WI:US Navy develop TBM Avenger AEW by 1943?

In OTL, the US Navy developed a TBM Avenger AEW variant know as the TBM-3W "Cadillac" variant in 1945 but the war ended before it could see proper service. What if they managed to develop by 1943 and have it in the war by 1944 Whats the possible effect that could come from the use of an AEW platform in the pacific theatre?
 
It would have been. Game changer in detecting Kamikaze attacks far over the horizon. The radar was apparently quite good. Integration as well as Command and Control should have been workable.

These would have required their own fighter coverage although any intruders would probably ignore them
 
It would have been. Game changer in detecting Kamikaze attacks far over the horizon. The radar was apparently quite good. Integration as well as Command and Control should have been workable.

These would have required their own fighter coverage although any intruders would probably ignore them

Given how bad the pilots were in the end for Japan, I'm sure that the tbms could probably shoot down anyone who tried to attack them
 
This was a first generation EWACS. I could not find information on crew other than pilot and radar operator. The TBM had room for a third crew member who could be a combat controller.

The combat controller would probably give range, bearing, height to a large combat control staff on aircraft carrier. Combat Control staff would determine aircraft and ship reaction.

I would expect several of these aircraft providing information to the CC.
 
This was a first generation EWACS. I could not find information on crew other than pilot and radar operator. The TBM had room for a third crew member who could be a combat controller.

The combat controller would probably give range, bearing, height to a large combat control staff on aircraft carrier. Combat Control staff would determine aircraft and ship reaction.

I would expect several of these aircraft providing information to the CC.
That radar was very useful, and very long lived

The radar element of the system was the "AN/APS-20" S-band radar, which was fitted to Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers. As mentioned earlier, the TBM had carried the first operational American airborne radar, the ASB. The converted TBM, designated "TBM-3W", was stripped of armament, armor, and bombing gear, then fitted with a big radome between the main landing gear for the AN/APS-20's rotating antenna. The radome gave the aircraft a "pregnant" appearance, and additional "finlets" had to be added to the outboard section of each horizontal tailplane to keep the aircraft flying straight. The aircraft was littered with various small antennas for other elements of the system, including two VHF radios, IFF interrogator, and the television relay. Although the PPI imagery was relayed to the CIC on board an aircraft carrier or other vessel, it was also monitored by two operators on board the Avenger.


About 40 TBM-3W conversions were performed, but the system was still in evaluation when the war in the Pacific ended, and did not enter service until 1946. It was still the very first "airborne early warning (AEW)" aircraft. The Navy was impressed enough by the TBM-3W that they also had the AN/APS-20 fitted to the land-based Boeing B-17 Fortress bomber, which was given the designation "PB-1W". The PB-1W provided greater range and endurance than the TBM-3W and could operate far more autonomously.


* The AN/APS-20 radar would have a peculiarly long life. It was fitted to a number of other aircraft in the 1950s, most significantly a variant of the Douglas Skyraider carrier-based attack aircraft, the "AD-3W". The AN/APS-20, with some enhancements, remained in first line service until the early 1960s.


It appears that radar technology reached a sort of evolutionary "plateau" in the postwar period. It was still being improved and used in new applications, but the rate of progress was nothing like the incredible explosion of technology seen during the war. Radar didn't really take another big step forward until the 1960s, when digital circuitry and then computing power was integrated with radar sets, giving them intelligence that allowed them to be much more capable and less of a magical art to operate.


However, the AN/APS-20 remained in service with the British for most of the rest of the century. The British Royal Navy obtained the AD-3W Skyraider for operation off their own carriers. In the late 1950s, when the Skyraiders were being retired from British service, the Royal Navy decided to adapt their Fairey "Gannet" carrier-based anti-submarine aircraft to the AEW role, modifying the design and fitting them with AN/APS-20 sets scavenged from the British Skyraiders to create the "Gannet AEW.3".


The Gannet AEW.3 served well into the 1970s. Facing its retirement, the British were in desperate need of an AEW capability, and they went to the AN/APS-20 again, fitting sets to existing Avro Shackleton ocean patrol aircraft. The Shackleton was every bit as much an antique, a four-piston engine aircraft that was a derivative of the World War II Avro Lancaster bomber.


The result was the "Shackleton AEW.2". Twelve were converted and served with the RAF in support of the Royal Navy. The Shackleton AEW.2 was an embarrassment, a flying museum piece, and the only good thing that could be said about it was that it was better than nothing. It was supposed to be a temporary fix while the British developed the advanced "Nimrod AEW" aircraft, but that program proved over-ambitious and terminally "snakebitten", leading to seemingly endless delays until it was finally canceled.

http://vc.airvectors.net/ttwiz_06.html
Airborne System. The AN/APS-20, developed as part of the Cadillac program, was a 10cm set that had a peak power output of 1 megawatt and a 2-second pulse. The design of the APS-20 radar was so sound that variations of this same radar would see use well into the 1960s on a variety of USN, USAF and allied AEW platforms, until it was ultimately replaced by the E-2’s APS-96/120 series among others. The IFF system was built around the AN/APX-13 with a very high power (2 kW) transmitter and one of the most sensitive receivers in this type application. It was designed to enable ID of targets on both the (then) Navy standard A and G bands at ranges comparable to the radar. To “pipe” this information back to the ship, the AN/ART-22 relay-radar transmitter, broadcast the picture back to the ship on a 300 mc frequency.The radar synchronizer also synchronized the IFF and relay signals, encoding their outputs to ensure reception even in an environment characterized by heavy enemy jamming and intrusion. Remote operation of the airborne system from the ship was made possible by the AN/ARW-35 receiver, AN/ARC-18 shipboard relay and the use of a modified flux gate valve to stabilize and orient the radar display to true North (ed. note – not altogether different from the system that was used in the E-2 almost 2 decades later). All this, of course, was in addition to the usual compliment of voice comm., IFF, and flight/navigation gear. Space, as one can see from the cutaway, was at a premium, even in the large-bodied Avenger.



Shipboard System. The shipboard system primarily consisted of relay (which included omnidirectional or a horizontal diversity receiver), decoding, and shipboard signal distribution equipment. The signal was passed to 2-3 PPI scopes, located in CIC. In CIC, the picture was merged with that of the ship in a manner that eliminated motion induced by the AEW platform – in other words, a ground-stabilized picture oriented to true north. That picture could be expanded to a 20nm view for detailed examination of sectors of interest. When tied together with voice communications, the implications of this capability were astounding
.http://steeljawscribe.com/2010/10/09/project-cadillac-the-beginning-of-aew-in-the-us-navy-part-ii
 
Gold @marathag , very good precis.

Not relevant to the OP other than it's the APS20 radar but the British used their Skyraiders and Gannets far more independently than the USN and got far more out of this old system than US did. This accounts for its particularly ling service life, the system the radar served was far more capable.
 
That radar was very useful, and very long lived

The radar element of the system was the "AN/APS-20" S-band radar, which was fitted to Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers. As mentioned earlier, the TBM had carried the first operational American airborne radar, the ASB. The converted TBM, designated "TBM-3W", was stripped of armament, armor, and bombing gear, then fitted with a big radome between the main landing gear for the AN/APS-20's rotating antenna. The radome gave the aircraft a "pregnant" appearance, and additional "finlets" had to be added to the outboard section of each horizontal tailplane to keep the aircraft flying straight. The aircraft was littered with various small antennas for other elements of the system, including two VHF radios, IFF interrogator, and the television relay. Although the PPI imagery was relayed to the CIC on board an aircraft carrier or other vessel, it was also monitored by two operators on board the Avenger.


About 40 TBM-3W conversions were performed, but the system was still in evaluation when the war in the Pacific ended, and did not enter service until 1946. It was still the very first "airborne early warning (AEW)" aircraft. The Navy was impressed enough by the TBM-3W that they also had the AN/APS-20 fitted to the land-based Boeing B-17 Fortress bomber, which was given the designation "PB-1W". The PB-1W provided greater range and endurance than the TBM-3W and could operate far more autonomously.


* The AN/APS-20 radar would have a peculiarly long life. It was fitted to a number of other aircraft in the 1950s, most significantly a variant of the Douglas Skyraider carrier-based attack aircraft, the "AD-3W". The AN/APS-20, with some enhancements, remained in first line service until the early 1960s.


It appears that radar technology reached a sort of evolutionary "plateau" in the postwar period. It was still being improved and used in new applications, but the rate of progress was nothing like the incredible explosion of technology seen during the war. Radar didn't really take another big step forward until the 1960s, when digital circuitry and then computing power was integrated with radar sets, giving them intelligence that allowed them to be much more capable and less of a magical art to operate.


However, the AN/APS-20 remained in service with the British for most of the rest of the century. The British Royal Navy obtained the AD-3W Skyraider for operation off their own carriers. In the late 1950s, when the Skyraiders were being retired from British service, the Royal Navy decided to adapt their Fairey "Gannet" carrier-based anti-submarine aircraft to the AEW role, modifying the design and fitting them with AN/APS-20 sets scavenged from the British Skyraiders to create the "Gannet AEW.3".


The Gannet AEW.3 served well into the 1970s. Facing its retirement, the British were in desperate need of an AEW capability, and they went to the AN/APS-20 again, fitting sets to existing Avro Shackleton ocean patrol aircraft. The Shackleton was every bit as much an antique, a four-piston engine aircraft that was a derivative of the World War II Avro Lancaster bomber.


The result was the "Shackleton AEW.2". Twelve were converted and served with the RAF in support of the Royal Navy. The Shackleton AEW.2 was an embarrassment, a flying museum piece, and the only good thing that could be said about it was that it was better than nothing. It was supposed to be a temporary fix while the British developed the advanced "Nimrod AEW" aircraft, but that program proved over-ambitious and terminally "snakebitten", leading to seemingly endless delays until it was finally canceled.

http://vc.airvectors.net/ttwiz_06.html
Airborne System. The AN/APS-20, developed as part of the Cadillac program, was a 10cm set that had a peak power output of 1 megawatt and a 2-second pulse. The design of the APS-20 radar was so sound that variations of this same radar would see use well into the 1960s on a variety of USN, USAF and allied AEW platforms, until it was ultimately replaced by the E-2’s APS-96/120 series among others. The IFF system was built around the AN/APX-13 with a very high power (2 kW) transmitter and one of the most sensitive receivers in this type application. It was designed to enable ID of targets on both the (then) Navy standard A and G bands at ranges comparable to the radar. To “pipe” this information back to the ship, the AN/ART-22 relay-radar transmitter, broadcast the picture back to the ship on a 300 mc frequency.The radar synchronizer also synchronized the IFF and relay signals, encoding their outputs to ensure reception even in an environment characterized by heavy enemy jamming and intrusion. Remote operation of the airborne system from the ship was made possible by the AN/ARW-35 receiver, AN/ARC-18 shipboard relay and the use of a modified flux gate valve to stabilize and orient the radar display to true North (ed. note – not altogether different from the system that was used in the E-2 almost 2 decades later). All this, of course, was in addition to the usual compliment of voice comm., IFF, and flight/navigation gear. Space, as one can see from the cutaway, was at a premium, even in the large-bodied Avenger.



Shipboard System. The shipboard system primarily consisted of relay (which included omnidirectional or a horizontal diversity receiver), decoding, and shipboard signal distribution equipment. The signal was passed to 2-3 PPI scopes, located in CIC. In CIC, the picture was merged with that of the ship in a manner that eliminated motion induced by the AEW platform – in other words, a ground-stabilized picture oriented to true north. That picture could be expanded to a 20nm view for detailed examination of sectors of interest. When tied together with voice communications, the implications of this capability were astounding
.http://steeljawscribe.com/2010/10/09/project-cadillac-the-beginning-of-aew-in-the-us-navy-part-ii
Thanks. Your explanation is most illuminating. But where the two operators located. There is a whacking lot of room in a TBM and it was used as a transport. I remember my Mom and we picking up Dad (a Commander at time) at Anacostia when he flew in as a passenger on a converted TBM from a meeting somewhere. There were three or so passengers on the
 
Avenger was pretty deep bodied, as pointed out here, anybody got any posits on how or if this system might have worked as an SB2C variant?
 
Thanks. Your explanation is most illuminating. But where the two operators located. There is a whacking lot of room in a TBM and it was used as a transport. I remember my Mom and we picking up Dad (a Commander at time) at Anacostia when he flew in as a passenger on a converted TBM from a meeting somewhere. There were three or so passengers on the
Two in back. Saw a note that in British Service, removing one seat made room for 1000 cans of Beer.
 
Avenger was pretty deep bodied, as pointed out here, anybody got any posits on how or if this system might have worked as an SB2C variant?
Terribly, as was anything attached to the Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class.

The Curtiss had electrical issues onto of the myriad hydraulic problems
 
A bit of history to digress upon. The late Earl Kehrberg Staff Sergeant USMC served as a radar repair technician in the Marine Air Wing during WWII. He used to regal me with his stories of service in the Pacific war, including a few concerning the airborne radars the Marine Corps used. The two stories that stuck most firmly in my mind concerned first how he regularly finagled his way into the 1st Mar Div officers mess on Guadalcanal, and how after the resistance on Okinawa collapsed two hungry Japanese soldiers joined the breakfast line in the predawn darkness at Kehrbergs squadron mess tent.
 
The end result higher Japanese losses, due to being detected earlier ,lower American losses because American aircraft can also be vectored away from Japanese aircraft .
Not good for Japan.
 
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