Radar Range?

Wow glad I read this field I was still in a HOI2 mode where I just built one per province to direct interceptors.

I do think that it's good that you don't have to province build like you do ports and airfields. It's not nearly as complicated as building a port where you have to dredge and stuff. Though airfields take way too long to build though, especially for a military airfield.

Geezuz said:

ah I'm not in the mood to argue this, it's just not worth it. However I am not sure if I really like the fact that basically all radar in the game has the same potential range, no matter how advanced it is. Unless that is somehow not how it works and I still don't get it

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Actually it does work in a fairly realistic way. UK built a few very early Radar stations near London that could detect airplanes taking off from Paris with very simple tech just because they built them 100+ meters high.

What more advanced tech gives you mostly is better accuracy, you can track how many aircrafts, their altitude, speed and heading much easier.

If all you want is a "blip" telling you something is out there then very very basic tech from two very very large masts (to triangulate) works fine.

Alex_brunius said:

If all you want is a "blip" telling you something is out there then very very basic tech from two very very large masts (to triangulate) works fine.

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Two very large masts is not enough to triangulate (as you would technically need a minimum of three towers to triangulate in 2d space). In fact, if you build a bunch of radar towers next to each other, they could not effectively triangulate (as the most accurate way to triangulate an object would be to have towers on all sides). The benefit of having multiple towers together is that you get better sensitivity.

If you look at where England put their Chain Home stations, you will see they put them all over the southern and eastern coast. The fact that they had so many would give them a good sense of where airplanes were and where they were going.

Many german sites would have a vertical tower and a horizontal tower as well (that way they can get two different types of information from one station).

I think parallel production is a bit gamey too, but in a way it makes sense.

If you take the material needed to make 10 small antenna's, you could make a huge antenna that would pick up far more signals and 'blips', right?
The equipment needed for such an installation is in essence not that different from what you would need for a small one. It's only bigger and more powerful.

Also don't forget that it takes 90 days to fully function. In that time, the small equipment is put together into a large machine that can support the super-antenna.

Besides, who says all 'radar' stuff in the production screen is exactly the same. Suppose that you are building radar purely to search for ships. Than you would build other equipment and training than if you intended it to be a listening station.
The same goes for lvl 10 radar/listener. If you build 10x1 'radar' with the intention of putting them together, every parallel line builds another component.
The smart people as they are, PI doesn't bother with distinctions between air-, sea- and land-radar and just made a generic 'Radar' which is whichever you want it to be. If you use your imagination, it makes sense.

I dont really understand those of us, who feel forced to interpret a level 10 Signal Intelligence Site as just a machine built out of 10 minor sites, put together and now complain about how radar works and stuff. This is an abstraction guys! You would not seriously suspect a level 10 port as 10 different level 1 ports side by side, would you? Come on...

RDG said:

I dont really understand those of us, who feel forced to interpret a level 10 Signal Intelligence Site as just a machine built out of 10 minor sites, put together and now complain about how radar works and stuff. This is an abstraction guys! You would not seriously suspect a level 10 port as 10 different level 1 ports side by side, would you? Come on...

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Good point, and I fully agree. However, this...

Garak said:

Radar stations, rocket testing sights, IC, and nuclear facilities all work this way. Strangely, though, airbases and naval ports don't. I don't quite follow the reasoning. And of course, infrastructure and forts can't be built from the production menu at all.

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... makes no sense at all. One would think that this sort of abstraction would be consistent across the game, but apparently it isn't for some weird reason.

endor said:

Two very large masts is not enough to triangulate (as you would technically need a minimum of three towers to triangulate in 2d space). In fact, if you build a bunch of radar towers next to each other, they could not effectively triangulate (as the most accurate way to triangulate an object would be to have towers on all sides). The benefit of having multiple towers together is that you get better sensitivity.

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Actually all you need is two towers to triangulate in 2d. The third signal gives you altitude (height) and thus a 3d image. With a bit of calculation (and two steady) or known movement rate antennas you can figure out a 3d image fairly quickly and fairly accurately if you are able to make some 'fair' assumptions.

Hamilkar said:

Actually all you need is two towers to triangulate in 2d. The third signal gives you altitude (height) and thus a 3d image. With a bit of calculation (and two steady) or known movement rate antennas you can figure out a 3d image fairly quickly and fairly accurately if you are able to make some 'fair' assumptions.

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Not really true either. Two towers in a plane will give you a circle of possible solutions perpendicular to that plane. However only two points of this circle intersect the plane (our 2d map), so either the enemy aircraft is over the English channel, or its en equal distance north of the two towers.

Since the degree difference is so small it would be very hard to detect altitude of aircrafts far away even with many towers. This is because they all are restricted to the same plane. But this is getting a little OT ^^

So does anyone know if its possible to get the radar bonus for aircombat in provinces outside the one with your actual radar station in HoI3? I've only seen it in the radar province. Also if its possible how is this range determined?

Depends more on how good your detection instrumentation is as well as some other factors that are very hard to model. This gets far more difficult with range. At the extreme edge of range your angle could be as much as 3 degrees or several tens/hundreds of miles depending on the arc length. On the other hand with good gear and good atmospheric conditions you can detect planes etc that really should be close to undetectable at that range (luck). As for the bonus I havent paid close enough attention to air combat to know the answer to that yet.

Alex_brunius said:

So does anyone know if its possible to get the radar bonus for aircombat in provinces outside the one with your actual radar station in HoI3? I've only seen it in the radar province. Also if its possible how is this range determined?

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I have gotten it before, I thought it affected the base province plus all surrounding provinces. So you should be able to arrange a swiss cheese layout and fully cover the area with cheap lvl 1 air def radar nets.