Was the radar harmful to the watch crew?

[maillemaker]

With the radar with the rotating mast, the mast is right up there with the watch crew. Did the radiation from the radar harm the watch crew?

Steve

[Herr-Berbunch]

I'll say it it wouldn't have been the best place to be, certainly not for prolonged periods.

[Marcello]

Generally the Kriegsmarine was paranoid about radar giving off their units positions so it was not used that much. A FuMO-30 was rated 8-10 Kw which would be equivalent to about as many microwave ovens in terms of output power, but the wave lenght was 81,5 cm. Frankly in the late war environment I suspect it would not be high on my list of concerns.

[maillemaker]

But strangely standing watch didn't seem so cold anymore... :)

Steve

[RConch]

But strangely standing watch didn't seem so cold anymore... :)

Steve


Now that is funny!:salute:

[flag4]

Generally the Kriegsmarine was paranoid about radar giving off their units positions so it was not used that much. A FuMO-30 was rated 8-10 Kw which would be equivalent to about as many microwave ovens in terms of output power, but the wave lenght was 81,5 cm. Frankly in the late war environment I suspect it would not be high on my list of concerns.


interesting answer, thank you.:up:

[Gustav Schiebert]

The wavelengths would not be harmful to humans - microwaves are technically only found between 1 GHz to 100 GHz, whereas the FuMO's on a U-Boat were never greater than 82 MHz.

Even within those 'microwave' brackets, the power has to be very high to cause any health effects - and even then, the effects are short-term (ie burns) rather than any long-term effects associated with ionizing radiation, which is I suspect what you were after?

So radio waves like these are harmless.

The issue with that is, of course, that due to the casualty rates in the U-Boat force in World War 2, the number of survivors (about ten thousand) would not be large enough to observe any statistically valid health patterns in later life - so if for some freak reason contrary to medical knowledge it did cause any problems, we would almost certainly never know about it.

[maillemaker]

I was just remembering that the F15 or something has a safety switch that shuts down the radar when the wheels are on the ground. Evidently it puts out enough power to cook a turkey in 30 seconds or some such.

I guess the uboat radar was pretty low power.

As an aside, I shall whine and say that I find radar in the game to be pretty useless. It broadcasts your position far more than it finds things in range. And if you have map updates turned off you have to manually man and use the radar to find things. By the time you've jiggered with it long enough to get a hit and determine range and bearing you will probably have a visual sighting.


The stuff mounted on the front of the tower is even more useless. The time you really want it is in low visibility which is usually rough seas, and if a wave touches the radar array it shuts off. Which means the radar keeps shutting itself down about every 15 seconds.

Steve

[Marcello]

I was just remembering that the F15 or something has a safety switch that shuts down the radar when the wheels are on the ground. Evidently it puts out enough power to cook a turkey in 30 seconds or some such.Going by published stats your run of the mill fighter radar is still rated few Kw like the FuMO-30 (bar exceptions like the Mig-25 that can pump out half Megawatt or thereabout). I would suspect that the wavelenght/frequencies would be a bit more dangerous though.


As an aside, I shall whine and say that I find radar in the game to be pretty useless. As noted the Kriegsmarine had little enthusiasm for radar, so it is not a suprise that by the time they figured out it was not an extra gizmo to keep turned off they had some catching up to do before producing useful sets suitable for subs. That even heavy cruisers and battleships were fitted with purpose built large GHG arrays for detection, despite the obvious self noise issues, should tell you something about their degree of paranoia.