Quote:
Originally Posted by rjmerit
Ok, I'm patrolling off the coast of Japan and during the day I get alot of planes flying around. So far what I do is; pick up the contacts on radar, if it looks like they'll come within sight (often do) I'll go to PD for about 7-8 minutes then come back up and continue on. Of course this works well, I don't get shot at, but is it realistic? Was sub based air search radar that accurate and reliable? What would be the tactics of sub commanders back then when traveling that close to the coast of Japan?
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An aircraft catching his sub on the surface was a skippers worst nightmare. The early SD radar was not too good. It only had a range of 6 miles or so and didn't have the ability to give range and bearing. You only knew a plane was there and whether it was closing on you BUT that was better than depending only on your lookouts. Later in the war a radar called SV radar was installed and it had much better range and could give range and bearing information.
As to the tactics of your situation, yes it is realistic in certain situations. I don't think a skipper would play day time hide and seek with aircraft so close to Japan under normal circumstances
unless he had a good reason, like he was doing an end around on a convoy or TF he contacted during the night or was on his way to an intercept point provided by MAGIC intelligence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjmerit
and only one works at a time so once your surface radar is "on" your air search is off.
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This is totally wrong. There is no way to turn air search on and off that I know of, but turning on your SJ does NOT turn off your SD and they both work fine together.