WesWorld

South African radar technology began development in the early years of the forth decade of the Twentieth century - partially triggered by home-grown ideas and research results, but to the same degree pushed by the need to keep pace with foreign developments.

Below is a list and time line of basic radar sets and the year of their introduction into service. In many ways variants of those basic sets were also developed to accomodate a system to an installation evironment or to work out bugs and enhance robustness and durability, ranging from different antennas, electric bundles and power supply modules to small things such as different labels for switches or lighting of displays. These variants were usually marked with an addition to the systems standard name and acronym.

1st Generation Surface Search Radar

1936 Surface Radio Detection (SRD)

1st Generation Air Search Radar

1936 Surface to Air Detection (SAD)

2nd Generation Surface Search Radar

1938 Enhanced Surface Radio Detection (ESRD)

2nd Generation Air Search Radar

1938 Air Warning Radar (AWR)

3rd Generation Surface Search Radar / 1st Generation Surface FC Radar

1939 Gun Laying Radar (GLR)
1940 Surface to Surface Detection and Warning Radar (SDWR)
1941 Precise Ranging Radar (PRR)

3rd Generation Air Search Radar / 1st Generation Anti-Air FC Radar

1940 Improved Air Warning Radar (IAWR)
1941 Surface to Air Ranging (SAR)

4th Generation Surface Search Radar / 2nd Generation Surface FC Radar

1942 Sea Surveillance Radar (SSR)
1943 Surface Fire Control (SFC)

4th Generation Air Search Radar / 2nd Generation Anti-Air FC Radar

1942 Air Surveillance Radar (ASR)
1943 Anti-Aircraft Fire Control (AFC)
1944 Close Range Blind Fire (CRBF)

5th Generation Surface Search Radar / 3rd Generation Surface FC Radar

1945 Automated Sea Surveillance (ASS)
1945 Enhanced Surface Fire Control (ESFC)

5th Generation Air Search Radar / 3rd Generation Anti-Air FC Radar

1945 Automated Air Surveillance (AAS)
1945 Anti-Aircraft Fire Control (AFC)