Lichtenstein Radar
On the night of 8/9 August 1941, Ludwig Becker and his radio operator, Josef Staub, became the first Luftwaffe night fighter crew to intercept an enemy bomber using airborne radar. Flying a Dornier Do 215 B-5 of 4./NJG 1 (G9+OM) equipped with FUG 202 Lichtenstein B/C radar, they tracked and shot down a Wellington which crashed near Bunde.
The Lichtenstein radar was the most significant airborne radar available to the Luftwaffe, and the first such system used exclusively for airborne interception. Developed by Telefunken, it was produced in at least four versions: the FUG 202 Lichtenstein B/C, the FUG 212 Lichtenstein C-1, the FUG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2 and the rarely used FUG 228 Lichtenstein SN-3.
The Lichtenstein sets remained the only widely deployed airborne interception radar used by the Germans on their night fighters during the war. However, it was the FUG 220 type of Lichtenstein equipment which fell into the hands of the Swiss in April 1944. (Note: FUG is short for Funk-gerät, or radio set).
THE FUG 220 LICHTENSTEIN SN-2
By late 1943, the Luftwaffe was starting to deploy the improved FUG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2 which was less affected by electronic jamming. However, this equipment required the large Hirschgeweih (stag’s antlers) antennae. This aerial setup produced tremendous drag and slowed the operating aircraft by up to 50 km/h (30 mph).
The first SN-2 sets initially required the retention of a supplementary B/C or C-1 set, also with their full sets of masts, but the alarming drag that both types of antennae caused led to urgent improvements in early 1944 and newer SN-2 versions were developed with lower minimum range and also allowed the older radar system to be removed entirely.
In July 1944, the newest version of the SN-2 radar fell into Allied hands when a fully equipped Ju 88 G-1, of 7 Staffel/njg 2, flew the wrong way on a navigation beacon and landed at RAF Woodbridge in England by accident, the crew not realising their mistake until it was too late to destroy the radar equipment and also the Flensburg radar detection apparatus on board. Thus, almost no sooner than the Luftwaffe had been led to believe it had neutralised the risk of its newest radar equipment falling into the wrong hands via the Swiss, than a fully working set was delivered accidentally into the hands of the Allies, anyway.
The capture of this equipment led to the successful jamming of several frequency bands of the FUG 220 by the RAF.
Significantly, it was the existence of the Lichtenstein radar that led to the famous ‘corkscrew’ evasive measure used by RAF Bomber Command, the manoeuvre specifically developed to remove any heavy bomber under attack from the 60° cone that comprised the night fighter’s Lichtenstein radar coverage.