[ARC5] A British Version of ZB?

[Hubert Miller]

As regards "Precautionary Principle" in WW2, I don't think the USA was outdone. Consider the many  U.S. ship's receivers that were ruled unusable 
for reasons of 'reradiation', while the U.K. ships continued to carry regenerative receivers such as Marconi 730 and IMRC that never would have
passed FCC standards. ( I have proof that such receivers continued to be carried; in fact the Marconi was a standard even in 1940. ) Or that U-boats
themselves had a broadcast receiver, Radione R-2, which likely would not pass standards either. Or as I read in LIFE magazine ca. early 1942, troops
on a troop ship going from Seattle to Alaska were forbidden to use electric razors ( which does raise the question, where would they plug them in ? )
because enemy submarines might pick and home on the electrical noise. 

I have not yet encountered accounts of US subs in Pacific War sunk resulting from Japanese detection of US radar. Every account I have read, the US
sub was visually acquired. I am not at all saying it never happened. "Never say never", I learned here. But by US standards Japanese radars were 
rudimentary, not widely deployed, and also ( without referring to my docs ) I believe mostly operated on lower frequency bands than US. It just seems
rather less likely or certainly, uncommon. You certainly  would not expect that most Japanese means that were most dangerous to US subs, I mean sub 
chasers, destroyer class vessels, and aircraft, to regularly have radar intercept equipment. I recall somewhere I did read about Japanese radar being
flummoxed by US countermeasures. I need to start taking notes as I read. 
-Hue Miller


>Subject: Re: [ARC5] A British Version of ZB?

Yes, the Leakage Issue may not have been much of an issue in the distances of the Pacific. But in the closer ranges in the Mediterranean perhaps the thought of combat damage and leaking MF radiation had some effect on design. The idea of the VHF ship-borne beacon certainly was to preclude easy detection by the enemy of the vessel's location. This British choice to avoid MF modulation may just be an early example of the European tendency to employ the Precautionary Principle, although those at sea and in the air probably didn't mind. Still,  it's a simpler, cheaper system requiring no second BCB receiver in the tight confines of the Seafire aircraft. 

I have read that the US lost one or more submarines in the Pacific because the subs used a conning-tower VHF radar that the Japanese were able to detect and DF.  I am not aware of any combat losses attributable to the US or UK VHF homing beacons.

73 de Bart, K6VK ##
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Bart Lee