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Old 10-14-21, 12:53 PM   #10
Aktungbby
Gefallen Engel U-666
 
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3-4. The value of aircraft radar in anti-submarine work, both for search and blind attack, was also well recognized.Here again, their equipment was decidedly inferior and pilots generally were either poorly trained or lacked confidence in its use and are reported to have

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had but little success in radar bombing attacks. Airborne radar was first used in medium bombers as early as September 1943, but there was no large-scale employment of radar-equipped planes for anti-submarine work until the fall of 1944. Their equipment was reported to have been capable of detecting a surfaced submarine at a range of twelve miles. However, Japanese doctrine called for use of airborne radar only during night or low visibility conditions because visual search was still considered more reliable. Towards the end of the war, Japanese radar-equipped planes were making numerous contacts with our submarines, but few attacks resulted. In 1945, a few anti-submarine aircraft were also provided with radar detection receivers, but the Japanese professed to have never reached the stage of homing on U.S. submarine radar. However, war patrol reports indicate that at least some enemy pilots achieved moderate success in using such equipment for initially detecting the presence of our submarines. Precise locating was probably then accomplished with aircraft search radar rather than radar detection equipment.
3-5. By late in 1943, the Japanese had successfully developed a magnetic airborne detector (MAD) and, commencing in March 1944, this equipment was put into operational use by both the Army and Navy for anti-submarine patrol.3 Range of detection was reported to have been about 120 meters under average conditions and about 250 meters was claimed under ideal conditions. Since expert pilots flew magnetic search planes only thirty to forty feet above the surface, the apparatus was therefore presumably capable of detecting a submarine at well over 300 feet submergence. Aircraft equipped with MAD were employed principally to search ahead of convoys or to exploit a submarine contact made by other means. Although it was planned to use such aircraft to sweep all heavily travelled convoy routes, lack of both aircraft and MAD equipment prevented this. The instrument was considered sufficiently reliable to warrant calling in surface craft whenever an initial contact had been established. The types of planes normally used for anti-submarine work, and equipped with MAD and/or radar when possible, were NELL, JAKE, KATE, JILL, DAVE, BETTY, ZEKE and EMILY.4 By the end of the war, only about one-third of the shore based anti-submarine planes had MAD, about one-third had radar, and only a very few were equipped with both. Anti-submarine planes were very seldom fitted with guns, which accounts for the low incidence of strafing attacks against U.S. submarines.

3-6. Only one small land-based "hunter-killer" air-surface group existed, and even this was not organized until early 1945.5 The group covered the East China Sea between Formosa and Shanghai and was comprised of five surface ships (DE types) known as the 102nd Surface Squadron and about 20 Navy fighters (ZEKES) of the 934th Squadron,
It can be MADdening experience for sure! https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN...8/WDR58-3.html
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