ROTOR

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ROTOR was a huge and elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers.

It was first proposed in the Cherry Report of 1949 which suggested that the 170 existing Royal Air Force radar stations be reduced to 66 sites which and the electronics extensively upgraded and relocated into nuclear bunkers. Six R4 Sector Operation Control (SOC) centres provided overall control to a command hierarchy of bunkers, known as R3, R2 and R1 bunkers. Another 28 Anti-Aircraft Operations Room (AAOR) bunkers were built for control of anti-aircraft guns.

These new bunkers consumed 350,000 tons of concrete. The work was mainly carried out by the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company in several phases, called ROTOR 1, ROTOR 2 and ROTOR 3.

The bunkers for the East coast, facing the direction of expected attack, were buried deep underground but west coast sites were only partially buried.

The system was extensively revamped in the mid-fifties with the development of the Green Garlic radar (later called the Type 80), which allowed detection and ground control of interception to be performed using the same radar.

This and the need for quicker reaction times because of the development of Soviet supersonic aircraft meant that the number of sites was further reduced. Whilst some were retained as Master Radar Stations (MRS), all of the AAOR sites and many others became government department and local authority wartime headquarters. In the mid-1960s the Master Radar Stations themselves were replaced with a new system called Linesman/Mediator.

Until the end of the Cold War the sites were retained by the government but now have been sold off to private buyers or converted into museums and some transferred to the National Air Traffic Control Centre.