15.01.2010, 14:48
I think the following was in the series of "Great Planes" but I'm not 100% sure.
A Sabre pilot said, that when a MiG-15 fired at him from behind, he could separate the 37mm tracers from the 23mm ones. The 37mm rounds looked like glowing golf balls. The trajectory was very different of the two type of rounds. They literally fly around the Sabre's fuselage. The 37mm ones on one side, the 23mm ones on the other.
That explains the accuracy of that weapon system of the MiG-15 (it wasn't very accurate, as far as I know). I think it would be a very wrong decision to put both - very different shooting characteristic guns - on the same trigger button. Anyway, the whole weapon bay, including the 3gun group with the ammo boxes could be changed at the same time. It saved a lot of time, but I think the guns weren't so stable as the more fixed ones of other aircrafts.
picture from the Hungarian wikipedia of the NR-23
A Sabre pilot said, that when a MiG-15 fired at him from behind, he could separate the 37mm tracers from the 23mm ones. The 37mm rounds looked like glowing golf balls. The trajectory was very different of the two type of rounds. They literally fly around the Sabre's fuselage. The 37mm ones on one side, the 23mm ones on the other.
That explains the accuracy of that weapon system of the MiG-15 (it wasn't very accurate, as far as I know). I think it would be a very wrong decision to put both - very different shooting characteristic guns - on the same trigger button. Anyway, the whole weapon bay, including the 3gun group with the ammo boxes could be changed at the same time. It saved a lot of time, but I think the guns weren't so stable as the more fixed ones of other aircrafts.
picture from the Hungarian wikipedia of the NR-23