It was due to the radar
The royal navy feared the ships radar would set of the snebs fuse
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Blue Vixen RADAR changes in the latest datamine. I’m not really clued up on how RADARs work ingame so I can’t say what this will change
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Damn they doubled everything
Was play with the Shar again on the Dev and I was reminded on how fast the scanning speeds are, so I wanted to ask. How advanced was the Blue Fox? I know it doesn’t have PD, MTI, high range or missile guidance but was it really as good as some say?
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To get the FRS1 approved, the RN had to massively undersell it, to the point of self-deprication. But they also made it on the cheap as much as possible, so the Blue Fox is a modified Seaspray radar fitted onto the Lynx. So it wasnt ever meant to be world beating, but was designed to operate under conditions that proved handy for the FRS1.
But even within the Shars you had 2 very different opinions on them.
NAS 800 onboard HMS Hermes didnt properly calibrate them and largely the pilots considered the radar very poor.
NAS 801 onboard HMS invincible did have them properly calibrated and advocates like Sharkey Ward praised the radar fairly highly, managing to exceed its design specifications
But it was very limited and onyl really designed for high alt intercepts
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Actually, thats an idea.
@Gunjob Could Seaspray docs be used to get the Blue Fox more scan modes? (looking at the 5° mode) (if docs can be found and it shows that it has more scan modes)
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Why not have had a radar capable of guiding something like the Skyflash and and PD but still keeping it cheap?
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Because the RAF didnt want the RN to have anything, as they took sole respnosibility to defend the fleet (which went well). To get anything, they had to massively gimp it and muddy its reputation.
The FA2 is the result of the RN getting what they actually wanted/needed
The FRS1 was sold to the MOD to do one thing and one thing only, intercept soviet shadower aircraft. Something the RAF ommitted they probably couldnt do reliably. It was always assumed that any conflict (most likely with the soviets) would occur well within range of land bases where the RAF could operate Phantoms to provide exactly that kind of aircover.
The Falklands was… the least expected conflict.
Check out books like “Harrier 809” it covers a lot of this back story.
Sharkey Ward also covers a lot of the Blue Fox in his book “Sea Harrier over the Falklands”
Maybe, we’d likely need the other evidence to tie the two together.
Like an official doc stating that Blue Fox was developed from the Seaspray or something?
Yeah or the usual published books etc that confirm the link.
Like this from Harrier 809?
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Yes
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What would the documents that would likely hold that kind of information be called?
User Manual? Pilots Manual?
Wasn’t the Blue Fox also upgraded when Sea Harriers got the twin missile rails in 83?
i think i stumbled on a scientific paper about british radar development about a year ago, i can try to find it again
im not sure this was the one
but
But was it changed much? I’ve read somewhere (I think it might be here) that it was x2 more capable and maybe had a PD mode but I wanted to check as it seems common knowledge that it had no PD
They got the twin rails in 1982, just after the Falklands. When NAS809 returned to the Falklands with HMS Illustrious to take up air defence, they returned with dual rails. They maintained CAP until the end of the year, when Phantoms took over
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No, to my understanding the upgrade was mostly under the radar as there was already focus on making the Blue Vixen was blue falcon at the time IIRC.
It did however use its frequency agility to combat jamming targets as it could go through a few frequencies meaning the enemy aircraft would have to jam across a wider range.
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