Initially sensors were optical and acoustic devices developed during the First World War and continued into the 1930s, but were quickly superseded by radar, which in turn was supplemented by optronics in the 1980s. Command and control remained primitive until the late 1930s, when Britain created an integrated system for ADGB that linked the ground-based air defence of the army's AA Command, although field-deployed air defence relied on less sophisticated arrangements. NATO later called these arrangements an "air defence ground environment", defined as "the network of ground radar sites and command and control centres within a specific theatre of operations which are used for the tactical control of air defence operations".

When were sensors initially developed?