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Originally Posted by tedhealy
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Originally Posted by perisher
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Originally Posted by Bando
There is something with the radar contacts though. When a warship pops up it's identified by the radaroperator as a warship (it's a diamant shape). How do they know that???
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An experienced operator could tell a great deal from the return echo on his screen. He wouldn't always be able to differentiate between a warship and a merchant but sometimes he could. There are many references to this in the literature of the period. Additionally if the target is emitting its own radar transmissions it can only be a warship. |
Yeah, I've read that too. At the very least something like relative ship size could be figured out from the PPI.
Speaking of the radar, is there any interference or reduced range when it rains heavily? |
It may well be possible they could tell, but it should take time in my opinion. Now they just know at the very first moment. I mean when a convoy is detected, it is not too difficult to tell which are the warships, but 2 DD's on patrol in a formation 1 (one sailing right behind the other) sailing at 13 knots could be anything on the radar.
I've been following the thread about range rings on the PPI and being a WIP they are attending to interference on the radar screen. I don't know if they will connect interference with the weather system, it's an interesting idea....