Later that month Parr used the F-86F's A-4 lead computing gun sight to take out his seventh victim at a phenomenal 4,800 feet!! On the 27th of July he scored the last kill of the war when he gunned an Il-12 bomber. In the span of eight weeks Captain Parr had shot down ten E/A. On his best day he scored a double and damaged a third MiG.

Ralph Parr in a gun-less F-4, was instrumental in ending the siege at Ke Sahn in 1970 and had a career total of 6,000 hours in fighters and a whopping 640 combat missions when he retired in 1976. And, yes, he argued nearly to the point of subordination for guns on the Phantom.

HOW MANY GUNS ARE ENOUGH?

I have always found that pilots I've interviewed from all sides usually were satisfied with their armament. The Germans I've talked to found nothing lacking with their 20-mms and Americans felt that the firepower from a brace of fifties was ample. The 20 versus 50 argument is unending amongst air combat enthusiasts. It is conceded that rifle caliber machine guns of 7.7mm, 7.9mm, .30 and .303 calibers were all but useless except on the softest of targets. But the Allied airmen that had 20mm cannon liked them.

When I asked Ralph if he ever felt out-gunned he answered "always," without hesitation. When the F-86K debuted in 1954 with four M-24A-1 20-mms with 132 r.p.g. he felt it was amply armed. The F-100 that followed was similarly calibered but with the later M-39E cannons .

His statement was in total opposition of what ten-victory ace Hal Fischer told me earlier in the day! I'd asked, "Were the six .50s in the F-86 enough?"

The laid back ace was soft spoken like Parr and replied, "More than enough. Four would have been enough."

"How about the 297 r.p.g.? Was that enough ammo? I'd heard from Gabby Gabreski that it took a lot of rounds to bring down a jet since it has fewer moving parts," I queried. (Gabreski scored 28 kills in P-47sin the ETO and 6.5 in Korea)

Fischer grinned in amusement to my lame question. " More than enough. A one second burst was all that was needed," he nearly whispered. "And it doesn't take much to damage a turbine, he added.

Fischer was shot down by a WWII Russian ace, Dmytri Yermakov, and was a POW for two years. He owns the rights to volumes of once secret Russian archive material about the Soviet role in Korea that, if translated and published, may someday flesh out that part of history.

MG OR CANNON?

The Browning M3 carried by the F-86 had a higher rate of fire than the M2 of World War II, pumping out about twenty rounds per second. The MiG 15 designers nose-mounted two NR23 cannon of 23-mm. and a single 37-mm packed only 80 and 40 r.p.g. respectively. With somewhat higher rates of fire than their WWII counterparts, the firing time was in the order of ten seconds total. For the green Chinese pilots this couldn't have been sufficient. Of course for the seasoned Soviets accustomed to this style of armament during WWII, it was ample.

This is a direct parallel to the situation in WWII. Aces like Japan's Saburo Sakai and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa who scored 64 and 103 times, flew Zeros with two 20-mms with only 60 r.p.g. The many German aces cut their teeth on the Bf 109E's that were identically armed. The ubiquitous "G" model with the MG 151 carried more rounds but fired faster so there was no giant advantage in total fire time.

This was fine for the men who began their careers in the late thirties like Sakai in China and Molders in Spain. They could fly and shoot well thanks to the thorough training in Japan and Germany. But their regimes believed in taking only the elite few. Great Britain and America set up training programs that trained large numbers of airmen and proved that "good" in large numbers was better than "excellent" in small numbers.

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American pilots with six or eight fifty calibers and plenty of ammo plus their British counterparts with eight or twelve .303s, and later 20-mms, faired well against their enemies. Yet Allied pilots that had aircraft armed with 20-mm cannon were partial to them. Spitfire pilot Jerry Collinsworth explained that his .303s "just bounced off of the 109's and 190's armor." But it was his 20s that did enough damage for him to claim six FWs over Tunisia.

In 1990 I asked Group Captain Peter Townsend if he was happy with the general Spitfire armament of two 20-mms and four .303s. He replied in typical dry British humor, " Yes but I'd have liked to have had quite a few more cannon."

Fig. 3 F6F Hellcat

In early March 1943 Heinz Knoke's outfit was experimenting with aerial bombs to use against B-17 and B-24 formations. On the 18th there was a scramble that many of us flying European Air War will find familiar. With no time to arm with bombs the Schwarm's Messerschmitt 109Gs hastily climbed out to meet the heavies a 25,000 feet. Armed with three 20-mm cannon and two 13-mm machine guns, this model was quite capable of heavy bomber destruction.


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