The Ultimate Allied Weapon of WWII? - Radar and Aircraft Detection
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- Опубликовано: 9 авг 2022
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While feats of engineering such as the Supermarine Spitfire or the Lancaster might be traditionally thought of as the cornerstones of Britain’s aerial defenses throughout WWII, one often overlooked piece of the puzzle doesn’t get the attention it deserves. You see, having superior fighters is critically important to winning air superiority, but having superior muscle isn’t the most important aspect of the war business. No, in fact, with the right advantages, even an inferior force might emerge victories with the right information. That’s why, today, we’ll be looking at the most underrated piece of kit during WWII. The radio detecting and ranging equipment, or RADAR.
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congrats on getting a sponsor amigo! I'd have to say that ULTRA was the most underrated important piece of kit in the Alllied WWII holster
Great video! It’s always interesting to see new historical documentaries relating to early radar systems and technology.
Im lucky enough to manage an old property in Virginia where Alfred Loomis would go to escape his work at Tuxedo Park and later the MIT “Rad Lab” - owners of the property had no clue of the historical value till I had tracked down a few documents listing Henry and Alfred Loomis. He was pretty much the pioneer of microwave radar (and ultrasound, and LORAN, etc etc) - just amazing individuals.
There are a few remaining hints of their involvement with the war effort here (even though this property was strictly a “get away” location) such as a huge walk-in metal-lined safe in the basement, and a number of bizarre phone lines and systems including connections for early encrypted phones and a “red line”. I was told any location the president was authorized to visit was required to have one of these hard lines installed.
Just an interesting glimpse into the life of a single individual who was a part tens of thousands contributing to the war effort through technology and innovation all around the country.
Chain home wasn't just down to Robert Watson Watt the biggest driver of the system was Sir Hugh Dowding, the fully integrated system is know as the Dowding system. American radar development was 5 years behind the UK (according to the American scientists working on it) it was the supply of the cavity magnatron by the UK that brought them up to speed and allowed them to develop things like the proximity fuse and asw radar the helped win the Battle of the Atlantic
Excellent video btw
The german navy did use radar early on. The Graf Spee, sunk off Montevideo in 1939, had a radarantenna on its mast. The Brits invented the cavity magnotron, and used it in the H2S onboard radar from summer 1943 on. But a good video you have made, I liked it.
And the corollary to that is that the Germans were behind with radar in the later stages of the war despite getting into the field ahead of the British with the early Seetakt sets, but as you pointed out the Cavitry Magnetron was the breakthrough as it allowed the Allies to develop centimetric radar where as prior to that point only metric radar existed.
The issue was H2S as the fear that was proven was the loss of one of the sets would alert the Germans to centimetric radar and why the British resisted the use of it in Bomber Command.
After which we get a very convoluted measure and counter measure war of Allied vs German developments in the use of radar and radar detection apparatus.
The Graf Spee radar was recovered by the RN, currently in a small museum at HMS Collingwood. It's an interesting piece of kit.
Chain Home was a pulsed radar, but I don't think that it was a pulsed doppler radar. If I remember correctly, pulsed doppler radars require some advanced signal processing circuitry that wouldn't come around until later.
Days of pre-transistor magamps, basically electrically controlled wound transformers. Valves, vane capacitors, etc..
You're right here re Chain Home, it wasn't a doppler system, but I googled it and doppler radar was starting to emerge in the 40s! Amazing!
Chain Home was such a poor system that when the Germans sent a blimp to spy on it before the war they determined that whatever it was it wasn't early warning radar, when they first picked up the signal from it they actually thought their own equipment was malfunctioning, then when they finally determined that what they were picking up was indeed a signal from the towers they were comparing it to their own radar and determined that it was so crappy there was no way it was part of an early warning system, they thought it was for analyzing clouds or weather or something like that over the channel.
And the usefulness of Chain Home during the war was greatly exaggerated after the war for propaganda and political reasons, it wasn't Chain Home that made a difference in the Battle of Britain, it was the human eyes of the coast watchers combined with the people in what was called the "filter room" in the headquarters where all the air defense information poured into, it was the people working in the filter room who sorted through all the information so that it could be presented to the people running the show who made a difference, not some primitive radar system that probably gave more bad information than it did good.
Google "Deflating British RADAR myths of WW2" it's a free PDF download of a paper written for the US war college by a Major task with doing the research on the matter back in the 90's, in it he discusses the German spy missions with blimps usìng cloud cover before the war to try figuring out what the mysterious towers built on England's coast were for and how because the signal from it was so poor they determined it couldn't possibly be an early warning radar system.
The real heroes were the people who manned the coastal watch stations and the people in the filter room who sorted through all the incoming information and determined what was usable and what was irrelevant.
@@dukecraig2402 That's a very limited paper. Nary a mention of H2S...
Radar and radio navigation were new technology for both sides during WW2, and both sides made hesitant mistakes (e.g. on the use of chaff). The fact is that the British were ultimately better at playing the electronic warfare game, both in terms of technical development, and in terms of rolling it out in technological campaigns aligned to bombing campaigns.
One example of a technical development unmatched by the Germans was H2S, who remained powerless against it for the duration of its use in the war.
And, there was a lot of bluff involved that the British proved to be better at. They managed to fool the Germans into thinking that their jamming of the radar on Malta was ineffective (it worked, but the Germans were fooled into switching it off soon afterwards). The Germans were also hoodwinked into chasing / jamming a fraudulent radio navigation system called Jay whilst the British actually using a different system called Gee. Once the Germans realised that they'd been had, they ignored Jay, which remained a useful homing system for bombers for the rest of the war.
To give you an idea about what got developed, at the start of the war a Lancaster carried a radio, and that was it. By the end of the war, Lancasters could be carrying upwards of 2 tons of electronics of one sort or other, just to be able to operate over German air defences.
A lot of this electronic payload found its way more or less unchanged into the Avro Vulcan (though Vulcan added significantly in the ECM department - it had a pretty powerful jammer), and proved effective in the exercises to test US air defences. Even by the 1960s, US air defence systems were not a match for British airborne electronic warfare systems that dated back to WW2 (see "When Britain Nuked America Twice", or anything else on Exercise Skyshield).
Excellent video! Technological developments were accelerated during the war and I find all of it fascinating.
Onboard aircraft night-fighters radar development was amazing, rapid. Newer and more able systems coming every few months. The version for the Mosquito night-fighter eventually, perfect for the job at the time.
Very interesting video!
I understand you (wisely) limited yourself to Allied electronic warfare in WWII, but it feels like there’s a part 2 here about the German strategic focus of using the technology offensively to guide their bombers to target, the British attempts to subvert that in the “Battle of the Beams” and how the RAF 1,000 bomber steams overwhelmed the relatively thin German organisation of their defensive systems despite their technical excellence. Maybe including airborne RADAR for night fighters as that became a significant part of the electronic air war over Europe in the latter years of WWII?
A good point! Maybe we will get some more 'EWDojo' videos soon :--)
I could listen to the history of Radar tech for hours, you should consider new episodes for future wars!
There's a sound mirror in a housing estate in Redcar in the northeast of England.
TFP. RAAF said 'R double-A F'
Glad to see you are pulling in sponsors. Your videos are quality.
11:00 the reason that the % “loss” of British pilots during the Battle of Britain was so much less than the Germans was that the British were fighting over home territory. So all German crew shot down were KIA or POW, whereas surviving British crew from shoot-downs went back to to their units. This is not an effect of RADAR.
Briefly mentioned was the integrated air defence system that the British developed in the early 1930s. The RAF gentleman responsible for developing this system also by pure luck happen to be in charge of Fighter command during the Battle of Britain, Hugh Dowding. The channels of communication in receiving the information, in a timely manner and commanding the launching of interceptor aircraft is and directly targeting the enemy bombers has to be the major reason the Britain survived the Battle of Britain. A year later the US had not appreciated this major British development of the integrated air defence system much to their detriment at Pearl Harbour.
This channel is the best Presented channel I’ve come across ..
Germany had radar also. Allied bombers began to test aluminum chaff due to this. There were also german night fighter aircraft equipped with radar.
What Germany didn't obtain, attain, was gun laying radar and radar anti-aircraft and artillery shells that had internal radar transmitters and received bounce back via their own metal shell jacket. And detonate by proximity by the doppler effect. Radar aimed the guns, shells radar ranged the target and detonated within several feet. Extremely effective against V-1 buzzbombs, and even more so against infantry. Where air burst shells detonated 50ft overhead by ranging the ground as they descend. As seen in the Ardennes after D-day.
The British were still landing troops in western France whilst the evacuation at Dunkirk was going on. These trips had to be withdrawn once France surrendered. The last organised evacuation were in August 1940
Another important and often neglected fact Neil - thank you for posting it.
The invention, sharing and mass production between allies of the cavity magnetron is an interesting read all on its own.
same with early anti radar tech such as 'window'.
Are you aware that the Germans had their own version of Window called Düppel. They created their version at about the same time butbchise not to use it in case we had the same stuff. About six weeks after Operation Gomorah they used Düppel against the UK with limited success.
Great work Sir thank you
The most important element of it all though was the existing information dissipation network, put in during the 20's and 30's, to relay the information received by the "sound mirrors" and various observer corps stations to the RAF's sector stations. For more info on this you can do no better than to source a book called "Echoes from the sky" written by Richard Scarth.
Heeeeey, good job with your first sponsorship👍
Hmmm - I'll say that I listen in awe to your engine videos, but feel you could have expanded your video on this topic quite easily.
There was no mention of Allied air to ground radar that was so useful in defeating the U-Boats, or of H2S ground scanning radar, or of AI sets that served to defeat night bombers, and eventually take on German night fighters, or of naval radar that let the Allies do so much damage to the Kriegsmarine and the Italian navy. This was a shame as I think your proposal is correct, but there is an awful lot more that radar did for the Allies that wasn't included.
I almost agree with the title of your video - except that I could say it was electronics that was the winning weapon - the ability to miniaturise and mass produce reliable electronic devices in their various forms, that really helped the Allies defeat the Axis.
If I could add, radar by itself didn't win the Battle of Britain, it would not have been effective without the the integrated air defence system, the Dowding system. This also relied on hundreds of RAOC visual observers, and sigint to control the interceptions and manage aircraft resources. Germany entered the war with a similar radar capacity as the UK (not England), and its moment came when the Allied bomber offensive grew in size. It fell behind when the UK developed the cavity magnetron, but still managed to field a competitive AI capacity in its night fighters.
I hope that comes across as constructive - and I will look forward to the next video as always.
Another Great Video !!
Great video. One of the disinformation acts from Britain was carrots being good for the eyes. This was their reason for their pilots being so good. You really have some top notch videos. Keep up the good work.
Cracking the German and Japanese codes was also a huge advancement in intelligence.
Great video...👍
Excellent.
Great video.
The width of your thumb nail at arm’s length is about one degree or 17 milliradians, just to make the numbers a bit more ordinary. It doesn’t work if you have huge arms and tiny hands.
RA RA go USA. BTW the vast majority of the uhf tech came from Marconi Chelmsford UK.
Sure the US did a brilliant job of developing and mass producing it, but it is a bit disingenuous to pronounce that the US invented it.
The valves the tooling and control gear were all under development in the UK.
The UK were at war and too busy producing war material so freely gave this tech away.
0.75 X playback speed made the dense stream of numbers and frequencies near the end more digestible.
Interesting vid, but you missed out the 3Ghz & 9Ghz H2S aircraft radars, good vid though, also there's what's left of a Chain Home station just a few miles from me at Stenigot in Lincolnshire.
I’m curious what the German’s were using for RADAR.
The Germans made air defence radar, but this came in later when the Allies had started turning the war around and started bombing Europe / Germany. They developed things like Wurzburg radar - pretty good piece of kit.
What the Germans had very early was radio navigation for bombers, which made their bombing raids very accurate and destructive. The "Battle of the Beams" is as much a significant component of the Battle of Britain as anything else.
There's an excellent book by RV Jones, "Most Secret War" that sets out the whole electronic war that developed. It's readily available.
nice
Well made video, but not once mentioning the german "Wuerzburg Riese". Any reason?
For some people, the use of the word MegaHertz might seem daunting and foreign. FM radio uses frequencies from 88 to 107 MegaHertz and "fits" between what used to the gap between TV channels 6 & 7. While NOT in the Microwave range (1.42 GigaHertz -ish), these very high (VHF) and ultra high (UHF) devices NEEDED 'solid-state' electronics. No physically moving parts could generate the frequency AND radiant power these radars used for very long. Considering that only few decades earlier 3300 KHz (3.3 KiloHertz) was "advanced".
Radar is the most "under appreciated piece of kit," during WWII? ... .... I don't think so.
Early mechanical radar, sorry, 'radar' - huge blocks of shaped concrete. Useless in strong winds. Captain Hindsight out.
The intro pic...it's interesting how the spitfire went with a tucked in canopy for aero, rather than a bubble for visibility...but then tucked in a big, flat rear view mirror
And the tail wheel hanging out in the breeze....
Have a look at the history of bubble canopies, I am not sure they came along till much later in the war, eg the P-47 and P-51 started in the same way. Check out Greg's Aeroplanes channel for assessments of what really causes drag on an airframe if it interests you :-)
Because Spitfires were iterative designs to cut down on production time, cost and parts availability. Thus after the war you had monsters like the Spitfire Mk 22 and Mk 24 which look and fly nothing like the earlier Marks.
The bulged Malcolm canopy as seen on this MkIXb was being used on Spitfires before the start of hostilities in 1939. The Spitfire didn't get a retractable tail wheel until the Mk VII. The Mark IX didn't get this as the Mk IX was an interim fighter rushed intomservice to counter the FW190.
Of course no mention that the cavity magnetron was a British invention developed at Birmingham University by Randal and Boote, and given over freely almost as soon as it was invented to the Americans. You make it sound like it was an American invention. Nor do you mention it was the first centimetric airborne radar system (H2S) used in RAF heavy bombers like the Lancaster and Halifax
Skip to 3:00 to avoid the annoying advert of a silly computer game.
11:06 More than 900 ?!?!?! That's A LOT !
I have never heard of total numbers of Battle of Britain but after always hearing Britain did great I supposed they lost something like handful (say around 100 or something) fighters. 900+ is all the air force they started with. And while fighting on home turf with all the advantages. And their exchnage rate is less than 2:1 ?! Jesus Christ....
It was a close run thing indeed. Every little bit helped, including Chain Home.
Another little advantage was gun cameras. The RAF had them, the Luftwaffe didn't. This played a significant role. The British had a pretty accurate assessment of the damage it was causing to the Luftwaffe, thanks to the cameras and also the wreckage accumulated on the ground.
The Luftwaffe didn't, because it was relying solely on the reports of its pilots as to how many they'd shot down. And they exaggerated, even if done unintentionally. Rounds seen hitting a Spitfire and smoke coming out does not necessarily mean it crashed, a fair few landed and could be repaired.
This meant the Germans misjudged their success, and wrongly concluded that the RAF fighter force had been all but wiped out and switched to bombing London too early, the Blitz. Whilst this was terrible for Londoners, it was a big respite for the RAF fighter force who came back to strength far quicker than the Germans anticipated.
This meant that the Blitz, damaging as it was, was limited and failed to wipe out British industry, Britain remained viable as a fighting force, and the threat of invasion receded.
And if we look back to that time, mostly Churchill was seeking to show the world / USA that we weren't done yet. Surviving the Blitz and beginning to fight back was a key moment in history.
Contrary to propaganda I think the French were quite content to have their corrupt government removed for them.
Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ forever Amen.