The Battle of the North Cape
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Guest
The Japanese territorial concessions to Soviet Union is negligible. Except for North Korea, Russia got almost nothing out of the war with Japan. But giving those little islands to Russia was a master stroke. It has the effect of giving Russia nothing valuable, costing the Japanese nothing valuable, and yet has the valuable effect of poisoning the relationship between the two country for the next 62 years and counting.
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Lesforan
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middle_watch
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- Location: S Yorks, England
The question of why Germany did not develop more effective radar has got to be one of those real puzzlers, particularly as they captured magnetrons from downed British bombers almost as soon as they were deployed.
From the Naval point of view I would guess the answer is the same as to why the Napoleonic French fleet did not pick up on British innovations such as the flintlock firing mechanism for cannon: they spent too much time in port.
The RN were out there and swinging, remember radar was first fitted to ships as an aid to finding range for the big guns, captain's were under orders not to use it unless needed to stop giving away their position. But operationally crews soon realised that by keeping the radar on and sweeping the director from side to side gave them one tremendously powerful device. Graf Spee discovered the same technique during her cruise. With the RN the critical need to detect surfaced U-Boats, or even periscopes, drove the fantastic advances in maritime radar and led to the seperation of gunnery and surveillance radars.
The only operational arm of the Kriegsmarine was the U-Boats and radar was a double edged sword for them since they were in the business of concealing themselves.
Without the same experience of war at sea the German Navy inevitably still regarded radar as an aid to optical gunnery rather than as a weapon in it's own right.
From the Naval point of view I would guess the answer is the same as to why the Napoleonic French fleet did not pick up on British innovations such as the flintlock firing mechanism for cannon: they spent too much time in port.
The RN were out there and swinging, remember radar was first fitted to ships as an aid to finding range for the big guns, captain's were under orders not to use it unless needed to stop giving away their position. But operationally crews soon realised that by keeping the radar on and sweeping the director from side to side gave them one tremendously powerful device. Graf Spee discovered the same technique during her cruise. With the RN the critical need to detect surfaced U-Boats, or even periscopes, drove the fantastic advances in maritime radar and led to the seperation of gunnery and surveillance radars.
The only operational arm of the Kriegsmarine was the U-Boats and radar was a double edged sword for them since they were in the business of concealing themselves.
Without the same experience of war at sea the German Navy inevitably still regarded radar as an aid to optical gunnery rather than as a weapon in it's own right.