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[Happerry]

I, Brave Patriot of Moskurg, have once again been put on call for a new war! And in this war, let us increase our ability to yell at one another!

Vote for radio revision

[stabbymcstabstab]

As a young Forenian, I answer the call of arms! and support this glorious Radio Revision.


Glory to Arstotzka!

[andrea]

RDF is most certainly far too large for trains right now, even of that size, unless the whole thing is for the antenna. Early radar antennas where about the size of a few football fields strung together. The receivers where a fair deal smaller though., and it sounds like ours is of an alright size.

 Well, that or we skipped 25+ years of work on radar.

where are you getting that information? I could not find anything about radars of this period needing multiple footbal field sized antennas. But even if that was so, some radars were mounted on planes as early as 1942/1943. in 1945 we have the first AEW(airborne early warning) plane with a range of 100 miles. Which, I'll note, is far above our fixed installations. Reducing antennas in size enough to fit on train should NOT be 25+ years ahead.

The key to the great reduction in size between 1940 radar and 1943+ radar seems to be the invention of the cavity magnetron (and a few other devices) allowing signals in the centimeter wavelength range in a compact high power package. With the cavity magnetron being smallish and centimeter wavelengths allowing small receivers, there is nothing stopping us from mounting radars on anything after we develope this tech. And that is why I proposed a revision of our radar system to make it work with magnetrons, which were developed in february 1940 so not arcane future tech.

Honestly, I believe that right now upgrading our radar tech(it is pityful. German Freya radar had 200 km range and that is without fancy tech) is more important than upgrading our radios. ( and FAR more important than mounting reduced versions of our tiny range RDF on trains. radio and RDF upgrades are my favorite, I am voting for the RDF on train only because both radio and RDF upgrades are my proposals)

[Sheb]

No, actually, you have airplane-borne radar as early as 1940.

[RAM]

That sounds fair, Switching my vote from R.D.F. trains to R.D.F. magnetron, even though it chafes to refer to specific technologies.

Also, it is wonderful to see someone else failing to vote for their own idea. It really frees up the voting pool when you don't lose half the voters on the old "well duh, of course I vote for my own stuff".

[andrea]

Nice find sheb!  Although, that doesn't count as early detection, which is what we need. But it certainly shows that mobile radars are not that far down the road.

@RAM well, I got the idea of not voting my own proposals from you. Although, that doesn't stop from vehemently arguing for my proposals About the specific tech, that is not the first time a specific tech was mentioned, although I agree it might pose some problems at a later point. Realism is a double edged sword.

[Funk]

Nice find sheb!  Although, that doesn't count as early detection, which is what we need. But it certainly shows that mobile radars are not that far down the road.

Mobile radars as in the ship born Seetakt radar? or the english Type 79 are well known and would fit on a train.

Or keep with something like

Spoiler: this Arstotzka spotters outfit. (click to show/hide)

[Aseaheru]

 Aircraft borne radar has a longer range for less antenna and power due to altitude. There is a reason why many radar installations where built on mountains.

Spoiler: Images of WW2 radar sites. Note those towers? Yah, those are the radar antennas. (click to show/hide)

Oh, look, theres that radar system you where talking about Andrea.

[Sheb]

Well, it depends, you had big-ass radard and smaller ones. And it was an area where progress was fast.

[Aseaheru]

 And an area that had been getting worked on in some capacity from 1904(as a collision avoidance thing), with it picking up in 1935

[Kot]

By 1940, radars are much, much smaller. I am not sure what is going on but I'll throw in some info.
Example of early gun-laying (guiding anti-aircraft fire) is Würzburg radar. Those could easily fit on trains or even trucks. The more famous and bigger Würzburg-Riese could no longer fit on truck but still on railway car. They had 50 and 80 kilometers range respectively, IIRC.
Example of early early warning radar would be American SCR-270 which required only an generator truck and a trailer for the radar itself. It seems to be able to detect an aircraft at 7,600 meters from 180 km away. Other example would be mentioned German Freya radar, which also is not really big and had range of 200 km.
The examples Aseaheru provided? The first seems to be British Chain Home. They are big, but that's not because they were good, those radars were actually fucking shit. I mean, they did their job but they were very crude (they were specifically made to reuse as many commercial parts as possible), very big (much bigger wave-lenght, also resulting in lower accuracy of British radars) and only really suited for British stationary defense (unmovable). Their range was around 190 kilometers, though could be better on a good day.
The second example is German Mammut from 1944-1945. By that time Germans noticed that for the stationary defense a big radar like British have, would be better and the radar itself is actually like six Freyas combined. It never seen much use anyways.
The third example is actually not a Freya radar, it's Flakleit G, which is actually not that big, and while I can't find a good image with maybe a soldier for scale, there are dimensions of the bunker it was mounted on, and while I can be very wrong, it seems the size of the base it's mounted on is 180 cm.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Interesting how people are pointing to the cutting edge of tech (or slightly beyond) created by countries who have made several versions in a field the Forenians have never looked into, and after the Forenians were stated to be in a period of little technological advancement, meaning development is taking place in roughly half a year.

Very interesting.

[Kot]

>Cutting edge of tech
>Serveral versions
>Development taking place in roughly half a year

SCR-270 is 1937, maybe even 1936 if we count in prototypes and was basically the only radar Americans had up until 1944 or so, with exception of naval whatitwascalledagain but that was basically the same thing. First five stations of Chain Home were operational in 1936, and as I mentioned Chain Home was made from literal scrap and commercial radios so British could easily make them out by dozens. Freya was 1939, though first examples were created in 1937. Würzburg was 1940, which first versions existed in 1935 and it took them maybe a year tops of civilian research to get there, the only problem was lack of military support.
Like, really, the second military took interest in radars, basically everyone shat out pretty good designs out of nowhere. Fuck, I guess the Forenia is going to make best radars that ever existed but it doesn't seem to be that much of a problem.
Don't invoke recoiless rifles and salt giants again.

[andrea]

we are pointing to those designs simply as a way to say that decent mobile radars are not 25+ years away from a working radar prototype ( what we have), unlike what aseaheru claimed. After proper efforts are made, the path from huge inefficient installations to decent mobile radars is quite short.

Of course, before we get decent mobile radars we must get decent immobile radars, but with focus it shouldn't take more than a couple of years, at the pace of other nations. Forenia is known to occasionally develope tech faster than other nations, thanks to the hyperfocus of its design efforts.

edit: to further clarify, I am not complaining about the terrible performance of our radar; that is normal, it is our first prototype. I am just saying that there are grounds for rapid development of the tech and lobbying to go in that direction.   

[Aseaheru]

 Yes, And I am saying that we should be working on other things as a revision right now. We have a big old listof stuff we want/need, including

-Better radios, since ours are 60 pounds and are huge
-Improving the ability of our troops to fight
-Radio navigation for aircraft and the navy
-Sonar
-Torpedos
-better Anti-air systems, mostlyat this point in the form of rapid fire SPAA
-standardizing ammunition
-better bombers
-better fighters
-Rapid troop movement(IFVs, APCs, helicopters or some combination)
-An actual working navy
-many things I am missing

 and improving that radar set is not at the top of the list.