I can only tell you the German shipborne radar was only surface, and air search, with no blind fire capability. The RN & USN could engage in long range night fire, while the Germans couldn't. Duke of York had a decisive advantage over Scharnhorst in their arctic night action. Scharnhorst didn't even know Duke of York was there until she fired on her. At Surigao Strait West Virginia hit the battleship Yamashiro at 22,800 yards at night on the first salvo. By early 1943 AA fire control radar was highly effective. At the Battle of the Philippine Sea the USN fast battleships were placed in a forward group, so they could use their long range AA guns to engage Japanese air groups heading toward the fast carriers.In radar the horizontal polarization and (vertical polarization) matter's less then the grazing angle's,
Any radar can be used to measure the range to a target and it's direction determination as long as it can detect the target at the given range and (height) in side the radar's horizon,
As It doe's not need to be directly linked up to the central fire control room like most highly sophisticated dedicated purpose built advanced fire control radar's are,
To be used for the ranging of target's and there direction determination a primitive radar from 1939 is almost as good as a highly sophisticated dedicated purpose built advanced fire control radar from 1945 for that purpose,
Primitive radar's in 1939 had a range accuracy that was accurate to within 100-260 meter's or 50-130 +/- meter's of the true range of the target with a direction determination of 1-4 degree's or 0.5-2 +/- degree's of it's true direction determination,
This was good enough to straddle a target vessel on the first salvo but you still needed target speed and target course as well as sea and weather condition's and any other atmospheric interference's to complete the firing track solution,
And if you'r crew down in the central fire control room can do all that at night then you'r vessel has radar assisted and or radar directed blindfire capacity,
Highly sophisticated dedicated purpose built advanced fire control radar's of 1945 had a range accuracy that was accurate to within 15-25 meter's or 7.5-12.5 +/- meter's of the true range of the target,
With a direction determination of 0.1-0.3 degree's or 0.05-0.15 +/- degree's of it's true direction determination,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cavity magnetron radar's befor 1952 required at least forty five minute's or more to warm up before functioning correctly where as grid modulation radar's such as seetakt (freya) ect only required thirty second's warm up before functioning correctly,
Cavity magnetron's required rare earth element's from (eurafrasia) with the battle's of the atlantic driving up the cost and in (1940-1943) a cavity magnetron radar set would cost most of the time more then a gato class fleet boat,
And with the complexity of the cavity magnetron in 1942 a m4 sherman medium tank could be built in less time than it took to build a cavity magnetron,
When production of the first generation of cavity magnetron's ended in the defense cut back's of (1946-1948) the cost of a new 1948 first generation cavity magnetron radar set was more then the projected cost of a tank platoon of six (m46 patton's).
Even in 1945 only 1/3 of 5" shells had proximity fuses but by late 1942 it was nearly suicidal for Japanese aircraft to launch conventional attacks. Radar directed fire was far more effective then with optical tracking alone. The Germans were never able to engage Allied ships, and aircraft so effectively. Admittedly Radar wasn't the only factor, but it was critical.
Last edited: