Not worth it because in RL it was an almost total failure till the end of the war: "Radar aids to navigation did not start to become available until early in 1942 when 10 Squadrons ( less than 200 aircraft) were progessively equipped with the "Gee" ground based navigation position finding aid, and this was soon jammed over Europe by German countermeasures. The initially used airborne equipment had a very low reliability and frequently failed, maintenance costs both in parts and manpower was very high. Airborne radar using the "H2S" radar mapping equipment was slowly introduced in 1943, but similarly had a very low initial reliability. The first equipment operating on 10 cm proved very difficult to use in practice due to the coarseness of the picture, and it was not until its replacement by 3 cm equipment at the end of 1943 did "H2S" become a really usefull navigation aid. H2S also had the disadvantage that it enabled German night fighters to home on to the aircraft using it. By 1943 practially all the four engined bombers were fitted with a remote indicating gyro stabilised compass system linked to the Mk.14 bomb sight and an automatic device (Air Position Indicator) for keeping a record of course flown and speed, all of which resulted in a considerable improvement in the accuracy of navigation and target location. "
Brits in nightfighters were knocking down night blitz raiders in 1940 and escorting the bomber stream on night bombing raids over Europe in 1942. Thats hardly the end of the war. RAF aces on nightfighters were amongst the top RAF scorers in kills and the biggest RAF nightfighter aces scored the majority of their kills early on in the night AI game when they were up against poor LW cometition and fighting with the assist of GCI(the tables turned a bit later on when quality radar and He219s, Me410s and late model Ju88s were available to LW).
1. they weren't using radar but were relying on the limited light available from the moon and other sources at this time. (hence the idea of eating lots of carrots to improve your night vision) night interceptors were guided into the general area of the bombers by GCI and then it was basically upto them to find the bombers using the Mark I eyeball. (spotting exhaust flames, aircraft silhoutted against the moon, or the explosions from the bombs) 2. No-one escorted British bombers on night flights because the danger of collision was too high. Unlike the Americans who flew in massed formations the British used to fly as individual aircraft with each plane responsible for navigating it's own way to the target, identifying it and then bombing it. On the larger bomber missions pathfinders were used to illuminate the target for the rest of the bombers to home in on. Late war night missions consisted of a "gaggle" of aircraft which even then weren't escorted. Mal
The 1st airborne interception (AI) RADAR kill of the war was made on the night of July 22 1940 (is there really night at that high lattitude in July?), a Blenheim shooting down a Do17. Well known ace John Cunningham scored his first airborne AI RADAR assisted night interception and kill on the night of November 20 1940, shooting down a Ju88 from his Beaufighter. AI was a secret at the time so the cover story was put out that he had superb night vision and was thus given the nickname 'cateyes'. RAF bomber command night raids flew in a stream, bombers flying along the same path but spaced out in time to avoid collisions. RAF nightfighters flying along the edges of these paths, or orbiting near the target and later over known LW night ground control stations, intercepting aircrafts flying outside the stream and shooting down LW nightfighters. Not escort in the sense of schwarmes of close escort, top cover, target support and withdrawl support; but escort of a type. The best books I've read on this topic are _Night Fighter_ by CF Rawnsley R/O to John Cunningham, _Night Fighter_ (different book, same title) by JRD Braham the 5th highest scoring British ace of the war and _Pursuit Through Darkened Skies_ by R/O Michael Allen. These are some of the most detailed and exciting first hand accounts of the air war that I've read. Highly recommened. Reading them on a passenger flight (pictures of flaming aircraft on the cover) also recommened for misanthropes.
