Aerial Slingshots

"The U.S., which whipped the Jap air defense to its knees and then walked in and dropped an atomic bomb, now finds itself in the same position. It cannot stop an enemy bomber coming in at high altitude." This alarming statement came last week from an arms expert working for the Defense Department's top-level Research and Development Board. He is one of a group of arms men who spent months examining combat reports from Korea and evaluation tests at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground. Their conclusions: P: The World War II-model guns mounted on U.S. interceptors -- a .50-cal. machine gun (developed in 1918) and a 20-mm. cannon (developed during the '30s)--cannot shoot down an enemy jet bomber with any efficiency. In Korea, one F-86 pilot had to spray 1,400 rounds of .50-cal. fire at a Russian MIG-15 fighter before it went down.

P:Rockets now in production are wildly inaccurate. Pilots report an average of only one hit out of 40 tries at stationary ground targets. For air-to-air combat at supersonic speeds, present rockets are practically useless.

Blame. Aircraft armament is really not much further along than at the end of World War II. Armament is the monopoly of Army Ordnance, a powerful, well lodged bureau which makes weapons for all three services, and operates in a field where resistance to unification is greatest. Sample: Ordnance and the Navy are now experimenting with two different types of 20-mm. cannon shells which will not be interchangeable. The arms experts think that Ordnance needs a little competition from private industry. Ordnance itself blames the Air Force, and gets some support from the arms experts.

Until recently, said the experts, the Air Force has put its faith in slingshot weapons, unwilling to sacrifice the high performance of its aircraft for heavier fire power. The jets caught them napping. With thick skins, fewer moving parts, simple fuel systems and high speed, the new aircraft usually shake off machine-gun fire like a goose hit by dust shot. Finally, report the gunmen, the economy-minded reign of Defense Secretary Louis Johnson stifled all but the most important research in aircraft weapons. At that point the Air Force and Ordnance stacked their chips on rockets.

Fast Firing. In ten years, if all goes well, the U.S. will be equipped with guided missiles and proximity-fused spinning rockets. But right now the need is for a fast-firing, high-velocity 30-or 57-mm. cannon to fill the gap between pea shooters and rockets, and topnotch industrial engineers to design and produce them.

The Russians have already started to bridge this gap, while (presumably) waiting for accurate rockets. In Korea, one armament man pointed out, 40 heavily escorted U.S. B-29s were suddenly jumped by 80 Russian MIG-15 fighters. The MIGs knifed through the formations, shot down six of the bombers in the space of a few minutes. The MIG-15's armament: two 23-mm., one 37-mm. cannon.

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