Better German ground radar, improved FLAK?

[stg 44]

Wouldn't the higher resolution have allowed for more accuracy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCR-584_radar
The US used the above to achieve very high accuracy in knocking down the V-1 missiles and required the high resolution cavity magnetron based radar, which was more accurate than the German Wurzburg system.

[wm]

The SCR was slightly better but the difference in accuracy was maybe meaningless 0.08 degree. Against fast flying planes the ponderous aircraft guns weren't able to benefit much from this kind of accuracy anyway.

The magnetron gave the Allies resolution - the ability to discern small objects, not accuracy - the ability to determine elevation/azimuth. Those are really two different concepts.
A "naked" radar beam (magnetron generated or not) of any possible frequency was inaccurate to the point of uselessness. It had to be specially modified, but the result didn't depend on its frequency (at least much).

[T. A. Gardner]

It wouldn't have made much, if any, difference. The Allies would have jammed the new equipment just as they did previous models. All they have to do is jam sufficiently to force the Germans to go to box barrages. Once that happens the Germans are finished. They can't afford the huge amounts of ammunition necessary for these, nor can they work them and get next to no results.

The cavity magnetron is no panacea. The Japanese had a working model before the British and even produced working radar sets by late 1943 using it. It won't change that Allied jamming was massive and near omnipresent.

[Sheldrake]

Had the Germans been able to develop a proximity fuse it might have made a big difference to the effectiveness of the heavy flak guns. This implies the industrial resource to make enough radars to throw one away with every shell.

[T. A. Gardner]

Had the Germans been able to develop a proximity fuse it might have made a big difference to the effectiveness of the heavy flak guns. This implies the industrial resource to make enough radars to throw one away with every shell.

Both the US and Britain were aware of that possibility. To that end, at least the US held tests at Wright Field and later at Elgin Field with ECM to counter VT fuzes. The USAAF used an APT-4 transmitter with antennas installed on the bottom of a B-17. A crew of 6 (two pilots, engineer, navigator, and two RCM operators) rode the aircraft. A 90mm AA battery firing VT fused practice shells would fire at the aircraft.

The testing lasted approximately 3 months in mid 1944 during which about 1,600 VT shells were fired at the plane. There was an offset programmed into the guns to miss by about 250 feet, just in case. However, the CW transmitted signal swept across the VT fuze's frequency almost always caused them to burst short.

So, I doubt that they would have had the effectiveness the Allied ones had once the Allies knew they were in use and something about how they worked.

[wm]

Now let's reduce the sensitivity of every other of those fuses (or rather their receivers) so they only detonate in presence of very strong electromagnetic field (e.g. in close proximity of a radio transmitter) and let's see what will happen.

[T. A. Gardner]

Now let's reduce the sensitivity of every other of those fuses (or rather their receivers) so they only detonate in presence of very strong electromagnetic field (e.g. in close proximity of a radio transmitter) and let's see what will happen.

The same thing. The fuze goes off well short of target if jammed. Why? Because the jammer puts out far more power than the fuze can. Even at equal power to the fuze, the jammer wins. Reducing gain to force a stronger signal return works in favor of the defender in this case. It means any shell that might be close enough to possibly do damage doesn't necessarily go off and you are back to almost the same situation with time fuzes as before.
The big advantage of a VT fuze is that it will go off when it is at an optimal distance from the target. You reduce gain to reduce the effect of jamming. What if the target isn't jamming? Now you are wasting shells because the fuze is insensitive and won't go off at an optimal range. What could have been a damaging hit is now a miss.
Even without jamming the defender has won. They forced you to use less than optimal fuzing.

Remember, the fuze's transmitter size is very limited so power if very limited. Next, the signal transmitted has to go out, bounce off the target, then return. So, it loses far more of its signal strength than the one way transmission of the jamming signal. Therefore the jammer can be far more powerful than the fuze and influence it at a greater distance even on reduced gain.

VT fuzes didn't discriminate (at least at that time) on return signal strength. Once the signal grew above a certain value it activated the fuze and detonated the shell.

I suppose you could make fuzes on a range of different frequencies but that would raise the cost and complexity of manufacture and use.

[wm]

Sorry but the idea was to home into the signal of the jammer, the transmitter in the fuze is superfluous, may be even removed. And a properly adjusted, much less sensitive fuze is not going to explode prematurely - but eventually will, thanks to the strong signal of the jammer.

[T. A. Gardner]

Sorry but the idea was to home into the signal of the jammer, the transmitter in the fuze is superfluous, may be even removed. And a properly adjusted, much less sensitive fuze is not going to explode prematurely - but eventually will, thanks to the strong signal of the jammer.

This would require that the side firing the shells knows the enemy is jamming them and the nature of that jamming. The solution generally settled on is using frequency diversity that makes jamming impossible by spreading it over too large a bandwidth.
If the jamming side on the other hand knows the fuzes only work when jammed, or if their jamming only works when a signal from the fuze is detected, then simply turning off the jammer defeats your countermeasure.

[Erwinn]

If you want to make a difference, you need a complete new set of brains for Luftwaffe High Command, not that Fat-ass Goering.

[flakbait]

Until the invention and introduction of the dedicated anti radar homing missiles such as `Shrike`, `Standard ARM` `HARM` and the British "ALARM` series the advantage lay with the jammers. However, will certainly grant that against aircraft without jamming capability the proximity fuzed shell was just MURDEROUSLY effective for both land and sea based AA guns...

[T. A. Gardner]

If you want to make a difference, you need a complete new set of brains for Luftwaffe High Command, not that Fat-ass Goering.

That is the tip of a very large iceburg. The whole of the RLM was full of hack officers who really were weak technical types and long on combat experience. That resulted in the bewildering variety of prototypes and one-off's of all sorts of equipment while a sound plan for production of equipment never emerged.

[wm]

No man did so much for the Nazis, as an organizer, politician, minister as Göring.
Even his Luftwaffe was the perfect tool for the job at hand, at times when technical progress was so fast that getting the future right was almost impossible. It wasn't his fault the war aims were changing almost every week, an almost every week a new enemy was added to the roster by Hitler.

This would require that the side firing the shells knows the enemy is jamming them and the nature of that jamming. The solution generally settled on is using frequency diversity that makes jamming impossible by spreading it over too large a bandwidth.
If the jamming side on the other hand knows the fuzes only work when jammed, or if their jamming only works when a signal from the fuze is detected, then simply turning off the jammer defeats your countermeasure.

This is why I wanted every second fuze to be anti-radiation one, the rest being the radar ones. And there are not going to be wasted anyway because each of them carried a conventional, impact fuze too. Not ideal solution, but better than none.

And as far as I know, the German fuzes, that for some reason didn't enter production didn't use radar but were capacitance based so they were impervious to jamming and even chaff.

[USS ALASKA]

Both the US and Britain were aware of that possibility. To that end, at least the US held tests at Wright Field and later at Elgin Field with ECM to counter VT fuzes. The USAAF used an APT-4 transmitter with antennas installed on the bottom of a B-17. A crew of 6 (two pilots, engineer, navigator, and two RCM operators) rode the aircraft. A 90mm AA battery firing VT fused practice shells would fire at the aircraft.

The testing lasted approximately 3 months in mid 1944 during which about 1,600 VT shells were fired at the plane. There was an offset programmed into the guns to miss by about 250 feet, just in case. However, the CW transmitted signal swept across the VT fuze's frequency almost always caused them to burst short.

Sir, what is the source of this information please? I find it very interesting.

Thanks for the help,
USS ALASKA

[T. A. Gardner]

That came from The History of US Electronic Warfare volume 1 by Alfred Price, p. 242 -243 It was related to the author by LT. Jack Bowers and engineer with the Aircraft Radio Laboratory at Wright Field and Lt. Ingwald Haugen who participated in the tests.