Sabre vs MiG

You have to take into account pilot skill you know...

I don't think a Hawker Fury would stand much of a chance against MiG-15s under normal circumstances (or if they were handled by properly trained Russian pilots).

 

Both B-29s and the upgraded version, the B-50 were used in the Korean war, IIRC there were no alternatives in terms of operational heavies in US squadron service to use instead so they were forced to use the veteran aircraft. B-26 Invaders (redesignated after the Marauder was retired) were also used.

 

I didn´t know that B-50s were used ?

 

I'm pretty sure they were, they were basically indistinguishable anyway.

 

I think that says a lot for the skill of the bomber gunners. By all means, get that journal back, Skua! I want to hear about the Corsair's kill.

 

That's what they claimed - I seen elsewhere checked figures of more like four or five...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

B-29's had radar controlled guns. Not quite as much skill required by the gunners. I think F-51's also had a couple of MiG kills as well.

 

That's new on me.

I know the B-29s had remotely controlled barbettes aimed from a number of gunnery stations and a primitve gun laying computer, plus the system prioritised the allocation of guns to gunners based on which attack was likely to be more dangerous to the bomber, but I'd never heard that they were radar controlled...

 

Canambridge is right :smok:
that is the beauty of this plane

 

From 'Flying Guns: World War 2':

"The B 29 finally appeared with five turrets: Front upper, front lower, aft upper, aft lower, and tail turret; as initially foreseen the tail also had a 20 mm cannon in addition to the twin .50”s. The tail guns were exclusively controlled by the tail gunners in his own compartment, but the other guns were operated from four sighting stations, one in the nose and three in a compartment aft of the wing. Each gunner could simultaneously operate two turrets, as the situation of the moment demanded. The “master gunner” was the upper gunner in the aft compartment, and he assigned turrets to gunners with his control panel.

The gunners had to track the attacking aircraft from their sighting stations, which had a reflector gunsight that generated signal outputs by a “Selsyn” system. An analog computer used the elevation, azimuth and range inputs from the gunner to calculate the lead and the parallax compensation, and aimed the gun turret with an Amplidyne drive unit. The computer took into account the effects the air density, the airspeed and the angle of the guns relative to this airspeed had on the bullet trajectory. A factor that could not be taken into account was the flexibility of the bomber's fuselage itself, and its tendency to expand or shrink locally as temperature varied. These caused a variable misalignment between the sighting station and the gun turret. The heating effect was large enough to make alignment of the guns on a butt outdoors, exposed to the sun, impracticable. The guns had to be harmonised indoors to meet specifications."

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

From the National Air & Space Museum website:

To protect the Superfortress, Boeing designed the most sophisticated remote-controlled, defensive weapons system yet fitted to a military airplane. Engineers placed five gun turrets on the fuselage: a turret above and behind the cockpit that housed two .50 caliber machine guns (four guns in later versions), and another turret aft near the vertical tail equipped with two machine guns; plus two more turrets beneath the fuselage, each equipped with two .50 caliber guns. One of these turrets fired from behind the nose gear and the other hung further back near the tail. Another two .50 caliber machine guns and a 20-mm cannon (in early versions of the B-29) were fitted in the tail beneath the rudder. The really novel innovation was in the sighting system. Gunners operated these turrets by remote control. They aimed the guns using computerized sights, and each gunner could take control of two or more turrets to concentrate firepower on a single target, making the system flexible and effective.

Boeing also equipped the B-29 with advanced radar equipment and avionics. Depending on the type of mission, a B-29 carried the AN/APQ-13 or AN/APQ-7 Eagle radar system to aid bombing and navigation. These systems were accurate enough to permit blind bombing through cloud layers that completely obscured the target. The B-29B was equipped with the AN/APG-15B airborne radar gun sighting system mounted in the tail, insuring accurate defense against enemy fighters attacking at night. The B-29s also routinely carried as many as twenty different types of radios and navigation devices.
[End of NASM quote]
I was under the impression all the guns were radar controlled, and obviously there was nothing to prevent use of the radar during the day.
I was thinking more of the B-29s in Korea when I wrote the post. I vaguely recall reading that all the guns were radar controlled by then, although I could easily be wrong. During WWII one of Gen Curtis Lemay's innvations was to remove all but the tail guns from the B-29s, increasing speed and bomb load (or altitude). There was even a production version without barbettes. I don't know if the B-29s in Korea had the full array of guns or just the tail guns.

 

Another quote from FG:WW2

"Bell also built the B 29B version without the central fire control system. Only the tail guns were retained. The B-29B was primarily intended for night operations, for which purpose it carried new radar systems. At night the high performance of this aircraft (and the primitive Japanese ground control network) restricted the Japanese fighters to tail chases only. The effectiveness of the tail gun installation was enhanced by the installation of the AN/APG 15B radar set, which detected targets and provided ranging information. This radar was not very successful, however. The additional installation of waist guns was given some consideration, but in the end was not proceeded with. The crews did not like the B 29B; they preferred to have something to fight back with, even if it was not very effective."

I don't know of any bomber which had radar control for guns other than the tail guns.

Tony Williams

 

In summary, only the B29B with only the tail turret had radar aided guns, the rest didn't?

 

That seems to be correct.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

I must agree. Can I try saying that tail guns were responsible for the majority of B-29 air to air kills. There's gotta be an out here for me somewhere!

 

It is not that shocking really, even in WWII, the slower American mustangs were able to take down the Me-262. Though the new jets have greater speed,acceleration and rate of climb. The older propeller driven fighters still have the edge when it comes to close quarter dog-fighting, simply because they are slowere, it is easier to control and probably outturn the faster jets. When engaging a propeller fighter plane, a jet figher pilot should always utilized his speed, climb to a higher altitiude, make a high-speed pass with all the guns blazing and come back for another pass, not hovering around and making tight turns around the slower propeller planes. Where it will lose its speed advantage and also exposes its inferior close quarter maneuvabilities.

 

The superior training of the American pilot also was a factor, I'm sure.

 

I think it's not only superior traning. But the Americans just finished ww2 and had a lot of old fighter pilots with loads of combat experience who by now led the younger and newer pilot into combat. And that makes a big difference to i think

 

Why what was the German pilot training like?

 

the big difference between the amerianas and the germans is that the american pilots had a 6 month duty and tafter that hey were shiped to the US for training others pilots and the germans did not, the start they duty as pilots and finished as KIA, WIA ,MIA or as a survivor! in which case he was a ace or a hero, just look for the score of Erich Hartmann, Gunther Rall and Erick Barkhom