[Bruce Dennis]

Originally Posted by edwest

Referring to the late 1930s:

The Germans were generally about a year ahead of the Americans.

....

In 1939 the German and American prototypes were superior to the British except for CD/CHL, which was a typical dipole array on 1.5 m. Neither Germany or the United States had a significant number of operational sets in 1939..."

Ed

Hello Ed, I read your extract from ‘A Radar History of World War II’ and have a problem with accepting the conclusion stated without some qualification. I find the parallels described in the quote from ‘A Radar History of World War II’ surprising. In 1939 America had nothing comparable to the various German sets. These were operational at the same time as the American sets which were, at best, undergoing operational testing. Much as Kurfürst has already said, one party was at war and the other wasn’t. If one looks ahead, there was no superiority (or parity for that matter) of US equipment until later with the introduction of the 10cm sets.

Choosing a date is important if the intention is to compare progress, and as far as American progress in radar development goes, the most significant point in time is more to do with funding and patronage than with a single technical breakthrough. In the spring of 1941, funding was agreed, from official as well as private sources, for MIT to continue the Radiation Laboratory work on 10cm equipment suitable for mass production. By autumn, military reticence was fading and orders for operational, not experimental, sets for ground, sea and air service were realistically expected. The source of future funding now shifted from ‘discrete sources’ (the White House under-the-counter budget) to Congress. The vast manufacturing facilities of the US could now be applied to radar, enabling equipment to be installed on aircraft production lines instead of by specialist technicians after acceptance at squadron level. (This is a slightly oversimplified version as there were other factors, but this was where the main savings in aircraft installations were to be found) Even though they hadn’t yet materialised, making it possible to accept Lend-Lease orders for radar equipment was part of FDR’s plan to prepare America for war and this meant appointing a supremo to oversee all of America’s war-related research and development. The man who took on this role was Vannevar Bush, chairman of the National Defence Research Committee (NDRC) since it was formed in June 1940. Virtually every American radar research project with military applications lived or died on his word of approval, and he was the right person for the job.

The unification and monitoring of the industry under the NDRC brought an efficiency and focus to the separate endeavours of the R & D labs around the USA. One of the first tasks of the NDRC was to conduct a survey of Army and Navy research activities and evaluate where the strengths and weaknesses lay. Most importantly, he ensured that the pure gold delivered by the British Technical and Scientific Mission (commonly known as the Tizard Mission) of August/September 1940 was put to best use, for example by preventing duplication of effort and also pairing up separate investigations that had common elements. Both the US and Britain had independently developed systems, CXAM and CHL, almost identical to each other and each completely unaware of the other. The US had better receivers, the British had airborne radar and IFF, but the star of the show was the cavity magnetron, which produced power approximately 1000 times greater than the best vacuum tube available at the time for use on US 10cm radar devices. Bell Labs, MIT and Stanford University had all been conducting advanced research on microwaves and they were able to immediately take on board the British data. The cavity magnetron was now out of the hands of the hard-pressed British labs and was eagerly adapted by a well directed organisation dedicated to finding as many uses as possible for this new wonder.

When war came to America, the many different universities, corporate labs and independent scientists were already gelled into a network of unparalleled potential. By 1942 mass produced Allied radar components were a fact of life and their superior characteristics were the result of the joining of forces of the British and American products.

Bruce