Hello. Does anyone know a good resource about Radar Warfare during WW2 ? Especially interested about shipborne airborne radar development ( a source comprehensive but not too much tech detail ) centimetric milimetric radar technology and growing technological gap between Axis and Allies on that subject. Thanks
There has been a terrific collection of videos on WW2 RADAR Training and Information released recently on YouTube. See: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ww2+Radar&oq=ww2+Radar&gs_l=youtube.3..0.1087.2486.0.3630.5.5.0.0.0.0.84.351.5.5.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.iBGGl3s2n9k
Vectorsite hosts a particularly good history of WWII Electronic Warfare called The Wizard War: WW2 & the Origins of Radar. While the articles focus first on radar they addresses virtually every component of electronic warfare including radio navigation, communications, countermeasures, IFF systems, and even military applications of television in early AWACS. They're a lengthy read, but quite rewarding.
This is your lucky day. I own a $300.00 copy of the Radar Handbook by Merrill Skolnik. Editor in Chief, Naval Research Laboratory. The definitive book and Industry Standard in Radar Technology 1st edition, 1970. 1328 pages, Each chapter individually numbered. Plus Appendix. Plus Index. You need a magnifying glass to read each and every line in the book. That fine a print! I have not read it since 1970 when I bought it. But if you have any questions, fire away. Just be warned. It takes ages of research before individual questions can be answered. So be patient with me! It is just one of hundreds of books on WW2 that I have donated to the Vernon BC Legion Library: http://legion25vernon.webs.com/library.htm
As I recall the radar handbook is a textbook on radars not just their history but how they operate. Here's the amazon page. Lots of variability in the pricing: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_sabc?url=search-alias%3Daps&pageMinusResults=1&suo=1368102668065#/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=radar%20handbook%20skolnik&sprefix=radar+hand%2Caps%2C170&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aradar%20handbook%20skolnik Here's a more general page of books on radar history http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_sabc?url=search-alias%3Daps&pageMinusResults=1&suo=1368102668065#/ref=sr_nr_n_0?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aradar+history&keywords=radar+history&ie=UTF8&qid=1368102764&rnid=2941120011 The reviews may help you select the ones of interest. There's one I read not too long ago that I found very interesting but am having a hard time finding/remembering the title. Here's another list of radar books http://www.radarworld.org/books.html
Thank you they were great suggestions. What do you think about radar and electronic counter measures warfare during war ? Which side had the egde and why ? Axis or Allies ? I know that Japanese and Italian radar systems were primitive at least ( actually I am not even sure that Italian Armed Forces used radar or electronics warfare extensively ) but Germans gave Allies quite a race about long wave radar and countermeasure warfare. It is just they were left behind in short wave micro wave systems.
Over all I'd give the edge to the Allies especially at sea. Part of that though was the edge they had. While the KM fire control radars seem to be under appreciated indeed all of the KM radars may be operationally the allies felt free to use theirs pretty much all the time where the KM (and the IJN) were reluctant to use them for fear of giving away their posistions. By late war there were so many naval vessels equipped with radar and using for the allies I'm not sure the Axis could gain any info from radar intercepts. The British also were very aggressive with their ECM and intercept systems. I've not seen anything to indicate that the Axis demonstrated anything like that capability.
Somewhere on this forum, (though maybe ww2talk.com) just within the last day or two, I watched a YouTube Video Albert Speer interview. He said unequivocally that Germany had fully functional, very good Radar, by 1938. Keep your eyes out for it.
Over on the kbismarck boards radar has been discussed at some length and some pretty good cases have been made for early German radar especially being pretty good.
That's a new one for me! http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/ +1 Like. +1 to your reputation, if I could find it... Are these the threads you referred to? German radar at North Cape Radar type 284 British Handbook On The Use Of Radar For Gunnery Purposes
There is a strong proponent of German radar on that forum. He brings it up in just about any thread that addresses radar. I think he's a bit over board in some cases but he's made some pretty convincing arguments in others.
I once bookmarked a marvellous site from the RAF. On radar and coverage in ww2 around the UK. Can't find it anywhere now. But this site is pretty interesting. http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/british_radar_ww2_sir_robert_watsonwatt-111296
Try looking on the Internet Wayback machine. Fantastic service. http://archive.org/index.php http://archive.org/about/ "The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections, and provides specialized services for adaptive reading and information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities."
