A Need for Radar

 United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) was in a frantic hurry to develop radar so that it may be used in the war. The staff took a dramatic change of staff by going from 400 to 4400. The Navy decided to cut all radar studies because of a low budget. As time went on and war began the need for radar increased. Airborne search radar (ASB) was the first United States airborne radar to be perfected and used. It operated at a frequency of 500 MHz (megahertz); over 26,000 units of land were covered, the ASB was nicknamed the “workhorse radar of Naval Aviation”. The ASB was manufactured more than any other radar because of its growing popularity and great working ability. Radar was short, because the budget had been well under $500 million a year, and with mass destruction bombs needed a $10,000 torpedo was not something to be wasted.

IFF (Identification Friend or Foe)

The United States stressed to keep updated with the evolving war tools. The majority of the United States war planes and carriers were linked with radar rooms.  Carriers were to be most protected for they had to carry the tanks, planes, and artillery to the battle field. If a Carrier were to be destroyed then the ground forces would suffer greatly without supplies and possibly lose the war. The carriers had radar – but radar was still experimental, having been introduced only late in the 1930’s. The planes had no identification-friend-or-foe (IFF) equipment. Only 15 percent of the fleet (including carriers) had radar warning equipment.

IFF (Identification Friend or Foe)

The United Kingdom and Canada were allies with the U.S. Since they were battling along side each other they created an IFF or Identification friend or foe. Each country had their scientist’s work on making specific signals that an ally would understand. Due to this need of scientists and the humungous update in technology the war was nicknamed the Physicists War. An example of IFF use: If two planes were flying next to one another they would use the radar that carried a their specific country’s radar signal. A code was taught and used by plane pilots, this code was only made to decode a signal from a plane responding to the IFF.  A signal would be sent from one plane and be translated to, “Who are you?” by the pilot,  then the neighboring plane would translate and reply saying that they were an ally. The Air Force had trouble fighting against enemies that were able to decode the codes and just reply as an ally. The Identification Friend or Foe was updated to a version that had a code already imbedded in the box, the moment this box containing the IFF was scanned it would send a code to the pilot revealing enemy or ally. The U.S allies were given these boxes containing the updated IFF, these boxes were attached to the bottom of the plane along with an antenna that would be the IFF's amplifier.