Guns on fighters?

(Pechs1) wrote:

walt- Is there any reason why a SUU23 gun pod wouldn't work on any Navy
aircraft weapons station that can take a MER? BRBR

2000 pound item, poor reliability, worse boresighting. When I flew with them in
the 61st TFS, we said that they wouldn't even hit the nose gear if it were
down, they were so poorly boresighted and bent up.
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer

One man's meat is another man's poison. Although I didn't fly SUU-16
or SUU-23 in combat, I did carry the gun to the range for four years
of driving F-4C's in Europe--Torrejon, Incirlik and Aviano.

During that time, I never had a SUU-23 malfunction. It was virtually
100% reliable. (I can't say the same for M61s mounted in F-105s or
F-4Es, although the malfunctions were rare.) Boresighting isn't a
"gun" factor, it's a "gun plumber" factor. If the gun hangers do their
job and the operator's take care of the fold down sight (F-4C), the
gun will shoot where you point it. (We made it a practice never to
fold the sight down, assuming that continually up/down cycling would
change the boresight). I could regularly shoot in the mid-to-high 80%
range with a SUU-23.

Similarly we carried the SUU-11 mini-gun on the Fighter Lead-In
AT-38B's. Same story. The little gun got me a mid-90% average for
nearly four years in that job.

As for combat effectiveness with the hung gun, an AF type, Dee
Simmonds killed two MiGs during the great SEA unpleasantness with one.
I see Dee every year at the River Rats Reunion.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038