Quote:
Originally Posted by Torplexed
Indeed. The Japanese claimed to have built their first cavity magnetron as early as 1937, and by 1939 JRC had produced a 10cm 500W cavity magnetron. The British did not produce a comparable design until February 1940. However, lack of interest and support meant that Japan quickly lost its lead in this crucial technology. The first inklings of the military potential of radar did not come to the Japanese until late 1939, which was very late in the game.
Oh well, they did build some of the best torpedoes of the war.  |
That's a bit of an oversimplification, but to a certain extent, true. What the Japanese had at that time was a split-anode magnatron. The Japnese Radio Company began microwave research in 1932. The work was criticized for lack of a practical application but collaboration with the Navy Lab revitalized it. It wasn't the Cavity Magnatron but rather, a unique design that produced somewhat similar results. The 500W 10cm design wasn't actually realized until April 1939, but it was definitely a working microwave design.
It's a rather complicated affair which cannot be adaquately explained with my very limited typing skills, not to mention all the boring technical terms, some of which I don't fully grasp myself.
Still, in all fairness, I should mention that in 1936 & 1937, two Soviet scientists (N.F. Alekseev and D.D. Malairov) produced a series of Cavity Magnatrons as part of a AA gun laying research project. For some unexplainable reason, they discarded the Cavity Magnatron in favor of a pulsed transmitter that used VHF triodes on 64cm and 12kw peak power. This system was code named "Zenith" and it too was discarded in 1940.
Also, the abandonment of their cavity magnatron research lead to their research papers being published publicly. Those published papers were a complete disclosure of the elements of the cavity magnatron.
Go figure.
Coincidentally, the first microwave radar prototype (a horn type design), on any IJN warship, was during the battle of Midway. However, that warship (a battleship) was anchored in a Japanese harbor at the time.