I thiink I saw the Thatch weave demonstrated on a reconstruction wartime documentery... something 360. 2 aircraft could shoot down a single one even if it was faster. Very clever thinking.

Interesting reference to radar on your link.
Roy

Interesting chat. The Oahu radar was aSCR-270 radar. They were quite effective, once they were believed in. One was mounted on the south facing peak of Cadillac in Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine in 1942 It was tower mounted at an elevation of around 1500 feet. The entire area was of course closed off to civilians, but the locals came to the conclusion that it was for spotting German subs and planes. Not quite. It was operated by the Army and the MIT Draper Radiation Labs. It simulated an airborne radar, as on might be carried by an aircraft. The return signal was beamed, as a TV signal to Hanscom Airfield, in Cambridge Massachusetts, ruffly 225 miles down the coast, where it( the image of the scope return, was displayed on a remote scope. Roy, you may see where this is going. Once the signal transmission issues were overcome, the next step was to put a radar in a plane, witch was done with the TBM Avenger being modified. Hence, the birth of airborne early warning radar. Everything was torn down post was. Not even a plaque to mark the achievement.

https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/project-cadillac

More interesting things, Roy. I'm seems that I rember a movie about some radar deception plot during the war as well.

When I was researching the PT61 (Pacific theater) conversion to a gunboat part of the upgrade involved installation of radar. Piece by piece I tried to replicate that in 1/20 scale, including the dials on the control panel. The research was quiteinteresting.

Lew

It should be said that the Americans had an extensive radar system before WW2 used for navigation called TACAN. I was not trained to repair this but the Bristol Britannia transport aircraft had it installed.

One of the problems in the UK was that design and new ideas were being thought up but there was not enough manufacturing ability to persue them. A very brave move by Churchill was to put a lot of these secret ideas into one place and let all the allies know. This was headed by professor Tizzard and he flew to the USA to pass on the information. It turned out that all the allies knew about radar but were also keeping it quiet and doing their own thing.

We already had radar controlled guns and these were further developed in the USA. If you are being bombed from 20,000 feet a shell aimed at you will take nearly 30 seconds to arrive. So prediction is not easy to obtain a hit. The Tizzard committee also brought the idea of the proximiy fuse to improve the effect of a shell.

The shell has an electronic fuse circuit which has a coil which runs at a controlled frequency. Anything metal up to 30 or 40 feet away will upset the frequency and this sets the shell to explode. All electronics was using thermionic valves and although it was just a triode valve it had to withstand the shock of the explosive charge launching the shell.

Another anecdote! The US navy and others use either drones (there were radio controlled aircraft then) or towed aiming streamers. These were rarely ever hit! A US Admiral in a battleship decided to try out his radar controlled guns and the new proximity fused shells on his way down the East coast of the USA on his way to war but stopping off for R&D on the way.

He called for a drone and the first salvo of his guns destroyed it, he called for another drone and that went the same way! They had no more working drones available. The crew and the Admiral could not believe it and it was a major talking point. The Admiral dared not stop for the R&D break as the situation would become common knowledge.

A later set of radar controlled guns from the USA were installed on the south and east coast of England when the V1's flying bombs were launched. The V1 was the first cruise missile flying at 400 mph. The new guns which trained automaticaly were shooting down in some cases 90% of them.

One of the major problems with Chain Home was once the enemy aircraft had gone past the transmitters they were no longer aware of where the aircraft were. In early 1944 an enormous 30 ton rotating land radar was installed, from the USA, and that covered the whole of England although the CH system was still applicable to check on in-coming air attacks.

Roy

Hi Lew I thought about the different way of expressing the date, as I typed. The Germans were way ahead of anyone else with radar. They were suspious that the Allies (us) had radar and just before the war an airship was fitted out with detection equipment headed by a General Martini to run along the coast to check. There was a panic in the UK as what to do. Professor RV Jones said leave it on, do nothing and as it did not conform to German radar ideas it was ignored.

Although German radar was more sophisticated the information was kept at sector level with each radar unit having a couple of night fighters interceptors each. R.V. Jones did an analysis of what positions in the bombing runs was each aircraft that was shot down over Germany.

The result was that he informed his boss Professor Lindemann that the enemy had radar but he dimissed it until a Commando raid brought back parts of a radar unit and it was confirmed.

The radar we had called Chain Home was crude and was up a dead end as far as any development went. But all the units pooled their information and the central control of fighters was established and this what made it successful.

The UK radar was developed at Ormford Ness, on the N.E coast. The sea there was subject to mines laid down by a Luftwaffe flying boat. The story goes that the mines were laid on alternate days on a regular basis. The radar guys would tip the wink to the nearby mine clearance part of the R.N. and they would go out and clear them.

After a while the Germans got to know this and carried on like it was a game! One day the radar guys said nothing, the mines remained and the German flying boat hit one and blew up.

They were rescued by the Royal Navy and the German crew who all survived were most indignant about it, as they asked why we had not cleared the mines like we usually do?

Roy

Interesting Roy.

(Also, I used "12/7/2025", the US date format m/d/y. We need to change! Hell we are still stuck on Imperial measure.)

Lew

Very interesting read

Hi LewZ, you mentioned radar and Pearl Harbour. I see that yesterday 7/12/25 was also a Sunday. At the moment we have other anniversaries in UK.

The land based radar on Oahu, really not appreciated by the senior military and not yet bought into use for defense. At that time the Japanese were more interested in radar for the navigation among their islands rather than for attack and defense.

Only a few days after Pearl Harbour events, the UK lost 2 battleships for much the same reasons on the 10th. December 1941. The Prince of Wales and Repulse had gunnery radar and defense radar. Their commanders still thought about big gun tactics . Repulse did detect the bombers coming but it was too late to react. PoW was the first battleship to be sunk on the high seas by aerial bombardment.

The first major warship to have radar was the German KM Admiral Graf Spee the first fit was pre-war and then a later fit up-dated the radar. She was sunk on 13th. December 1939, mostly by deception. When visible to all in Montevideo, very few were aware of the radar antenna.

In the UK the propaganda thought up the fiction that carrots gave you better eyesight to explain the use of radar (at night) in aircraft. (Remember "Cats eyes Cunningham")

I think the carrier Swordfish biplanes were the only biplanes ever to have radar on board.

In 1958 I was working on bombing radar as used in English Electric Canberra BI. 8's, (bomber interception) it was very complex with many boxes spread around the aircraft. Several were marked "Tropicalised 1944". The equipment must have previously used in Avro Lancasters.

The US version of the English Electric Canberra was the Martin B57 (July 1953) but prior to that the CIA had modified the aircraft with increased wing area and was used as a Spy plane. Canberra first flew in May 1949.
Roy