Re: The Macintosh is a girl's computer!

Graeme Wall <Graeme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In message <1hwnwa5.6tf8917uof46N%real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Graeme Wall <Graeme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Graeme Wall <Graeme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]
<http://www.vectorsite.net/twbomb.html>

Section 4.3 and the `Bat Bomb' is what I was thinking of - but you
might find more of interest.

`The Bat's guidance system was particularly sophisticated for the time.
After being dropped, it glided toward the target on a preset course
using a gyrostabilizer system to keep it on track. As it neared the
target, the bomb locked on with its own radar system that guided it
into the target. Since the radar seeker was conceptually similar to the
"sonar" system used by a bat to prey on flying insects, the weapon was
named after the bat. The Bat also included a self-destruct mechanism to
keep it from falling into enemy hands, and obtained its electrical
power from four small windmill generators.'


Hadn't realised that they'd got things developed that far.

That was a fairly straightforward application, as it happens.

The Yanks developed a pretty good radar-controlled automatic gun director
for shooting down aircraft - *that* is a lot more impressive; and added a
radio proximity fuse for good measure (based on a design from a Kiwi
working in Britain which wasn't followed up here). Radar technology got
developed *hugely* back then.

That lot I knew about.

Automatic gun laying is much harder than guiding a glider onto a target.

<http://www.vectorsite.net/ttwiz_05.html>

btw, IFF was first deployed during the Second World War. So why oh why oh
why, more than 60 years on, have they still not equipped every bloody NATO
unit from the infantryman upwards with an IFF gadget?


Because IFF is an active system that the enemy can trace.

No, that's the reason to not use IFF in a given tactical situation. The
reason they've not got everyone equipped with IFF has to do with idiotic
management decisions. They had this idea for a NATO wide IFF setup
coapable of IFFing anything. Gawd knows how far they've got - can't be
arsed looking right now.

WW2 story: apparently there was a belief on some bomber squadrons that IFF
transmissions confused the German night-fighters AI so they left it switched
on over the traget. In fact it made it very much easier for the German radio
tracking stations to find them.

I've recently read that the Germans didn't track IFF (but they did track
pretty much everything else) and also that crews were trained to switch
off over enemy territory to avoid being tracked by the enemy.

The British Monica radar to warn bomber crews of approaching fighters
was, for example, crap in terms of service performance and once the
Germans learned of it, they just used it as a homing beacon...

Even IFFs can fail, the Tornado that was shot down in the Gulf by the Merkins
was transmitting IFF but the Patriot battery didn't recognise it.

Because it wasn't hooked up to the right data feed: they'd set up the
anti-aircraft missile battery without any means of getting IFF data! No
technical failure; an organisational one.

Rowland.


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