Rn vs IJN

[WARSPITER]

Up until 1940 Japan had done a lot of work when it came to radar. The yagi antenna had been developed and was in use by Britain
as it's capabilities had been recognised.

By the late 1930's the first version of the Japanese built Cavity Magnetron was also working. In 1940 Britain also produced a
Cavity Magnetron which would allow high powered microwave radar to be developed.

For Japan, vital metals such as Nickel were in short supply as were the manufacturing techniques to make reliable components.

Another fork in the road was chasing the Tesla theory of using powerful microwaves to make a "death ray" which could bring
down aircraft. Work went ahead in that direction and was all destroyed just before the occupation of Japan.

The other flies in the ointment were the Bushido system and the army / navy rivalry.

Bushido put more emphasis on combat usefulness per person so technicians and developers of non combat items such as
radar were somewhat looked down on. By 1942 numbers of bright minds working on radar were ending up sitting on islands
with a rifle as that was deemed to be more useful.

As to the army and navy, both were developing their own versions of radar devices to the point where an army installation
would be built near a navy one for the same purpose. IFF development is another example as Navy IFF was different to
the army version and neither could identify the other so both arms could not recognise each others aircraft as friendly.
Somewhat bizarre all round in the end.

Japan ended up using the German VHF type plus copies of captured British and US types.

 

[Admiral Beez]

As to the army and navy, both were developing their own versions of radar devices to the point where an army installation
would be built near a navy one for the same purpose. IFF development is another example as Navy IFF was different to
the army version and neither could identify the other so both arms could not recognise each others aircraft as friendly.

While interservice rivalry and contesting for government funding/priorities are normal in most countries; are there other examples like Imperial Japan of a country's separate military wings demonstrating such wasteful duplication and incompatibility of effort and kit?

Would Imperial Japan have done better if the entire military was run as one organization? Sort of how today's PRC military is all People's Liberation Army, no matter if you're in the PLAAF, PLAGF, PLAN or PLARF. Japan's air force was run by the army. A single fighter aircraft, a combo of A6M and Ki-43, single twin engined bomber, combo G4M and Ki-49 might have offered benefits. Now there are deep cultural and historical barriers to making this so, but had it been done the benefits might have been notable.

Here in Canada in the late 1960s we unified all three services (Army, RCAF and RCN) into one CAF - which is more easily done when your entire organization (of today) has fewer full time personnel than seats in Wembley Stadium.