SD Radar

[Bubblehead1980]

Could SD Radar tell the altitude of a aircraft? I know it was on directional, could only give a range, no bearing. Read it was referred to as kind of a "trip wire" for aircraft which come into proximity of a submarine. Never read if it was capable of telling altitude or not. Figured someone here may know or have a resource I have not looked over.

[EddieLyons]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

Could SD Radar tell the altitude of a aircraft? I know it was on directional, could only give a range, no bearing. Read it was referred to as kind of a "trip wire" for aircraft which come into proximity of a submarine. Never read if it was capable of telling altitude or not. Figured someone here may know or have a resource I have not looked over.

As it was fitted with an omnidirectional antenna (radiating radio energy in all directions simultaneously), by definition it had no capability to determine either bearing or altitude.

Take a look at the "Radar Operator's Manual" here for the SD radar (https://archive.org/details/tm-11-46...&wrapper=false), pp.262-267 (out of 363 pages on the navigation strip at the bottom of the screen).

Under "Performance" it states that large planes above 1000 ft were detected at 12-20 miles, small planes above 1000 ft at 8-15 miles, and low planes were "not detected". Therefore, lookouts were to "be alert for aircraft flying at low elevations during daylight hours".

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by EddieLyons

As it was fitted with an omnidirectional antenna (radiating radio energy in all directions simultaneously), by definition it had no capability to determine either bearing or altitude.

Take a look at the "Radar Operator's Manual" here for the SD radar (https://archive.org/details/tm-11-46...&wrapper=false), pp.262-267 (out of 363 pages on the navigation strip at the bottom of the screen).

Under "Performance" it states that large planes above 1000 ft were detected at 12-20 miles, small planes above 1000 ft at 8-15 miles, and low planes were "not detected". Therefore, lookouts were to "be alert for aircraft flying at low elevations during daylight hours".

What I thought. Thanks for the link

I am going to try and make the SD radar a bit more realistic in V2.0 of the mod. No way around it being directional unfortunately, if limit its "rotation" then basically planes outside of its rotation will never be detected.

Can play with the altitude factor and make it where SD does not detect below 1000 ft.


Attempting to implement something from FOTRS into TMO , where SD radar can be turned on and off instead of always being on.

Some ships and planes, including land based radar sites and observation posts at certain point in war will get radar warning equipment (as japanese did based on german models in exchange program), so player will need to use radar with more discretion as subs actually did. I've improved visual sensors as they were far too limited, so player can can track ships at longer ranges, if you can see them, then your lookouts can, especially useful tracking convoy via the smoke at a distance before SJ and if dont want to leave SJ on all the time. As a consequence, can depending on conditions, spot aircraft a little earlier.