[akdavis]

Originally Posted by heartc

It is vise-versa: The surface to air radar (SD) returns also surface contacts. Not with exact range, but with exact bearing and "short/medium/long" range information. That's quite a biggy, since it took the subs a while to get surface search radar, while SD was available from early on and is so in the game. Also, SD was only capable of providing range to air contacts, not bearing.

That is separate issue unrelated to the displays. However, the SJ radar does display air contacts on both the A-scope and PPI display. This can be seen easily in the Artillery training mission. Possibly SD radar information is being incorrectly fed to the SJ radar displays. I suppose someone could do a mission edit to set up a sub with SJ radar but without SD radar and test this.

However, my theory is that they are actually the same issue. I'm thinking there is no substantial difference between SD, SJ and SJ-1 radar other than access to the displays, i.e. installing SJ radar simply makes the displays and commands active. This would explain both why SD radar returns range and bearing information and surface contacts, and why when you turn off SJ radar, your displays go blank, but your crew continues to feed you surface contact information.

Now here is how things should be in summary:
-SD radar: range and relative motion only. Range greatly shortened. No surface contacts (save possibly very close). Able to be detected by enemy with RI gear as all radar should. Able to be turned on/off. (should this have an A-scope type display? don't know)
-Improved SD: unknown? Is this supposed to be SV radar? If so, it should not be available until 1945.
-SJ radar: A-scope display only.
-SJ-1 radar: A-scope and PPI displays.
-oh, and radar should function regardless of your sub's compass heading.

Some things missing needed for full implementation of radar:
-bearing indication at radar station (sonar has that little notepad, but why not radar).
-ability to send surface contact bearing and range to TDC and orders for crew to do so.
-same orders as available as sonar (report contact/track contact).
-ability to scan only a sector with surface-search radar and receive more precise and timely information (i.e. scan only forward quarter, etc.)
-land should return a signal, should make finding targets near shoreline very difficult. land should be visible in plan form on PPI display, providing aid to navigation.
-ST radar: antenna in periscope. Used to capture precise range to target to be fed to TDC, just as with the stadimeter.
-SV air-search radar (or at least proper time for this if same as improved SD)