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Abstract
This paper traces the disputes and conflicts between the leading political and scientific personalities involved in the development of the early British radar-based air defence system. The paper demonstrates how these conflicts, coupled with the poor performance of radar in a 1936 demonstration, led to the pursuit of the alternative Silhouette system of night air defence, comprising cloud illumination by upward-facing floodlights, and the consequent delay in expediting the development of a coordinated system of pre- cise ground radars and airborne air interception radar to combat German bombers in the night Blitz of 1940–41.