radar shows altitude

[matt72078]

How about when you put the cursor over the red dot on the radar it shows you an approximate altitude.  Radar was sophisticated enough during the war to tell you what alt they were at, and I would rather not waste my time flying for ten minutes chasing a dot only to find that he is at 25K, and it is going to take another 45 minutes to catch him.  I play this game to fight not chase people.

[JunkyII]

-1

[Karnak]

Something to give an indication of altitude would be nice.

Maybe color code the dots going from red through yellow as altitude increased to 30k.

[gyrene81]

+1 some sort of indicator would be nice.

[Lusche]

-1

No need to drive bombers even higher.

[shotgunneeley]

Was radar of the period able to distinguish the target's altitude or was that based off of visual observation? It seems like I remember it being able to (no time to look it up for verification).

Players in-flight are able to directly view the number and X-Y position of the enemy cons. Was that simply meant to enhance gameplay or simulate coordination from ground radar units to vector friendly planes? If its meant to simulate ground coordination, then I'd think they would also relay the altitude...and possibly size/type (i.e. single engine vs. four engine) if they knew.

Again, I do not have any source data to support what I just said. I'm just kicking around ideas.

[XxDaSTaRxx]

How about when you put the cursor over the red dot on the radar it shows you an approximate altitude.  Radar was sophisticated enough during the war to tell you what alt they were at, and I would rather not waste my time flying for ten minutes chasing a dot only to find that he is at 25K, and it is going to take another 45 minutes to catch him.  I play this game to fight not chase people.

-1 Bombers and fighters already get screwed over because of radar.

Something to give an indication of altitude would be nice.

Maybe color code the dots going from red through yellow as altitude increased to 30k.

I could agree with that...

[Tilt]

 It would be neat if the limit of the radar was defined by an inverted truncated cone...

i.e if the radar limit was 10,000ft (radius) at ground level it would be 15,000ft at 30,000ft alt.

if we see dots appearing well out side the radar ring we know they are very high.......... and we have a bot more time for intercept.

BoB the RAF had chain home and chain home low radar stations. The chain home had a longer range but could see nothing clearly below critical altitudes (5000ft)  below which chain home low (and chain home extra low) radar stations were used.

[TwinBoom]

-6 I say turn off radar in the Main all together

[gyrene81]

-6 I say turn off radar in the Main all together

that's just so you don't have to fight anyone. 

think about is as all the native sheep herders being paid to watch for aircraft and the ones inside the dar circle have binoculars...

[earl1937]

How about when you put the cursor over the red dot on the radar it shows you an approximate altitude.  Radar was sophisticated enough during the war to tell you what alt they were at, and I would rather not waste my time flying for ten minutes chasing a dot only to find that he is at 25K, and it is going to take another 45 minutes to catch him.  I play this game to fight not chase people.

I don't want to start an argument, but I don't believe there were many radar sites capable of projecting altitude. They could most certainly see out to about, depending on the altitude of the object observed because radar is a "Line of sight" piece of equipment and the curve of the earth, limited them to about 200 miles if the aircraft was 18 to 25 thousand feet high.
The GCA, "Ground Controlled Approach" was a system which did have the capability of seeing altitude, as the operator could tell you if you were on "Glide Slope" or not. He could tell you if you 50 feet to high or 50 feet to low as you made your approach to the runway.
Even in the 50's, 60's and early 70's, the radar used by the FAA to handle all "Instrument Flight Rule" aircraft had flaws, such as a heavy rain shower would hide you from the radar, as it just showed a large green blob on the screen. Then in the late 70's, they developed radar which would "filter" out the rain showers. Even with that advanced system, the only way they knew your altitude was by "Transponder" response, or you told them after they asked!
I quit flying professionally in 1998 and even then, with in Terminal Control areas, (50 mile and in), I would be asked constantly my altitude as I was descending for an instrument approach to a large terminal area such as New York, Washington, Atlanta and I could name 20 more busy sites, the point being, they didn't have altitude information on radar systems then and I was less than 50 miles from the radar site.
I know the British were way ahead of us on Radar during WW2 so I don't know if they had that capability then or not. I know the U.S. airman where ask to report their altitude at certain "intersections", (point where 2 different radio signals crossed), so the controllers would know their height above sea level.
there is a ton of information on radar in general on line, but I would bet the military has the most effection radar anywhere and that is certainly not on line, at least not their greatest, latest magic boxes!

[bozon]

Old radars did not read altitude by themselves. They used a banana shaped beam scanning a narrow azimuth range at a wide spread of elevation angles. Thus, the operator could tell if there is a plane in the beam, but had no information about altitude. The reason is that in order to get altitude from a single radar, you need a pencil shaped beam and scan in elevations quickly during the azimuth scan. This either limits the time you can sped on a beam (thus range and sensitivity) or forces a very slow azimuth scan speed, which means slow update rate for the targets.

Old radars used one of two things: 1) a banana shaped beam that is limited in its elevation range and then employ a rough vertical scan, or two radars, one scanning low elevations and the other scanning high. That only gave a very rough estimation of altitude because the elevation resolution is very crude and the altitude range covered by each beam changes with range. 2) A dedicated altitude radar with a narrow pencil beam that scans up-down only. The operator then points this radar in the azimuth of the target found by the main radar and does vertical scans. Hopefully this radar will also detect the target and by matching the ranges in both scopes the operator can correlated the target in the main 2D radar with the one in the screen of the altitude radar.

This thing is that altitude measurements are not easy even with a pencil beam. The atmosphere bends the beam and 30,000 feet blips can turn out out to be cars on the highway or windmills. Modern radars take atmospheric conditions into the calculations, but even then altitude readings can sometimes fluctuate quite a bit. Air trafic controllers rely mostly on altitude readings from the transponders in the planes. This is not a radar measurement - the transponder is sending the altitude as measured by the plane instruments, coded as transmission pulses.

[earl1937]

Old radars did not read altitude by themselves. They used a banana shaped beam scanning a narrow azimuth range at a wide spread of elevation angles. Thus, the operator could tell if there is a plane in the beam, but had no information about altitude. The reason is that in order to get altitude from a single radar, you need a pencil shaped beam and scan in elevations quickly during the azimuth scan. This either limits the time you can sped on a beam (thus range and sensitivity) or forces a very slow azimuth scan speed, which means slow update rate for the targets.

Old radars used one of two things: 1) a banana shaped beam that is limited in its elevation range and then employ a rough vertical scan, or two radars, one scanning low elevations and the other scanning high. That only gave a very rough estimation of altitude because the elevation resolution is very crude and the altitude range covered by each beam changes with range. 2) A dedicated altitude radar with a narrow pencil beam that scans up-down only. The operator then points this radar in the azimuth of the target found by the main radar and does vertical scans. Hopefully this radar will also detect the target and by matching the ranges in both scopes the operator can correlated the target in the main 2D radar with the one in the screen of the altitude radar.

This thing is that altitude measurements are not easy even with a pencil beam. The atmosphere bends the beam and 30,000 feet blips can turn out out to be cars on the highway or windmills. Modern radars take atmospheric conditions into the calculations, but even then altitude readings can sometimes fluctuate quite a bit. Air trafic controllers rely mostly on altitude readings from the transponders in the planes. This is not a radar measurement - the transponder is sending the altitude as measured by the plane instruments, coded as transmission pulses.

Excellent post sir! I never have understood the in's and out's of radar, but as a pilot, with no working radar on board, and a dark rainy night in South Georgia, trying to get your people home in one piece, you really get to admiring a good radar controller when there are thunder storms in all quadrants and he works you through without as much a bump!

[Greebo]

Personally I'd like to be able to tune the trigger for the base flashing from the FE. So for example you could set it to ignore GVs or ignore planes. Or to only flash if over a certain number of enemies were within range of that base. Maybe have two speeds of flashing dependent on the numbers in range. Or set it to ignore enemies over or under a certain alt. Using these settings a player could get a better picture of whats going on in the arena from the tower.

[asterix]

-1
I have a feeling that a number of players would just turn around to gain altitude if they see cons higher than them. Who am I going to pick then eh?