Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

FROM GUNS TO MISSILES
4. The system had an estimated unit cost of $6.6 million, about 2.4 times
the cost of the tanks it was to protect. Its 4 kilometer (km) range was outdistanced
by Soviet helicopter missiles at 6 km. See O. B. Koropey, “It
Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time”: The Story of the Sergeant York Air Defense
Gun (Alexandria, Va.: US Army Materiel Command, 1993), 44, 46, 66,
104–5, 131, 183, 185; and George Mauser, “Off the Shelf and into the Trash
Bin: Sgt York, NDI Integration and Acquisition Reform” (thesis, US Army
War College, 1996), AUL.
5. Cagle, “Mauler,”13–14, 19; US Army Air Defense School, “Air Defense,”
3:33–34; James Eglin, Air Defense in the Nuclear Age (N.Y.: Garland, 1988),
190; Max Rosenberg, “The Air Force and the National Guided Missile Program:
1944–1954,” study, 1964, 36, 42, HRA; and Joseph Russo, “ADA in
Retrospect,” Air Defense Trends (July–September 1975): 12.
6. The 85 mm Model 1939 was capable of firing 15 to 20 20-pound shells
per minute at 2,625 fps to an effective ceiling of 25,000 feet, while the 85
mm Model 1944 had an additional muzzle velocity of 325 fps and an increased
altitude capability of 4,000 feet. The 37 mm could fire a 1.6-pound
projectile at a rate of 160 spm up to an effective ceiling of 4,500 feet. See
Futrell, Historical Study 127, 41, 43; “Far East Air Forces Intelligence
Roundup,” 12–18 January 1952, 2:11–12; “Far East Air Forces Intelligence
Roundup,” 29 December 1951–4 January 1952, 3:8; “Far East Air Forces Intelligence
Roundup,” 28 February–6 March 1953, no. 31, II-1, II-2, II-10,
HRA; and Andrew T. Soltys, “Enemy Antiaircraft Defenses in North Korea,”
Air University Quarterly Review 7, no. 1 (Spring 1954): 77–80.
7. Circular error probable is the radius of a circle within which one-half of
a missile’s projectiles are expected to fall. See Futrell, Historical Study, 165.
8. Robert Jackson, Air War over Korea (N.Y.: Scribner’s, 1973), 99.
9. Commander in chief, US Pacific Fleet, Korean War: (25 June 1950–27
July 1953) US Pacific Fleet Operations, chap. 3, NHC; “Carrier Operations
Evaluation Report No. 6, interim, 1 February 1953–27 July 1953,” 44, 68,
reproduced in William Hodge et al., “Theater Air Warfare Study” (thesis, Air
War College, Maxwell AFB, Ala., 1977), 39, AUL; “Far East Air Forces Report
on the Korean War,” study, bk. 1:63, 82, 97, HRA; Futrell, Historical Study
127, 80; and US Navy Office of Information, “Korean Combat Statistics for
Three-Year Period,” NHC. A Chinese source states that more than 90 percent
of US aircraft were downed by AAA during the war. See Jon Halliday, “Air
Operations in Korea: The Soviet Side of the Story,” 156–57, in William Williams,
ed., A Revolutionary War: Korea and the Transformation of the Postwar World
(Chicago: Imprint, 1993).
10. The US Air Force knew the F-51 was vulnerable to ground fire because
of its liquid-cooled engine and the air scoop beneath the fuselage. One
World War II study of fighters in the European theater indicated that the P-51
(as it was then designated) was three times as vulnerable to flak as was the
P-47. The author was told the decision to employ the F-51, not the more
rugged P-47, in Korea was based primarily on the availability of parts. See
107