Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiterook
I've never read up on nightfighters before, and recently, I've been seeing reference to them in pictures. The massive antanae are night radar, I take it.
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Indeed they are mate. The 'antlers' on the German aircraft are for several types of radars and sometimes, multiple kinds. For example, one radar may be able to tell the pilot the height of a target, but only be able to guide the fighter to within 500 metres...too far away for visual at night. The senond, usually smaller array wasn't able to give height, but could guide the fighter to within 250 metres with a better chance of a visual and thus a possible kill. The 'electronics' war over night time Germany became quite sophisticated. The Allies adopted their own tail-warning radars that could spot nightfighters but of course the Germans developed a device that homed in on the Allies 'Monica' tail-warning devices.
The P-61 Black Widow above was one of very few aircraft designed as night fighters from the start. Most other types such as the Ju 88, Me 110, Bristol Beaufighter et al were modified from aircraft designed to fill other roles. It had a more conventional looking radar 'dish' housed in the radome in the nose...a system still used today.
The Bristol Beaufighters pictured above were developed as a strike aircraft by Bristol and to save re-tooling time, was developed around the existing Beaufort design...retaining wings, engines and tail section. This type was one of Britain's most successful night fighters along with specially modified 'bull-nose' Mosquito aircraft. In the Pacific theatre, the Beaufighter was known to the Japanese as 'Whispering Death.'
The use of the Allied secret weapon known as 'Window', which was aluminium strips cut to half the wavelength of the German radar caused chaos on the ground when first deployed. What it achieved was to basically 'flood' the radar screen with returns. Bombers could hide above the slowly drifting clouds of metal. As far as i know, it had no adverse effect on aircraft radars which operated on different wavelengths.