The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
Photograph of deployed SCR-584 radar
U.S. Army. Via Wikipedia
The SCR-584 was a mobile gunlaying
radar known as the GL Mark 3A in British
service. The finest fire control
set of the Second World War, it was
equipped with a PPI display for detection mode and automatically
tracked a target once acquired. It was capable of tracking moving
vehicles
and even troops and remained in use until 1996. It was very effective
against aircraft
when combined with the M-9 director. Once locked onto an aircraft, it
could automatically aim and fire a remote power-controlled gun, whose
crew needed only to keep reloading. The SCR-584 could even locate artillery from the shell
trajectories, and it was capable of directing ground support aircraft.
Because the SCR-584 could track aircraft moving as fast as 600 mph
(965 km/h), it was employed successfully against the V-1 "buzz bombs"
launched by Germany in late 1944.
Priority was given to the European theater, but units were operating in
the Philippines by
1945. SCR-584 also became the basis for the SM-1 fighter direction
radar used on Allied carriers in the Pacific.
References
Buderi
(1998)
Guerlac (1987)
Hogg (2002)
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