F4U-4 vs YaK-9U

[FLYBOYJ]

US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union.

errr....

The US lost 45,000 aircraft to all causes, 22,951 operational losses (18,418 in Europe and 4,533 in the Pacific).

Soviet Union - if to be believed, Total losses were over 106,400 including 88,300 combat types.

This came out of Wikipedia, but I think the sources are quite accurate.


Ellis, John (1993). World War II - A statistical survey. Facts on File. p. 258, p. 259

Kirosheev, G. I. (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill. p. 255. ISBN 1-85367-280-7.

Equipment losses in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Nightwitch]

Way to sneak unescorted bombers into your numbers.

I didn't sneak anything anywhere. They're not "my" numbers. The US lost that many combat aircraft. If the US chose to send waves of unescorted heavy bombers to be shot down by the Luftwaffe how is that my fault? Your whole point was that the Soviet Union had no respect for the lives of its pilots and aircrews and that as a result they suffered losses far in excess of the other nations. We can debate about what constitutes far in excess, however, you've just proved yourself a hypocrite. When the Soviet Union loses airplanes, it's because they don't care about human life. When the United States Army Air Force makes a policy decision to carry out daylight raids with unescorted bombers it shouldn't be counted towards the total? Please, there's not an eyeroll emoticon big enough for that. The fact is, if the USAAF made a policy decision to send unescorted bombers into German airspace, suffering huge losses, you have to wonder whether or not the USAAF actually cared about the fate of its pilots and aircrew. So, how could you possibly have a problem with unescorted bombers being part of the total?

 

[Nightwitch]

errr....

The US lost 45,000 aircraft to all causes, 22,951 operational losses (18,418 in Europe and 4,533 in the Pacific).

Soviet Union - if to be believed, Total losses were over 106,400 including 88,300 combat types.

This came out of Wikipedia, but I think the sources are quite accurate.


Ellis, John (1993). World War II - A statistical survey. Facts on File. p. 258, p. 259

Kirosheev, G. I. (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill. p. 255. ISBN 1-85367-280-7.

Equipment losses in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don't Soviet losses also include planes that were simply broken down though? Or is this purely combat losses?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Don't Soviet losses also include planes that were simply broken down though? Or is this purely combat losses?

If I read that correctly, it includes everything, combat and accidental.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I didn't sneak anything anywhere. They're not "my" numbers. The US lost that many combat aircraft. If the US chose to send waves of unescorted heavy bombers to be shot down by the Luftwaffe how is that my fault? Your whole point was that the Soviet Union had no respect for the lives of its pilots and aircrews and that as a result they suffered losses far in excess of the other nations. We can debate about what constitutes far in excess, however, you've just proved yourself a hypocrite. When the Soviet Union loses airplanes, it's because they don't care about human life. When the United States Army Air Force makes a policy decision to carry out daylight raids with unescorted bombers it shouldn't be counted towards the total? Please, there's not an eyeroll emoticon big enough for that. The fact is, if the USAAF made a policy decision to send unescorted bombers into German airspace, suffering huge losses, you have to wonder whether or not the USAAF actually cared about the fate of its pilots and aircrew. So, how could you possibly have a problem with unescorted bombers being part of the total?

The fact that you were jumping into the argument about the relative quality of Soviet and American fighter pilots and fighter pilot training.

 

[Nightwitch]

The fact that you were jumping into the argument about the relative quality of Soviet and American fighter pilots and fighter pilot training.

The Soviet figure I quoted included bombers as well, but that didn't seem to bother you any. Makes one wonder...

 

[claidemore]

hey Nightwitch,

Like your siggy. I'm a big fan of Yekatarina.

Agree with your arguments too.

Claidemore

 

[JoeB]

I see here a vague argument focusing on one kind of rant post (US pilots were *always* better, Soviets 'didn't care') on one hand and bit of a tendency to Soviet fanboy-ishness on the other, with all due respect.

To sharpen the points, one of them is whether Soviet and US fighter unit quality, all human factors not just 'pilot's skill', tended to be equal in WWII era. The Korea example seems to pretty strongly refute that as a basic assumption: two sides met head to head in broadly comparable planes, with tactical factors generally favoring the Soviets, in a large sample of combats, and the outcome was quite lopsidely (by standards of kill ratio's verified by each side's losses) in the USAF's favor. Well 'I don't know' and quibbling about Soviet operational losses, when we know their combat losses directly from them, seem to have been the only counterarguments offered to that example.

However that doesn't prove that all US fighter units were better than all Soviet throughout the era. For example see books like "Fighters Over Tunisia". Experienced LW fighter units manhandled green USAAF ones in that period; though they still generally apparently also held a serious kill ratio advantage over the already 2 years experienced Soviets at the same time. The USAAF wasn't clearly better though, not at that point.

Still, the 'final product' so to speak of WWII era doesn't appear to have been too close to equal, and F4U-4 v Yak-9U which implies very late war fighter units, where both sides had digested WWII combat experience, closer to the Korea example. I'd still expect the F4U-4 units to score several:1, mainly on the same basis F-86 units did so, not because their plane was so much better.

On who lost more planes in WWII I don't get that point, the Soviets lost more. I don't see how it proves or disproves though who 'cared' more. Which isn't really relevant to how F4U-4 and Yak-9U units would have fared against one another anyway. But is anyone really suggesting the Soviet political and social system cared as much about personnel casualties as Western? That seems a clearly absurd statement if so. OTOH every country faced the reality that you have to get some of your people killed to win a war, to some degree.

Joe

 

[GrauGeist]

Something else to take into consideration regarding Soviet losses, is that the Eastern front was a meat grinder. Some of the most horriffic losses of WWII were found there both in men (and women) and material.

The Germans bled the Soviet forces hard, and that would account for such a high loss rate. This is not saying that the Soviets were incapable of fighting, but they had no choice since they were caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock being the Germans and the hard place being Uncle Joe's policy: "It takes a brave man to retreat in the Soviet army".

 

[Clay_Allison]

I see here a vague argument focusing on one kind of rant post (US pilots were *always* better, Soviets 'didn't care') on one hand and bit of a tendency to Soviet fanboy-ishness on the other, with all due respect.

To sharpen the points, one of them is whether Soviet and US fighter unit quality, all human factors not just 'pilot's skill', tended to be equal in WWII era. The Korea example seems to pretty strongly refute that as a basic assumption: two sides met head to head in broadly comparable planes, with tactical factors generally favoring the Soviets, in a large sample of combats, and the outcome was quite lopsidely (by standards of kill ratio's verified by each side's losses) in the USAF's favor. Well 'I don't know' and quibbling about Soviet operational losses, when we know their combat losses directly from them, seem to have been the only counterarguments offered to that example.

However that doesn't prove that all US fighter units were better than all Soviet throughout the era. For example see books like "Fighters Over Tunisia". Experienced LW fighter units manhandled green USAAF ones in that period; though they still generally apparently also held a serious kill ratio advantage over the already 2 years experienced Soviets at the same time. The USAAF wasn't clearly better though, not at that point.

Still, the 'final product' so to speak of WWII era doesn't appear to have been too close to equal, and F4U-4 v Yak-9U which implies very late war fighter units, where both sides had digested WWII combat experience, closer to the Korea example. I'd still expect the F4U-4 units to score several:1, mainly on the same basis F-86 units did so, not because their plane was so much better.

On who lost more planes in WWII I don't get that point, the Soviets lost more. I don't see how it proves or disproves though who 'cared' more. Which isn't really relevant to how F4U-4 and Yak-9U units would have fared against one another anyway. But is anyone really suggesting the Soviet political and social system cared as much about personnel casualties as Western? That seems a clearly absurd statement if so. OTOH every country faced the reality that you have to get some of your people killed to win a war, to some degree.

Joe

I should really stop posting in this thread, you do a much better job of saying what I want to say than I do.

I will only add that I believe that American and German pilots got far more freedom of action than the Soviet pilots. Individualism and free thinking were not encouraged by Stalin's government. I think that made a big difference.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Davparlr,

>I have a data base of aircraft that I like to keep up with the best data available. As of yet I am still quite confused on the data for the F4U-4, so if you can make heads or tails of the data, please let me know. Thanks.

I have spun off a thread on F4U data (and F6F data, after you got me started on Navy aircraft here:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/te...d-corsair-vs-grumman-f6f-5-hellcat-17293.html

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[claidemore]

I should really stop posting in this thread, you do a much better job of saying what I want to say than I do.

I will only add that I believe that American and German pilots got far more freedom of action than the Soviet pilots. Individualism and free thinking were not encouraged by Stalin's government. I think that made a big difference.

Yup, Adolf Hitlers Fascist dictatorship of 1940s Germany was well known for free thinking individualism.
Kidding of course.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Yup, Adolf Hitlers Fascist dictatorship of 1940s Germany was well known for free thinking individualism.
Kidding of course.

German commanders were trained to improvise since the Franco Prussian war. What I said was directly from what a Luftwaffe pilot said about the Soviet fighters flying in rigid formation while Luftwaffe fighter pairs hunted independently and chose their tactics.

 

[claidemore]

I could be wrong, but I tend to think of german soldiers, officers and enlisted, as being trained to do as they are told. I'd agree that Luftwaffe tactics were better than Soviet in the first couple years, but the Russians learned and evnetually dominated in the East.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I could be wrong, but I tend to think of german soldiers, officers and enlisted, as being trained to do as they are told. I'd agree that Luftwaffe tactics were better than Soviet in the first couple years, but the Russians learned and evnetually dominated in the East.

By the time they dominated, the average German pilot didn't have the experience to be independent. Germans did what they were told as far as strategy and goals, but if you read up on their tactical training going back to the old Prussian military, they stressed flexibility at that level.

Pilots were officers, and making decisions and seizing opportunities was not just allowed, it was expected.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Claidemore,

>I could be wrong, but I tend to think of german soldiers, officers and enlisted, as being trained to do as they are told.

They were trained to accomplish their goal, but to decide freely how to accomplish that goal.

Mission-type tactics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course, this was just a military way of thinking - German militarism also included deliberate political (and ethical) indifference. This was one reason for the success of the National Socialists ... the German military supported the political leadership blindly even where it didn't share their political views.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi again,

Combining the graphs from the F4U-vs.-F6F thread here ...

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/te...d-corsair-vs-grumman-f6f-5-hellcat-17293.html

... with the graphs from the Yakovlev thread here ...

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/technical/performance-comparison-yakovlev-fighter-family-17580.html

... I prepared the below graphs comparing F4U-4 and Yak-9U performance. Enjoy!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[C0WB0Y]

Ok....


I got tired of all the hypotheticals so I had Dale Snodgrass in an F4U-5 fight Sean Carroll in a Yak-9 at St. Augustine this weekend.


Snort kicked Pinball's ass up and down the beach.

Corsair wins.

/end thread.

 

[Catch22]

Haha, that's a good way of figuring things out.

 

[claidemore]

Great...confusing the issue with facts and eye witness accounts!