Early war escorts have radar enabled!!

jhelix70 · 04-23-07, 03:29 PM

This finding stems from the threads I began in the main forum and one about enemy sensors here in the mod forum. Basically I and others have noticed that Japanese escorts were spotting you first, way before you spot them. This is easily observable in the photo recon quick mission. Two destroyers guarding the entrance to the bay come beelining toward you well before they should have spotted you. The low profile of your sub should result in you spotting them first, not the other way around.

One idea I had was that the escorts were actually using radar. This would be nonhistorical because I believe Japanese escorts didn't get radar until very late, say 1945. The photo recon mission takes place in 1943.

I tested things in the photo recon quick mission. I first decided to test the radar theory, to get that out of the way, by altering the sim.cfg file. To my horror, by changing the [radar] Enemy surface factor (defines how much surface area must be presented to the sensor in order for detection) from 5 to 50000, normal behavior was restored. Now I spot the destroyers first, and they are on their normal patrol routes.

One important thing we have to determine is if this mistake just affects the missions, or do all Japanese escorts have radar in the campaign? I'm not sure how to look for that, but its disasterous for realism if they do.

In any case, you can bork the enemy radar by dramatically increasing the Enemy surface factor in the sim.cfg file. The disadvantage is that later in the war some escorts maybe should have primitive radar. But certainly not in '42-'43. In fact, "American experts placed Japan "four or five years behind" the United States in the development of radar."

04-23-07, 03:29 PM	#1
jhelix70 Sparky Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 152 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Early war escorts have radar enabled!! This finding stems from the threads I began in the main forum and one about enemy sensors here in the mod forum. Basically I and others have noticed that Japanese escorts were spotting you first, way before you spot them. This is easily observable in the photo recon quick mission. Two destroyers guarding the entrance to the bay come beelining toward you well before they should have spotted you. The low profile of your sub should result in you spotting them first, not the other way around. One idea I had was that the escorts were actually using radar. This would be nonhistorical because I believe Japanese escorts didn't get radar until very late, say 1945. The photo recon mission takes place in 1943. I tested things in the photo recon quick mission. I first decided to test the radar theory, to get that out of the way, by altering the sim.cfg file. To my horror, by changing the [radar] Enemy surface factor (defines how much surface area must be presented to the sensor in order for detection) from 5 to 50000, normal behavior was restored. Now I spot the destroyers first, and they are on their normal patrol routes. One important thing we have to determine is if this mistake just affects the missions, or do all Japanese escorts have radar in the campaign? I'm not sure how to look for that, but its disasterous for realism if they do. In any case, you can bork the enemy radar by dramatically increasing the Enemy surface factor in the sim.cfg file. The disadvantage is that later in the war some escorts maybe should have primitive radar. But certainly not in '42-'43. In fact, "American experts placed Japan "four or five years behind" the United States in the development of radar."