Quote:
Originally Posted by majorfailure
That would finally give a meaning to planes equipped with good radios beyond their single plane capabilities. Especially the Soviets early war would be hurt quite bad.
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If you want to get into details, there are actually three aspects to period radios.
First, many early war aircraft (notably Soviets and Chinese) didn't have radios. Realistically, any aircraft without a radio can't be commanded or warned via radio.
Second, 1940s radios were temperamental. They were prone to failure, they had limited range, and the number of frequencies on which they could transmit or receive was quite limited. The low quality radios - like those produced by the Soviets or the Japanese - had unacceptably short range and/or so produced so much static that they were functionally useless. High quality radios had better range and a clearer signal (but even then, jamming and other factors could interfere with range and signal clarity).
Third, in many cases, aircrew had no way of knowing if their radio was working properly, and had little recourse if their radio stopped sending or receiving. In particular, the radio on most fighters was mounted behind the armor-plating behind the pilot, so there was no way to fix the radio if it was broken, or even determine if it was damaged. Even for multi-crew aircraft, most aircraft didn't carry spare radios, or spare parts, which means that they were out of luck if their radio broke.