Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Radar_WWII.htm
It would seem to me that before 1942, radar of any type was very rare in US service and was only installed on most ships in response to the events of December 1941.
It's also worth noting that WWII did not start in December 1941 - for most of the world it was several years earlier when the Germans were annexing their neighbours. For Japan's neighbours it was even earlier, almost a generation in China's case (Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September 1931).
As the Pacific theatre after the fall of Singapore was mainly fought by the US (but not forgetting many smaller nations such as Australia and New Zealand), it seems appropriate to leave out radars possessed by countries not directly involved in the region when discussing Japanese naval technology.
Something else worth pointing out is that the US had access to British and other allied nations research into radars and fire control. The Japanese were essentially on their own. Should the Japanese have had similar advances in technology available to them, the war at sea may have been much more bloody (as if the actual number of deaths weren't enough).
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People do tend to forget that WW2 started before America got into it. America had to play catch-up and it was only America's vast industrial base and relatively untouched economy that allowed it to do so. It also helped that Japan wiped out almost all the big gun battleships and forced America to adapt and in so doing master carrier warfare. Had the japanese sent their final wave and destroyed the US pacific carriers then the war would of had a much different outcome.
In the end America won WW2 with numbers, not quality. In Europe they simply sent in so many Shermans at the wehrmacht till the Germans simply ran out of resources. it was the same in the pacific, the Americans mass-produced simple, effective designs for destroyers and carriers and simply swamped the Japanese who could not replace losses.
In the 21st century it is America who has the superior tech but numericly inferior forces and the economic climate is making that situation worse every year. At the risk of coming across as anti-American, there has been an arrogant, self-imposed blindness on the part of the USA over the past few decades, especialy after the fall of communism. Many in America consider that they where victorious in the cold war and that it validates their doctrine. The truth is the Russians ran out of money before America did, the cold war crippled them economicly. America risks going into a second cold war with China and this time it will be America that loses out.
The cold truth is that America has become over-reliant on it's military technology and has become dangerously arrogant, underestimating her potential rivals. My own country made this mistake and we went from having the world's most powerful naval empire to the state we find ourselves in today.