Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "1 US Pilot Dogfights 7 MiGs - Korea 1952" video.
-
While the Panther was inferior to the MiG in almost every flight characteristic, the two things it had going for it was better fire control and better guns. The 37mm Nudelman cannon was a bomber destroyer and not something useful in fighter to fighter combat. Its rate of fire was only 40 rounds per minutes and it only carried 40 rounds of ammunition when fully loaded. It was a devastating if it hit, but the chances of hitting a Panther tearing past you at 570 mph was slim to none.
The Nudelman 23mm cannon were much better suited for dogfighting.but the engineering evaluation of the MiG showed it was overweight. To reduce weight, the number of cannon was reduced from three to two, and the ammunition per gun to only 60 rounds. The gun was very fast firing at 850 rounds per minute, a good feature in jet combat, but the MiG carried a mere 60 rounds per gun. A pilot had about 10 seconds worth of shooting before he was empty.
The Panther had four 20mm AN/M3 cannon. They fired at the slower rate of 700 rounds a minute, but the Panther carried 190 rounds per gun. All four cannon could fire for about 23 seconds before the Panther ran dry. The Panther also had the advantage of a computing optical gunsight compared to the less sophisticated and less accurate gyroscopic gunsight carried by the MiG. Combined with a rugged airframe and superb Navy pilots, the Panther managed to bring down seven MiGs for the loss of two Panthers during the Korean War. With the arrival of the Cougar, a much more capable aircraft developed directly from the Panther, the Panther continued on in the fighter-bomber role. The last Panthers weren't retired until the mid to late 60's.
1600
-
1000