METOX Detectable by Allied Aircraft
 

Playing over at Wolves at War, we are at the stage of the war where many of the boats are now installing the METOX radar detection device.

One of the fellows complained that when he used METOX he actually had more aircraft attacking him. To quote one of the other players:

The site he refers to is:

http://www.uboataces.com/

The big question here is, "Does anyone know if this is modeled into the game?"

Thanks

Take this with a grain of salt, as I'm going from memory :

Metox was not really detected by allied aircraft. What happened is that the allies were, at the time, changing to another wave length for their radar, a wavelenght that Metox could not detect.

The british pilot was asked if they used Metox to home in on U-boat. He said yes, that the metox radiations could be detected for hundred of miles - He was BSing at a hundred miles an hour, and got lucky that the German believed him.

As far as I know, Metox wasn't used to home in on submarines. It just created a false sense of safety, that the allies, with their now-undetectable radar, capitalized upon.

But you might want to check some sources, just to be sure.

I appreciate the input.

I myself have watched aircraft at long distance disappear from sight so I am not so sure that they are picking it up. I was just lucky that they didn't spot me.

Still, if anyone else knows for sure, 100%, would be nice to know.

Thanks again.

You can read in the book "Iron coffins", from Herbert A. Werner, that Meteox was, indeed, detected by aicraft which could that way detect submarines even easier.

I also would like to know if that is modelled in the game...

Fianlly did some research.

Uboat.net's page on radar detector

Basically, no, the Brits never detected the Metox. It could, theorically, have been done, but it never happened.

If you still have doubt, try to find the name of the device the allied used for this purpose. You'll search for a long time ; it doesn't exist.

Don't forget Werner made many mistakes in his book ( it's still great ).
Metox was NOT detected by allied aircraft.

Metox was not detectable by the allies, it could theoretically be detected (it did emmit some radiation...like all electronic devices). The allies effectively deceived the Germans into believing that Metox was giving away their U-Boats, when in fact the allies had switched to centimetric radar, which the Germans did not detect for an additional few months as they focused on making Metox non-radiating.

Re: METOX Detectable by Allied Aircraft
 

I believe it is!!

No, I don't think it could be. In fact I'm not even sure whether the enemy even has actual radar detectors - I'm yet to see confirmation of this in the game.

As far as air strikes, there is simply no dynamic factors other than time of day, being within sight of an enemy surface unit and/or having been sighted by it, having been attacked by another plane recently, and radio messages sent that actually have any influence on the appearance of aircraft. :hmm:

Concerning the history, METOX was never detectable by the Allies, looks like that pilot's story is still fooling people, plus that website is repeating that story as history which is even worse. :nope: I think I'll drop them a note.

It was not detectable. Metox was only a receiver, of the passive type - to detect radar waves of the earlier types. It was the arrival of the 10cm radar sets in large #'s that threw the Germans off. They went on believing that 10cm radar was impossible until they picked one out of the wreckage of a British plane and turned the thing on.

The story about the British pilot b.s.'ing them is true - and as to the website that is perpetuating the erroneous info: that's the difference between history buffs and historians. Check your sources!

Got an e-mail from the site: they fixed their wrong information, very good of them look here: http://www.uboataces.com/radar-warning.shtml
:know:

Pays to let the webmasters know, if they are serious they'll correct it.