Yagi Hidetsugu.
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Also, Willie Dee, really, all that high-falutin' technology didn't stop you from accidentally taking a pot shot at Iowa with the president on her.
TL;DR: IJN radars suck. Funny considering most other radar technologies in WWII were heavily based on work done by Japanese scientists Uda Shintarou and Yagi Hidetsugu.
Because IJN at that time thought radar are worthless IIRC
TL;DR: IJN radars suck. Funny considering most other radar technologies in WWII were heavily based on work done by Japanese scientists Uda Shintarou and Yagi Hidetsugu.
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Also, Willie Dee, really, all that high-falutin' technology didn't stop you from accidentally taking a pot shot at Iowa with the president on her.
That's torpedoes, for that you use the Mark I eyeball and the torpedo directors not radar (Though it helped in finding the target) also, radars only help tell you that something is there, it is up to the commander of the vessels to decide what to do
While I'd much like to say this happened because the Japanese were stupid, the truth most likely is that only a small portion of them actually were. Rarely I see cases where bad nation-scale decision making is a result of the majority being ignorant, or at least the military researchers in this particular example. It's either the bureaucrats or not-so-impressive generals who seal their doom. Sure, they suffered from a great shortage of resources that prevented large-scale deployment of advanced technology, but then again you don't simply go to war against a huge-frickin'-ass of a country like the US in that kind of situation.
...And O'Bannon, forget about radars. Just stuff your Bofors with trusty Potatoes and use Mk.I eyes to shoot down any flying fiends off the sky.
This is actually somewhat inaccurate, the SC radar originally used the A-scope but later variants implemented the innovative PPI scope. In fact, their were many losses in American shipping due to Admirals hoisting the flag on a vessel with the original SC radar.
EDIT: Apparently, my research was somewhat lacking
This is actually somewhat inaccurate, the SC radar still used the A-scope but the later SG radar implemented the innovative PPI scope. In fact, their were many losses in American shipping due to Admirals hoisting the flag on a vessel with only SC radar.
We see this a lot in table top gaming, when historical setups are used. Sure the fleet can use the radar on the ship with the better array, but fleet's detection ability is all based on the flagship's array, which can be piss poor in 1942 while a new ship or a recently refit ship might have a serious array.
Of course that only levels the playing field given that the Japanese optics and night training were vastly better to the Americans in 1942. By 1944, and the better fire control radars start appearing in numbers, the Japanese loose even those advantages.
We see this a lot in table top gaming, when historical setups are used. Sure the fleet can use the radar on the ship with the better array, but fleet's detection ability is all based on the flagship's array, which can be piss poor in 1942 while a new ship or a recently refit ship might have a serious array.
Of course that only levels the playing field given that the Japanese optics and night training were vastly better to the Americans in 1942. By 1944, and the better fire control radars start appearing in numbers, the Japanese loose even those advantages.
There was no appreciable difference in optics between US and Japanese vessels, in terms of detection or fire control. The Japanese were picker with lookouts and they got more experience in training, but even so there was nothing magical about Japanese lookouts and frankly they failed about as often as they succeeded, even the early primitive radar was clearly superior for alerting you to the presence of the enemy. The Japanese blundered into US fleets repeatedly and the US detected the Japanese first a number times.
Capitalizing on the advantage was the issue. Frankly though if you just give the US ships flashless powder and a bug free torpedo in 1942 and change nothing else losses might actually end up favoring the US.
Ha!The actual error can be up to 295 yards — this is the range resolution.I still don't understand though.But I don't get what they mean though?So the plane can actually be anywhere within this area.dontgetitDistance here is 38 miles.
Nautical.PPI Radar DisplayThis is the display screen of an IJN radar.
A-Scope/A-displaySC air-search radarThe information shown includes the distance of the bogey and its bearing from us ships.How the Japanese write "radar".Maximum range is 79 nmi. Anything farther can't be detected.
Never mind where the enemy plane is.. .
You need to calculate it based on the waveform :=|
So you have to bring out the pencil and paper :=|
That's why nobody can even read it :=|
Since there's only a waveform and no pictures :=|
Radar
ChineseHere's the display screen of a USN radar detecting an enemy plane.
Range: 79 nautical miles
Range Resolution: 295 yards
Bearing Resolution: 3 degrees
The USN resist metrification, unlike their sensible counterparts in the Army.And there's 3 degrees of uncertainty, which is the bearing resolution.