Radar question

[Dili]

Most WW2 ship radars could detect both ships and aircraft so do i need to have a version for anti ship and another for air search of the same model?

[drw61]

I'm not an expert in this but some ships in AE do have two radars, one for air and one for surface.
As an example, The North Carolina BB class in the editor uses SC AS Radar (device 1598) and it is designated as Air Search Radar. The second one is a SC SS Radar (device 1760) and it is not designated as Air Search Radar.

Hope this helps
Daryl

[Dili]

Thanks. That appears to confirm there is need of 2 models.

[spence]

Having served on several CG cutters I have seen a/c detected at roughly 12-15 miles on the surface search radar WHEN they were flying fairly low (couple of thousand feet) (think they called it an SPS-51 - the USCG always got the Navy's hand-me-downs) On the other hand an air search radar (AN-SPS-29 air search (weather) radar) would pick up an air target up to 200 miles away when "he" was flying higher than that. The bearing resolution of the target always seemed to be much less (the target covered a greater arc on the screen). The bearing resolution of the surface search radar was useful for ship navigation but the range to the target was always the more accurate reading.

The detection range to the target always depends essentially on the line of sight and the power supplied to the radar transmitter (since you're actually picking up an echo and the radar "beam" spreads out (and weakens) both on its outbound leg and its inbound return). The air search radar seemed to me to be more powerful than the surface search. Need to get an ET to chime in for the technical stuff though.

[el cid again]

I was originally a US Navy Electronics Technician (Radar). Eventually I
became a radar countermeasures guy - there was a rating for that called
EW long afterward (since folded into a different rating). I model naval
radars for many games and applications.

Dili is right - two devices (with the same name - I attach AS and SS suffexes)
are needed to model the radar in AE when used for both functions. That at least
means you can give them different ranges (and effectiveness ratings)for each
kind of target.

I have a few of these dual radars in RHS.

ORIGINAL: Dili

Most WW2 ship radars could detect both ships and aircraft so do i need to have a version for anti ship and another for air search of the same model?

[Dili]

Spence did you ever found instances of surface duct in your career?

[el cid again]

Yep. Fairly common.

[Dili]

What kind atmosphere is needed for that to happen?

[Korvar]

This book series looks very interesting; I've heard good things about it, but it's not a minor investment of time or money, either. EW is one of those fascinating fields that has incredible depth and is both an art and a science.



EW 101 Amazon link

[el cid again]

Well put. This will offend many - it often causes outrage when I speak - but it is something USN
has long neglected - and continues to neglect. During the Pacific War, it was the Japanese which
used radar passively more often. By late war, the US tendency to 'radiate with practically everything
practically all the time' made it very practical to simply listen for the enemy. Besides, Japanese
radar transmitter tubes had very limited life - using receive only was more practical on a continuous
basis. Shinano in fact detected the sub that sank her FIRST - by use of passive radar detection.
Her captain made remarkable errors and miscalculated what he faced and where it was - but EW gave
him the opportunity to evade: he simply screwed it up. That was common in WW2. By my day, a generation
later, one could detect a US carrier a thousand miles away (more or less) - and the few carrier admirals
smart enough to go passive would, every few years, astound the rest by beating them in war games.
Never mind we got the same German missiles the Russians did, and similar German scientists and engineers,
and developed them first actually (Loon was a V-1 with 4 inch longer wings for example, and huge numbers
were built to use against Japan, later in 1945, from many platforms). Never mind, we were STILL ignoring
the missile threat over 20 years later - and intelligence the enemy was training to use them in the South
China Sea caused great alarm at the top. At that time, most USN SAM systems were combat ineffective -
we averaged 60 rounds per kill (and my ship only carried about 27 - 28 minus a practice round was typical).
The first two systems - Talos and Terrier - were total failures for years (read When the Bird's Didn't Fly
in the USNI Proceedings) - until Terrier was redesigned to use the Tartar as its second stage. Not that
one defeats missiles by shooting them down. It is MUCH more efficient to use EW. Yet we didn't take that
seriously until 1968 - when it was too late to do it gracefully. So we did it ungracefully - using emergency
funding (no time to wait for Congress, or for industrial R&D). That program gave us numbers of things -
in the long term: chaff launchers, jammers of sophisticated new types, the Phalanx point defense gun
system (designed for a 30 mm gun - a gun that WAS built for the A-10 - but incredibly NEVER was fitted to the
mount! - the 20 mm was supposed to be 'war emergency' for Viet Nam. But we took many years even to get that.
We also got the EW rating. But we did away with it. Not one person who ever met an EW thinks that was a good
idea - but it made bureaucratic sense. Yes - communications specialists do essentially the same thing - but
they don't do it as operations people - and they are not anti-air warfare specialists. But we have NOT faced
a peer enemy (until now - probably we face two of them today) - and we get away with fielding ships WITHOUT
even their point defense guns (when I went aboard USS Chung Hoon, her Phalanx platforms were empty - no funding
to fill them). Precisely because EW is an art as well as a science you need people with operational experience
using it in combat operations - very different from communications specialists who are more oriented to trying
to understand enemy comm signals. DOD generally is so proud of its 'joint' capabilities it misses the forest
because of the trees: people do not train in the context of EW, do not "think electronically" and are overly
dependent on active signals in every sense. USN used to have deception specialists to attach to ships - called
Beachjumpers - and they were impressive. But they went the way of the dodo (and the EW rating) - although I did
see a call to bring them back a couple of years ago. When no one in the crew thinks electronically, we risk
being upstaged by enemies who thing SIX YEARS is merely the FIRST level of education for their EW people. They
have post post doctoral specialists for which we have no English word because we have no comparable level of
training. It isn't just about hardware, it is about how you train, how you exercise, and how you think.

I once played RN Sandy Woodward in a manual game with many players, almost all of them US military officers, or ex
military officers, or NCOs/Petty Officers. I put the Royal Marines on two carriers and sent them via a deep
Southern route to the Falklands, but I stayed on an LPD in a large task force headed directly for Stanley -
broadcasting every morning a demand the Argentines leave or be thrown out. They could DF my signals and
thus know where to send search planes. I focused on air defense - we put Army AA and SAM units on the big
decks of container ships and LSDs etc. But my carriers were radio silent, and under the command of the Marine
commander UNTIL he was safely ashore - HE controlled the carriers. It worked - the (very professional) team
playing the Argentines - with a vastly superior land based air force - and a carrier which had their very best
squadron (the Second Attack Squadron, which serves as an air demonstration team in peacetime) - were entirely
surprised when we landed "too soon" - because they did NOT detect the passive approach of the first wave invasion
force. I modeled the operation on a US Sixth Fleet Commander who managed to become 'invisible' in the narrow
Med - by being both radio passive with his main force - and giving the enemy something to listen to where he
was not. Once we had the Marines ashore, we could operate Harriers and helos from land to cover them, and we could
go hunting with the carriers - cutting the islands off from the mainland (in a sense the British never achieved -
C-130s flew into Stanley until just a few hours before the surrender, in spite of one hit on the runway by
one thousand pound bomb in the first air strike). We turned Goose Green airstrip into a makeshift forward
operating base. But we were unopposed BEFORE we landed because we approached radio passive. USN usually leaves
TACAN on - any plane or ship with a commercial interrogator gets instant range and bearing from that! No need
to DF the signal. [I hard wired TACAN on my ship so it had a mode which seemed to be on but in fact was standby -
not able to transmit - because I could never get turning it off into an official EMCON plan; it was only on if I
thought no one might use it against us.] I used to try to train captains in EW - but they could not grasp why
one might want to turn radar off! It is like celestial navigation - we did away with it! [It was returned to
curriculum for officers only last year, a pleasant surprise. Someone has figured out war might not be play
nice nice.]

ORIGINAL: Korvar

This book series looks very interesting; I've heard good things about it, but it's not a minor investment of time or money, either. EW is one of those fascinating fields that has incredible depth and is both an art and a science.



EW 101 Amazon link

[Korvar]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

At that time, most USN SAM systems were combat ineffective -
we averaged 60 rounds per kill (and my ship only carried about 27 - 28 minus a practice round was typical). Not that
one defeats missiles by shooting them down. It is MUCH more efficient to use EW.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, look, curse, shoot, shoot, shoot...

Thankfully the kill ratios have improved, although it doesn't mean much when the PLAAF has several hundred Mig-21 derivatives and such that are essentially disposable - can you say ordinance sponge?

For instance, in the wargaming of a plausible invasion of Taiwan, our high-tech inventory does quite well up to the point where we run out of munitions, and the PLAN / PLAAF carry on with no bothers given. Saturation is the natural counter to limited munitions.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Yes - communications specialists do essentially the same thing - but
they don't do it as operations people - and they are not anti-air warfare specialists. But we have NOT faced
a peer enemy (until now - probably we face two of them today) - and we get away with fielding ships WITHOUT
even their point defense guns (when I went aboard USS Chung Hoon, her Phalanx platforms were empty - no funding
to fill them).

It's very alarming to me that the field of EW is treated so flippantly. I get the need for streamlining the service, but diminishing, if not net negative, returns are going to hit hard and fast when doing so with one of, if not THE, best force multipliers we have.

While the funds were still there, one of the best jobs most people never heard of was that of CIWS maintainer. A civilian contractor making six-figures, who is treated like royalty on board, all while sailing the world. Great for the contractor, not so much for budgets...

ORIGINAL: el cid again

USN usually leaves
TACAN on - any plane or ship with a commercial interrogator gets instant range and bearing from that! No need
to DF the signal. [I hard wired TACAN on my ship so it had a mode which seemed to be on but in fact was standby -
not able to transmit - because I could never get turning it off into an official EMCON plan; it was only on if I
thought no one might use it against us.] I used to try to train captains in EW - but they could not grasp why
one might want to turn radar off! It is like celestial navigation - we did away with it! [It was returned to
curriculum for officers only last year, a pleasant surprise. Someone has figured out war might not be play
nice nice.]

I get why we were 'sloppy' with EMCON in WW2 - a lack of understanding on both sides of a new dimension of warfare left a lot of wiggle room for mistakes. But it boggles the mind that SOP isn't EMCON silent until there is compelling justification for active emissions (such as a fixed facility the opponent is already well aware of and no immediate threat of AR weapons).

The huge training deficit relative to likely opponents is also very troubling. As you know, EW is a rapid game of leap-frogging, with the winner usually he who makes the last move, in the sense of the one who is able to employ the last effective countermeasure, wins. With that state of affairs, it's not hard to imagine that through technology and/or force readiness, when a peer state conflict goes hot, our opponents will be on average several counters ahead of us.

If you haven't already read it, I'm sure you will enjoy this cautionary tale.

[el cid again]

What about MiG-19s?? They have thousands of em - with 85% of flight hours remaining. [They sell em pretty cheap
- for double the cost they come FAA certified, legal to fly in the USA!] Many have been turned into pilotless drones
which could be used simply to complicate an air defense picture, or as targets in exercises, or as latter day
kamikaze attack aircraft without a pilot to sacrifice.

Note that virtually all counts of PLA missiles are counts of "firing units" (i.e. launchers) - because that is how US
and Russian treaties read and are measured. But China is not party to those deals and does NOT limit a launcher
to one round: a 'firing unit' has one transporter-erector, and one transporter with the next round ON SITE.
Two more transporters await 10-20 km away (per firing unit). A 'regiment' has four launchers but sixteen missiles
under its direct control. Brigade holds another sixteen to be sent to firing units which survive the early
combat. More exist at factories and other logistics sites supervised by command.

We have allowed 7th Fleet to become dangerously thin. Third Marine 'Division' is down to one regiment of its own,
and one composite unit made of a battalion from each of the First and Second Divisions. The Marine Air Wing assigned
to support it was down to one F/A-18 squadron - although it was supposed to get the very first operational
F-35 squadron (unclear if it is to replace or augment). While it has other assets, that isn't the size of
force implied by an air wing. It is MUCH better to deter adventurism and aggression rather than to react
because you failed to deter it. But we keep reducing what we maintain on station as the deterrent force.
And there is a problem saying "we don't have to fight" - indeed President Ford said "it is unthinkable we would
fight over Taiwan, now we recognize it as Chinese territory." But if the war starts per PLA doctrine and planning,
they will ATTACK our bases and ships - so we will be politically forced to fight. Stupid - a blockade - in the face
of US and allied passive acceptance - would break Taiwan within 90 days. But, no - the generals believe we will
come in any event - so better to start off by wiping out our forward air assets, and move before we can move
more into the theater. And note attacking bases on Okinawa brings Japan into the war automatically. Not
to deploy a sufficient deterrent force (for me ONLY conventional forces are real deterrents) is very unwise.

Thankfully the kill ratios have improved, although it doesn't mean much when the PLAAF has several hundred Mig-21 derivatives and such that are essentially disposable - can you say ordinance sponge?