VictorInThePacific -> RE: Radar Range (3/25/2009 2:02:35 AM)
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I have raised these questions before, in the harpgamer forums. (http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=3534) A harpgamer account may be necessary to view that. Unfortunately, I didn't get any responses. ************************** <extract from above-mentioned post> : I wish to raise some issues about radar, in particular, regarding the differences between surface search and air search radar and the consequences thereof, ... Please feel free to challenge or refute any aspect of the content. I am not sensitive in that way. I seek the truth. According to the Harpoon documentation (eg. the Help files), a SS radar is a radar that can detect units at vertical elevations ranging from the sea surface to low altitude, and an AS radar is a radar that can detect units at vertical elevations of medium or higher altitude. In some cases (generally at very short ranges), these radars extend into the other region. It seems to me that there could be 2 reasons why a radar would only work in one of these regions. One is that special characteristics might be needed for the radar to distinguish a desired contact from “ground clutter”. The other is that the radar needs to be pointed in the right direction. Being a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves travel generally in straight lines. Refractive effects tend to be generally irrelevant for radio waves in air, and gravitational effects need not concern us here. The immediate question is whether the radar emitter and receiver emit and receive in all directions, so that the outgoing wavefront has the form of a sphere, or whether there is a vertical restriction, so that the outgoing wavefront has the form of a cone or something more restricted. For example, if a radar emits radiation only at angles above the horizontal, then, regardless of the vertical elevation of the radar, it cannot function as a SS radar. On the other hand, if the radar emits radiation only at angles below the horizontal, then, ignoring the issue of ground clutter, that radar may function as either a SS or an AS radar, depending on a variety of different factors. [img]http://s703.photobucket.com/albums/ww33/VictorInThePacific/general/radar.png[/img] I hope that someone can shed some light on this issue. Based on where that discussion goes, I will have more to say. There are important consequences to the AS/SS classification. Most obviously, if an enemy unit has only one type of radar, then you may be able hide your units from it in the vertical dimension. For example, many fighters have only an AS radar. Suppose that such an enemy fighter is chasing one of your helicopters. The helicopter can neither fight nor flee (with some exceptions – eg. a Sidewinder-armed SuperCobra might be able to take on a Yak-38). So the helicopter is dead? Not necessarily! If we accept the definition in the <third> paragraph, the helicopter should drop to low or VL altitude (and flee, of course), and the fighter will have difficulty locating it. On the other hand, many aircraft have only a SS radar. If we accept the definition in the <third> paragraph, you will be able to sneak up on these aircraft at medium or higher altitude.
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