I could have swore that some radar detectors were type specific. Maybe Im mixing up th einfo from all the books I read last year. I thought there were seperate detectors for air to ground and surface search, maybe not until later was there a unit or bundled unit for detecting both...maybe that was a US sub thing, its all running together in my head now.
Either way, I think there should certainly be differnet detection ranges with respect to air and surface radar. In theory aerial sources of radar would have line of sight from much farther out, while surface radar could be blocked by the horizon, preventing line of sight until the surface vessel is much closer.
Id think max range should be based on the DD/DEs radar mast height(maybe average hieght for the all DD/DEs if thats too complcated) and the height of the conning tower(maybe average height for Uboats). Whatever horizon range these values give should be the absolute max possible for that surface radar's range. The actual radar detector range would be roughly twice the radar users max effective detection range, provided it its less than the horizon range.
Example, lets say a DD has a radar that is determined to be effective out to 1000m, but the horizon range is 5000m, then the max uboat radar detector range would be about 2000m from the DD(double the radar user's effective range). But if the DD has a radar set that can in theory detect out to 6000m, it will only be able to detect ubouats out to the 5000m horizon, the uboat's radar detectors would also detect the DDs radar at about 5000m(maybe give or take 100m or so). Unfortunatly for the uboat detecting the DDs radar also means the DD has likly found him also.
On the other hand, uboat radar detectors would routinly detect allied air to ground search radar roughly twice the effective range of the allied air to ground search radar.
whew, im long winded...im sure all this is obvious anyway
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