Introduction to Radar

Image: Man in Berlin with Radar Equipment; Wikimedia Commons

One  defensive technology that developed throughout the course of World War II was the radar, which detected objects at a distance using radio waves. At the beginning of the war this technology was not in widespread use, but by the end of the war it was utilized for a variety of functions. David Mindell argues in The Science and Technology of World War II that by allowing users to detect objects at distances of up to thousands of miles away, the radar effectively eliminated the possibility of surprise attacks and enlarged the arena of battle. Radar was also used to accurately target missiles towards attacking aircraft, monitor airborne attacks, and to predict weather conditions prior to anticipated offensives. (2) This new technology changed the visual aspects of warfare in a similar manner as to what happened when trenches were introduced in the first World War, except that in this situation visibility increased as opposed to decreased. This made the battlefield itself much larger and led to an increase in artillery style weaponry due to the increased accuracy. Even so, radar was most effective when used defensively.