In article ,
Charles Talleyrand wrote:
How good was shipborne radar in the 60s against a 2003 airforce? For
example, could a 1964 ship detect an incoming modern strike
before the explosions began in the face of modern ACM.

I ask both because I'm curious about the past and because there are navies out
there using old-fashioned technology.

There are some things that the 60s era set will actually do better. Radar
jamming is harder against the older radars, as things like the range gate
and gain control were manually operated, so an operator could look for the
smaller, real returns that the jamming is trying to hide or realize that
he is subject to barrage jamming.

Not that I am recommending going back to manually operated tracking systems,
but that the only thing going for computers is their speed. Even the best
and most complex expert system is pathetically stupid.

Also, you should not judge a system by its antenna and transmitter, or you
could be surprised by a ship that has had the 60s era signal processors
removed and replaced 80s era stuff, or a general purpose P4 computer
(running linux) emulating the 80s hardware, for less money.

Third world countries, and by extension their navies, are poor, not stupid.
Underestimate them at your peril. It was bad enough when the manufacturing
jobs left North America, but the knowledge-based jobs are starting to leave
now, too.