Searchlights - Improvements

[SUNTSAG]

[Knock-Knock]

Thanks for these videos, Naked :thumbup:.

I hope they will increase their range even further, cause these things had quite the reach.

 

The searchlight was attached to the generator by a 200-metre (660 ft) cable. The system had a detection range of about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) for targets at an altitude of between 4,000 and 5,000 metres (13,000 and 16,000 ft). The system could be made mobile using two sets of Special Trailer 104 units, one for the searchlight and one for the generator. It required a crew of seven to operate it.

 

The searchlight could be traversed 360 degrees and elevated from -12 degrees through the vertical to -12 degrees on the other side.

 

Early war tactics for the searchlight deployment had the searchlights forward of the Flak guns in a "zone of preparation", laid out in a grid with 5 kilometers between each light. Sound locators deployed with the searchlights helped them find targets, later these were replaced with radar systems.

 

In order to reach bombers now flying at increasingly higher altitudes, more powerful searchlights were needed. In 1943, the first 200-centimetre Scheinwerfer-43 searchlights, with 2.7 billion Hefner candlepower (2.4 gigacandela) were delivered to troops. Powered by a 120-kilowatt generator, these searchlights could detect targets at distances of up to 13 kilometres (8.1 mi).

 

Typically, one 200 cm searchlight was employed with three 150 cm searchlights. The 200 cm searchlight was deployed at the center of a triangle formed by the 150 cm searchlights. The smaller searchlights deployed at a distance of about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) from the larger central "master" searchlight. The master searchlight would find the target, and the 150 cm lights would cone the target, providing solid triangulation.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_searchlights_of_World_War_II