"Gaming Radar in WW2" Topic

I'm working on using radar in a set of simple WW2 Naval rules, and have come up with three basic classes or radar:
Bad- this is search radar but no fire control radar. All it does is prevent surprise attacks, hidden deployment and the -10" starting range modifier in night engagements.
OK- A basic fire control radar that can fire through smoke and at night with a penalty.
Good- A better fire control that fires without penalty through smoke and at night.

Trying to figure out who had what when is the hard part. I have Conway's and a friend has Janes and neither is too specific about radar fittings on ships. Can anyone provide any pointers?

One of the problems the US Navy had with radar at night in the Solomons was how to control the fire of the radar-equipped ships. Repeatedly, they all attacked the nearest target, usually with fatal consequences, while the rest of the enemy fleet made their escape.

About 20 years ago, one of the gaming magazines published an article on campaigning the naval battles around Guadalcanal that answered your questions. I will see if I can find it in the attic.

Hmmmm, always a difficult issue.

I'd go with military history naval accounts for most periods/scenarios, where other data is lacking.

Japanese MK.1 eyeballs frequently proved better than radar detection and fire control, in many instances. I suspect that may have been due to their better discipline early in the war, and probably also due to excellent Japanese spotting scopes too.

Radar of any type has problems with a cluttered background (like islands). Early radar set were cantankerous as well, often failing for no apparent reason. Plus, using an A-scope presentation (as opposed to the later Plan Position Indicator, which is what we tend to think of) called for highly trained operators.

First, your linking of surface and fire control radar is over simplified. The quality of the radar (and doctrine) advanced throughout the war (and not equally so for surface and fire control). Example: the US early war FC sets were incapable of blindfire while the later sets were. In the early war, you had some very good surface search sets (like the SG) but their use was seriously degraded by a lack of doctrine and were coupled to less than stellar FC sets.

An old rule-set (General Quarters II, I think) broke radar into three generations:

1st generation: multiply the number of enemy ships in radar range by 2 or 1/2, randomly determined; represent them with blocks until they get in visual range.

2nd generation: represent enemy ships with blocks, and add or subtract one block, again randomly determined.

3rd generation: use blocks equal to the number of enemy ships, and differentiate blocks into size categories -- BBs, cruisers, destroyers, etc.

The player would have to target "block #1", for example, which might later turn out to be a non-existent blip.

For third generation I'd also give a chance that large DDs might be misidentified as cruisers, and vice-versa for small cruisers.

What rules are you using Murvihill? Are they ones you've written yourself, or did you buy them?

I made them myself. I had alot of help from another guy though. We're trying to keep the radar thing as simple as possible, thus we're conflating search and fire control radars intentionally.

I agree with Cold Steel. Even modern Radars have issues with clutter and returns in dense traffic areas, areas with a lot of small islands and even weather. Early radars, including Fire Control Radars could give indications but were limited on accuracy, size determination depending on aspect, etc. and the operators often had to deal with ghosting (ships that were not there) due to reflections off of other things or problems with emitters or receivers. Power and emitter tubes were still pretty troublesome even up to the time they were phased out (spoken from a guy with a tube amp stereo with tubes from Russia up until 5 years ago). I think the GQ break out MHoxie listed is satisfactory for most games, but I would still submit there were a number of issues that challenged reliability. There were a lot of changes made during and after the war that really improved the overall effectiveness of the systems. Go simple but add a die roll or something for the potential for some type of issue (reliability, reflections, etc).

PDF link

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combinedfleet.com/radar.htm

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Somewhere I have a paper with each ship and when fitted and the type fitted with. Unfortunately it required an extensive search thru many sources to compile it but you should be able to find most of it online, even if its a ship by ship search.

Here are some surface search and fire control type radars by nation. I omitted any air search radars.

Type SS-Surface Search FC-S FireControl Surface Ship type Year Ships

Germany
FuMO 21 Seetakt -FuMG 39 G SS/FC-S CA, CL, DD 1939 Nürnberg
FuMO 22 Seetakt- FuMG 39 G SS/FC-S BB. CA 1939 Scharnhorst,
Geneisenau, Adm. Scheer, Lutzow, Hipper, Blucher
FuMO 23- FuMG 39 G SS/FC-S BB, CA 1939 Bismarck,
Tirpitz, Pz Eugen
FuMO 24 SS/FC-S CL, DD, TB, MS 1940
FuMO 5 or 25 SS/FC-S CB, CA, CL, DD 1942
FuMO 26 -FuMG 40 G SS/FC-S CB, CA, CL, DD 1940
FuMO 29- FuMG 41 G (gU) SS U-Boats 1941
FuMO 30- FuMG 42 (gU) SS U-Boats 1942

Grt Britain
Type 272 SS Sm Ships 1941
Type 273 SS Lg Ships 1941
Type 273Q SS Lg Ships 1943
Type 274 FC-S Lg Ships 1944 Blindfire
Type 275 FC-DP Surf Ships 1945
Type 276 SS Destroyers 1943
Type 280 FC-S Lg Ships 1940
Type 281 SS Lg Ships 1943(?) HMS Dido.
Type 284, 288 FC-S Surf Jun-40 HMS Nelson.

USA
Mk3 (FC) FC-S 1941 Blindfire. Idaho, possible other New Mexico BBs Mk4 (FD) FC-DP 1942 Blindfire
CXAN SS 1940 California, Yorktown, Chester, Chicago,
Northampton, Pensecola
SC SS Surf Ships 1941
SC-1 SS Surf Ships Jan 42 Increased power.
SC-2, SC-3, SC-4, SC-5 SS Destroyers 1943
SCR-517 SS PT Boats
SE SS Sm Ships
SF, SF-1 SS Sm Ships 1942
SG (Zenith Search) ZS DDs & Larger
SG, SGa, SG-1, SG-2 SS DDs & Larger 1941 Most ships fitted by 7/43
SG-3, SS-FC-S 1941 Main Battery BB and some CA
SG-4 SS-FC-S 1942 Secondary Battery BB & CA CL
SGb, SG-1b SS DDs & Larger

Japan
Type 21 SS DD & Larger 1942
Type 23 SS DD & Larger

Italy
GuFo SS DD & Larger 1942 Veneto, Africano, Regolo, Maestrale, Leone,
Pancaldo

Thanks for the info. I'll have to do some work on the ship profiles…