J29 v F86 v Mig 15

[FLYBOYJ]

Here's another one. I've read that the gunsight was far superior on the Sabre compared to the MiG, but what about when compared to the Swedish '29? Have no idea what kinda sight they used on them...

I'm not 100% sure but I think the J29 and F-86 used the same sight. I know they used the same firecontrol system as they were both later armed with early sidewinders

 

[HoHun]

Hi Flyboyj,

>Perhaps in Europe F-86s and MiG-15s could have engaged, but well into the Soviet motherland?

Probably not, but that just reinforces my point about the MiG-15 being a multi-purpose fighter since it was deployed both right in the potential ground battle zone where it would meet short-ranged opposition (or even attack ground targets itself) and deep in the hinterland where the only opposition would be strategic bombers - all armed with the same set of guns

>The one thing the MiG drivers I met said about the armament - great for killing bombers, air to air at closer range but they all complained about the trajectory from longer ranges, as one Czech guy I met put it "it was like lobbing a big bomb" with this opinion of the cannon.

You might have heard of Frederick C. Blesse, WW2 and Korean War veteran and author of the first "fighter pilot's bible", titled "No Guts, No Glory". His take on firing ranges:

"This business of firing at greater ranges is a popular misconception in regard to Korea. Contrary to much that has been published, the Fighter Pilots who shot down more than an occasional Mig or two, got them around 400-1200 feet just like they did in Europe and the Southwest Pacific during World War II."

Successful long range fire against fighters was the exception. The RAF in one WW2 report noted that 86 % of their fighter kills were achieved at ranges of 400 yards and less - the maximum distance also pointed out for the Korean war by Blesse. At these ranges, trajectory drop was negligible, so the Czeck pilot's comment don't actually address an issue that would detract from the MiG-15's armament against fighters.

I think we already agree that the MiG-15's armament is highly effective against bombers, and I don't see any factual reason it should be considered any less effective against fighters.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Lucky13]

Wasn't the MiG-15 cannon that slow firing that you could escape through the bullets? Just popped up in my head, can't remember if I read it somewhere or if they said it on Dogfights....

Also, wouldn't it have been better to swap the 37mm cannon for more ammo and maybe another MG? I mean, the cannon can't have had many shells, right?

 

[drgondog]

I'm not 100% sure but I think the J29 and F-86 used the same sight. I know they used the same firecontrol system as they were both later armed with early sidewinders

The early 86A-E had the Speery radar computing gunsight IIRC, which had some early bugs in high G manever but very, very good. Think about how many gun cam shots showed few misses al 300+ tyards at 0-30 degrees deflection

 

[HoHun]

Hi Lucky,

>Wasn't the MiG-15 cannon that slow firing that you could escape through the bullets?

That kind of statement is often used in the context of cannon with low rate of fire. The N-37 had a rate of fire of 400 rpm or 6.7 Hz. Let's assume an F-86 is crossing the sight of a MiG-15 with at a speed of 720 km/h, and the MiG-15 fires a burst without trying to track the target. Two shells of the N-37 crossing the F-86's path leave a temporal gap of 150 ms, time enough for the F-86 to move by 30 m. The length of the F-86 fuselage is about 10 m.

The good news: Yes, it's possible to fly through the line of fire between two bullets.

The bad news: You can't accelerate or decelerate quickly enough to fly into the gap. It's just a question of luck if you hit the gap, or if the cannon shell hits you. If you fly through the line of fire of the MiG like that, chances are 33 % that you'll be hit by a 37 mm shell.

Of course, reality is more complex ... for example, the MiG-15 has two additional 23 mm cannon capable of firing 850 rpm each. With 2100 shells per minute total or 35 shells per second, the average gap only allows the F-86 to move 5.7 m at 720 km/h, or less than a fuselage length.

A 90-degree crossing angle non-tracking shot against a high-speed target is pretty unlikely to occur anyhow. A more typical 30-degree crossing angle non-tracking shot decreases the gap to 2.9 m, and if the MiG actually begins to track with just 50 % of the correct tracking speed, it's down to 1.4 m.

The F-86 pilot on the other might be lucky that the lateral aim of the MiG-15 pilot is off, then it's not his fuselage that's threatened but the wings, which due to their short longitudinal extension offer much less target area when trying to fly "between the shells". Still, with a semi-tracking shot and a 1.4 m gap, this does not look like you'll get a clean escape ...

Assuming that the aircraft are actually in a turn fight, the F-86 might not actually do the 720 km/h we have assumed, so the gap will shrink even further.

"Flying between the shells" is a concept that looks a lot better when you do a simple division on the back of an envelope than when you start to actually consider a realistic combat situation. Sure, it can happen and it will happen, but as with other statistical effects, it really comes down to the product of independend random experiments: Will you be hit, and will a hit kill your aircraft? It might be more healthy to take almost certain hits from a machine gun that with a certain chance will leave your aircraft airworthy than to takes chances with a heavy cannon that might miss your plane but is much more likely to take it down if you're hit.

>Also, wouldn't it have been better to swap the 37mm cannon for more ammo and maybe another MG? I mean, the cannon can't have had many shells, right?

The MiG-15 had an ammunition supply of 40 x 37 mm and 160 x 23 mm shells. If you have followed some of the armament threads on the forum, you may have seen my comparisons of various WW2 ammunition types by total energy per weight: That's something where cannon beat machine guns easily, and larger cannon tend to beat smaller cannon too. Without knowing the exact properties of the ammunition types, I can't say much about the best combination for the greatest effective ammunition supply, but I suspect that you'd want to stay away from machine guns for best results, and that the 37 mm cannon is going to be more or less in the same ballpark as the 23 mm cannon.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Lucky13]

Thanks for the indepth answer Henning, much appreciated!

 

[Messy1]

Just wanted to tell everyone I have really enjoyed this post, it has been very informative. Thanks for the great info.

 

[Graeme]

The early 86A-E had the Speery radar computing gunsight IIRC, which had some early bugs in high G manever but very, very good. Think about how many gun cam shots showed few misses al 300+ tyards at 0-30 degrees deflection

G'day Bill. Was it common for reps to make "good will" visits to the front or more likely when a 'big' problem arose?...



Read that the biggest enemy of the Sabre (F-86A) in the beginning was salt corrosion, from the trip over on the USS Cape Esperance?!...

 

[tomo pauk]

In the colors of ex-Yu aerobatics team, the (Canadair) Sabre of the "Red stars":

 

[drgondog]

G'day Bill. Was it common for reps to make "good will" visits to the front or more likely when a 'big' problem arose?...

F-86 Sabre Jet - Comparison to MiG 15 by Bud Mahurin

Read the Blesse interview or just search on 'Sperry Radar Ranging' for more references.

As GE made the engine I suspect any problems he may have been looking into were not the sight..at least not many of them

The original sight was the Mk 18 Gyroscopic Sperry late Mustangs, P-82, etc. The first F-86A had this sight but a radar and Sperry A-1A series were installed in the early part of the F-86A production run, then upgraded to B and C - all slaved to AN/APG-5 Radar types

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Hi Flyboyj,
You might have heard of Frederick C. Blesse, WW2 and Korean War veteran and author of the first "fighter pilot's bible", titled "No Guts, No Glory". His take on firing ranges:

"This business of firing at greater ranges is a popular misconception in regard to Korea. Contrary to much that has been published, the Fighter Pilots who shot down more than an occasional Mig or two, got them around 400-1200 feet just like they did in Europe and the Southwest Pacific during World War II."

Successful long range fire against fighters was the exception. The RAF in one WW2 report noted that 86 % of their fighter kills were achieved at ranges of 400 yards and less - the maximum distance also pointed out for the Korean war by Blesse. At these ranges, trajectory drop was negligible, so the Czeck pilot's comment don't actually address an issue that would detract from the MiG-15's armament against fighters.

I think we already agree that the MiG-15's armament is highly effective against bombers, and I don't see any factual reason it should be considered any less effective against fighters.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

I'm very familiar with Blesse, a fighter pilot god - I'm just repeating what was told to me and was also mentioned by No Kum-Sok I saw on a television interview. This prompted me to ask these guys about the guns, perhaps they were speaking in terms of longer ranges.

I could tell you in the air 400 yards (1200 feet) is a close distance. You get that close to an other aircraft and it seems like it fulls your windshield.

In Vietnam, F-4 drivers wrote about MiG-17 shells being visible and when fired from long ranges, this in the book "And Kill MiGs" by Lou Drendel. Any cannon would probably be lethal at 1200 feet - double the distance on a slow firing cannon and I would guess that trajectory drop would be an issue.

BTW - inexperienced fighter pilots do have a tendency of firing too far away from the target.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Flyboyj,

>This prompted me to ask these guys about the guns, perhaps they were speaking in terms of longer ranges.

Of course, every weapon experiences trajectory drop - maybe the difference simply is that you can still visually track the large cannon shells in the distance, while you wouldn't see a machine gun bullet anymore after its tracer has burned out.

>I could tell you in the air 400 yards (1200 feet) is a close distance. You get that close to an other aircraft and it seems like it fulls your windshield.

In terms of objective measurements, a MiG-15 at that distance seen through a standard 70-mil-ring gunsight would not even fill half of the ring with its wingspan, however.

According to the above-mentioned RAF report 86 % of the evaluated fighter kills were achieved at 400 yards and less, and only 4 % at ranges longer than 600 yards.

A lethal anti-fighter weapon is one that is highly effective at ranges of 400 yards and less - where the actual scoring is done. Sacrificing firepower for muzzle velocity means that the weapon gets better at the rare long-range shots while it loses effectiveness where it really counts - at the close killing ranges.

The Soviet reports on WW2 combat I linked above show the same tendency towards shorter ranges as the RAF report - actually, even more pronounced with 400 m being the absolute limit for achieving any kills at all.

>BTW - inexperienced fighter pilots do have a tendency of firing too far away from the target.

As the RAF report shows (which was based on gun camera films that made it possible to accurately estimate the distance), even a flat-trajectory cannon such as the Hispano did not achieve a perceptible number of long range kills anyway, so it's safe to conclude that if an inexperienced pilot greatly underestimated the distance to a long-range target, he would almost certainly fail to bring down his target regardless of the weapon he used.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[FLYBOYJ]

As the RAF report shows (which was based on gun camera films that made it possible to accurately estimate the distance), even a flat-trajectory cannon such as the Hispano did not achieve a perceptible number of long range kills anyway, so it's safe to conclude that if an inexperienced pilot greatly underestimated the distance to a long-range target, he would almost certainly fail to bring down his target regardless of the weapon he used.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

And this is possibly why the folks I mentioned made these comments about the cannons

 

[HoHun]

Hi Flyboyj,

>And this is possibly why the folks I mentioned made these comments about the cannons

Hm, I have to admit that I don't understand that conclusion

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Hi Flyboyj,

>And this is possibly why the folks I mentioned made these comments about the cannons

Hm, I have to admit that I don't understand that conclusion

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

You have folks like Blesse talking about a close firing range. I suspect (as a matter of fact I know) that both No Kum-Sok and the pilots I spoke with did not have a lot of time on the MiG-15 (at least firing the guns). As a matter of fact one of the Czech fellows defected as soon as he was assigned to a squadron, he had a little over 300 hours total and I'm sure maybe about 100 in the MiG-15.

I think the folks I have met as well as Sok based their comments on longer ranges than 400 yards. As stated, 400 yards is pretty close in the air.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Flyboyj,

>I think the folks I have met as well as Sok based their comments on longer ranges than 400 yards. As stated, 400 yards is pretty close in the air.

Ah, I think I've got it now - for lack of combat experience, these pilots expected to routinely shoot at longer distances than those the old hands like Blesse considered realistic, and so they were worried about the long-range performance of their cannon. Sounds about right?

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Hi Flyboyj,Ah, I think I've got it now - for lack of combat experience, these pilots expected to routinely shoot at longer distances than those the old hands like Blesse considered realistic, and so they were worried about the long-range performance of their cannon. Sounds about right?

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Exactly!

 

[Lucky13]

I didn't know that the Israelis considered for quite some time, buying the J29!

 

[Matt308]

She looks good in that livery!