World War II Radar
At the start of World War II in September 1939, both the United Kingdom and Germany knew of each other's ongoing efforts in radio navigation and its countermeasures – the "Battle of the beams". Also, both nations were generally aware of, and intensely interested in, the other's developments in radio-based detection and tracking, and engaged in an active campaign of espionage and false leaks about their respective equipment. By the time of the Battle of Britain, both sides were deploying range and direction-finding units (radars) and control stations as part of integrated air defense capability. However, the German Funkmessgerät (radio measuring device) systems could not assist in an offensive role and was thus not supported by Adolf Hitler. Also, the Luftwaffe did not sufficiently appreciate the importance of British Range and Direction Finding (RDF) stations as part of RAF's air defense capability, contributing to their failure.
While the United Kingdom and Germany led in pre-war advances in the use of radio for detection and tracking of aircraft, there were also developments in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan. Wartime systems in all of these nations will be summarized. The acronym RADAR (for RAdio Detection And Ranging) was coined by the U.S. Navy in 1940, and the subsequent name "radar" was soon widely used.
Read more about this topic: History Of Radar
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