Did IJN ships have DF or radar warning gear?

[tater]

Japanese DF capability was supposed to be decent, but I'm unsure of their capabilites at sea. Certainly this capability was an assumption of prewar USN doctrine, and why our subs kept quiet.

Radar detection is more vague, though I seem to recall reading about attempted setups (using radar) that the US skipper thought was detected.

I ask because all the sns files have blank spots for DF and radar detection gear...

tater

[CanadianSilentHunter]

Originally Posted by tater

Japanese DF capability was supposed to be decent, but I'm unsure of their capabilites at sea. Certainly this capability was an assumption of prewar USN doctrine, and why our subs kept quiet.

Radar detection is more vague, though I seem to recall reading about attempted setups (using radar) that the US skipper thought was detected.

I ask because all the sns files have blank spots for DF and radar detection gear...

tater

Tater I know we've had our disagreements in the past ( I'll even give you that the zero is only a fighter, 99.99 % of the time) DF while at sea was of a hit and miss variety when it came to the IJN. I've never heard of them having much luck with radar, especially earlier in the war and at sea. Don't hold me to that, but when I'm at the library tomorrow I will check this out furthur. I'll get back to you tommorow.

[tater]

Cool. I looked in the sensors dat file, and I cant see DF or RWR stuff in there though, so it might be moot.

I was thinking more of just "detection" rather than location, really. Probably very late war.

tater

[Packerton]

Ahh a Fellow Canaidian

How are ya?

[-Pv-]

I have read accounts of IJN using radar detection for US subs near the end of the war. The story of the Shinano sinking mentions detecting the US sub radar (they KNEW it was a US military radar and suspected it was a sub) which instigated an attempt by one of the escorts to find the sub which nearly succeded until the carrier captain got nervous and called the escort back in fear of a possible wolfpack.
-Pv-

[nematode]

Japanese land based RDF was excellent. It's possible that that capability was instrumental in the loss of Amberjack, Grampus, and Triton during Adm Fife's early 43 "playing checkers with submarines" campaign, in which he required the boats to maintain more frequent radio contact than was the norm.

However Japanese shipborne RDF capability was not as good, certainly nowhere near the level of sophistication achieved by the Allies. My impression is that crews on IJN ships could fairly regularly intercept radio transmissions from nearby Allied subs, and make decently accurate assumptions about their proximity, but not bearing.

The Japanese had shipborne radar warning receivers; both metric- and centimetric-wavelength RWR's were operational by April 1944, and they slowly found their way into the fleet. Late 44 might be considered the date at which they were in fairly widespread use. Capabilities as follows:

E-27 (Kai-3) detected radar signals of 0.75-4.0 meters at ranges up to 300km using non-directional antennae mounted on each side of the bridge plus a "Racket" style antenna mounted on a rotatable pedestal to determine bearing of signal. 2500 units were delivered.

Model 3 (3 Gata) detected radar signals of 3-75 centimeters through a small directional bridge-mounted parabolic antenna. 200 units were delivered.

I don't have much operational data on the use of these devices within the IJN, and in particular, how many centimetric-wavelength RWR sets were installed, and by when. A fleet full of meter-wavelength RWRs in 1944 would have done them very little good.

[tater]

I figured out how to add sensors just now.

Now I need to see if the RWR and DF nodes were just stuff they planned to add but never did.

tater

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by tater

I figured out how to add sensors just now.

Now I need to see if the RWR and DF nodes were just stuff they planned to add but never did.

I imagine the RWR ones should work. SH3 makes extensive use of RWR sets, so I imagine the coding for them is still in the engine. After all, if they can fit German surface ship radar to sampans...