F4U-4 vs YaK-9U

[HellToupee]

3. But there's a direct logical connection between their high overclaims and their effectiveness that you're ignoring in that statement. According to each side's losses per then-secret records the F-86 v Soviet AF MiG-15 kill ratio in Korea was order of 4-5:1. The MiG-15 and F-86 each had performance advantages over the other. On balance IMO, almost all US pilot opinion, and a lot of Soviet opinion especially reading between the lines, the F-86 was the more practically effective fighter v. fighter plane on balance (MiG the better interceptor, probably). But the F-86's advantage was nothing like enough to establish a 4 or 5:1 exchange ratio with equal pilots. That ratio is strong evidence that the US pilots were more effective on average.

Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.

 

[drgondog]

Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.

Do you believe 'less than 20' and if so why? Can you point to another air force WING flying in bad weather for three years (in more reliable a/c like P-47s and Spitfires, etc) that had that few non - operational losses?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.

F-86s over Korea were flown at least 200 miles into MiG alley, sometimes through adverse weather, fought for 20 minutes over target and sometimes returned into a socked in base with IFR equipment no better than what was used during WW2. Don't forget the pilots going out of Japan as well.

The Russian Pilots - most of the time flying minutes from their home bases.

JoeB - once again great post!

 

[JoeB]

I'm not trying to imply parity, I'm stating that one measurement of quality of pilots is how many achieved 20 or more kills. 203 for the Soviets. 27 for the Americans. Keep in mind that some of those Soviet aces were flying P39s, which Americans had little or no success with. 203 pilots with over 20 kills is not an anomoly, it's a pattern. We can keep going down the list, and the Soviets are going to come out ahead all the way.

Thats all I need to shed the appropriate light on the original posting:

I guess it sheds some light but it doesn't wholly disprove his statement. I don't agree with his statement 'not counting' that US pilots of that era would probably be more effective. I think any two roughly comparable planes like Yak-9U and F4U-4 would probably come out close to even if the pilots were really equal. I tend to agree with his projection of (something like) 3:1 advantage in favor of F4U's with contemporary US units v Yak-9U's with contemporary Soviet units though, for the same reason F-86 v MiG came out as lopsided or more than that. That's a pretty solid data point, many months of action and head to head, no need to estimate based on relative effectiveness v the Germans as we must in WWII itself.

But just on credited pilot scores you're still ignoring the potentially dramatic effect of varying overclaim ratio between AF's. In Korea, we see that the top Soviet pilot with 21 victories really probably had around 2 or 3 (5 is the max possible and highly unlikely, see the write up). That's not a small discount, it changes the picture seriously. I don't know the figures as well for WWII, but I'd hesitate to draw any conclusion about Soviet fighter effectiveness based on their claims.

Back to the broader measure of fighter exchange ratio's, there's no strong evidence actually that the P-39 achieved any better ratio in Soviet service than US. In the most prolonged combat use of P-39's mainly air-air in New Guinea they were on the short end of something 1:2 ratio v Japanese Navy fighters. The P-39 probably didn't do any better than that in Soviet hands, probably not as well. It was used a lot longer, and in the random function of pilot skill and luck, some scores will build up over time even in a force that's consistently outmatched on average. But again you'd have to know the *actual* scores. It's probably more accurate to stick with the big picture of overall real ratio, which is usually easier to establish.

Joe

 

[FLYBOYJ]

From the noted site...

"Recently the Russian Gerneral Staff of Army declassified the data about the participation of Soviet aces in Korea. This is quite amazing information IMO.

Its noticed that since 1950-53 the soviet had conducted 1872 sky combats and shoted down 1 106 american aircrafts ( 650 of them were the F-86 "Sabre"). Soviet loss - 335 fighters.Mig-15

The highest score Soviet pilot is Sutyagin Nikolay Vasiljevich - 21 victories.( 15 of them were Sabres)"

Soviet aces in Korea sky [Archive] - WW2 in Color Forum

Pretty funny considering that about 645 F-86s rotated through Korea. At any given time there were only 100 - 150 F-86s in theater at the most.

I also read the same with regards to MiG-15 claims against F-80s. The Russians claimed the total amout of F-80s that were sent to Korea which meant they shot down every F-80!

 

[Vincenzo]

if i understand right JoeB use soviet number for loss as air combat loss and if it is this is not good mode for a comparison

 

[JoeB]

Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.

First, Soviet loss breakdown isn't totally clear. AFAIK nobody has done an analysis of individual a/c fates as has been done for F-86's. A commonly quoted total is 345 total Soviet MiG losses sometimes quoted 335 in combat. But as I mentioned above the most detailed Russian language published source totals combat loss at 319, of which it provides details or at least month in which lost for around 300. Dropping the combat loss total even fairly slightly considerably expands the operational losses, assuming the overall total is correct (it might also need to be revised up a bit under closer scrutiny) but doesn't change the air-air kill ratio much. IOW the kill ratio stat is robust even if the figures shift a little, the assumption of very few Soviet operational losses is not as robust. The basic math here is a large number of MiG air combat losses (perhaps 600 among the three allies) and a comparatively small number of F-86 air combat losses (perhaps 90, most but clearly not all of which were caused by the Soviets), so % of losses which were operational isn't really the appropriate comparison. It would be number of operational losses or operational losses per sortie.

The F-86's flew more sorties per plane. They sortied anytime weather would permit dispatch of strike a/c. Especially from 1952 on the MiG's chose their opportunities and often stayed on the ground. Their typically much larger force, total order-of-battle wise v just their F-86 opponents, also didn't fly as intensively per plane. As already mentioned the F-86's operated generally near the edge of their radius, MiG's much closer to their bases even considering their shorter range. Also the F-86's engine seemed to be less reliable, a genuine demerit in plane to plane comparison, but nothing to do with pilot effectivieness in air combat.

As far as 'recorded as' v actual cause, I've researched that in some detail and there's little validity to the common suggestion that Soviet overclaiming is partly explained by US understatement of combat losses. As I mentioned, the actual air combat loss total of F-86's might be around 90, v the 78 official total, but that's 90 specific planes by tail number each with its own story, some of that difference is just sloppy book keeping v the 78, and I'm counting as lost planes returned safely but air combat damage never repaired, which might be debated and moreover we don't know the practice in that regard for the Soviets. Besides that, F-86's classed non-combat pretty clearly were non-combat: lack of corresponding MiG claims same day, time and place, accident reports detailing the circumstances, etc. There were a significant number of AA losses too, especially in 1953 when fighter bomber units converted to F-86's. Some were claimed by Soviet AA units.

I don't think the non-combat loss point really goes anywhere compared to the more solid datum of head to head combat result. Again basic question, once and if we accept the basic air combat loss figures, and relative similarity of F-86 and MiG, how can it reasonably be debated that the side going 1:4+ in kill ratio was really as effective as the side going 4+:1? That just doesn't make sense to me.

Joe

 

[JoeB]

if i understand right JoeB use soviet number for loss as air combat loss and if it is this is not good mode for a comparison

Comparing losses inflicted by one fighter force on another is not the way to compare the fighter forces? If that's what you are saying I very much disagree.

Of course in the big picture of a war or campaign, the total wastage of a/c might be important (it might not even be, if one side has so much more capacity to make planes, like the Allies v Axis in late WWII). But measuring a/c actually downed and lost directly by fighter units in air combat is a valid measure of the specific issue of their combat effectiveness. And it ceratinly makes no sense to evaluate the accuracy of claims including non-combat losses of the other side. Those non-combat losses weren't the a/c claimed!

Going back to WWII, the Soviet AF's suffered a huge wastage of a/c just because their often partly wood planes didn't last long. Looking at their figures that's the biggest single category of their 'losses'. Should we really add those planes to German fighter unit scores and raise the German kill ratio? That's silly, IMO.

The actual kill ratio between fighter units in head to head to air combat is not the only measure of an air war, but it's one important measure of the effectivness of fighter units. There's no point in polluting that measure with losses that didn't occur in air combat, in any such comparison.

Joe

 

[Vincenzo]

Comparing losses inflicted by one fighter force on another is not the way to compare the fighter forces? If that's what you are saying I very much disagree.

Joe

Yes. but it is not what you done, you compared US, F-86, loss for enemy fighter to total loss for soviet forces

 

[renrich]

In Korea, it had to be a big advantage for Mig pilots that if they saw they were at a tactical disadvantage they could flee across the Yalu where US AC were not supposed to follow. The F86s did not have that sanctuary. This perhaps is too small a sample to be significant but when 7 Migs out of Russian bases attacked the CAP of a US CV the two and then a third F9F5s knocked down two or three Migs(can't remember for sure) with no losses. The Panther could not have been equal in ACM to a Mig 15 and those were Russian pilots.

 

[Clay_Allison]

If I'm not mistaken the clandestine Soviet Air Force in Korea was manned by volunteers who also received awards and money for their successes. With Joe Stalin as my boss, I'd hate to report that I was anything other than highly successful and I think I might have to stretch the truth to do it!

Honestly I trust Soviet claims of both victories and losses as much as I trust the Iraqi Information Minister.

 

[Venganza]

Honestly I trust Soviet claims of both victories and losses as much as I trust the Iraqi Information Minister.

Just a question Clay - do you trust the German claims during WWII?

Venganza

 

[HellToupee]

Do you believe 'less than 20' and if so why? Can you point to another air force WING flying in bad weather for three years (in more reliable a/c like P-47s and Spitfires, etc) that had that few non - operational losses?

No i don't belive the less than 20, it just goes to show how different losses were recorded for each side.

NATO also lists a large number of unknown aircraft losses.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

NATO also lists a large number of unknown aircraft losses.

And where do you get this bountiful information from?

 

[renrich]

As far as kills in WW2, I have reservations about any I see published in books or online. I don't believe that all overclaims are necessarily intentional but those types of information are really difficult to verify. It is common knowledge that the various nations allowed huge overclaims during the war for propaganda purposes. After the war attempts to do exact counts depended on the information available at that time. Since the early post war years, more and more information has been uncovered. If one reads John Lundstrom's books on US Navy fighters in the early Pacific war, it is surprising how much overclaiming went on. Lundstrom's books are based on research of US records as well as Japanese records and all of his research is fairly recent. In many cases he is able to identify which USN pilot shot down which IJN pilot and the reverse. He also, when a specific shoot down cannot be attributed to a specific pilot tells us so. The USN pilots were enthusiastic overclaimers. Usually to the tune of about two to one. The IJN was even more enthusiastic at nearly three to one. Of course it is common knowledge that the Zero pilots pretty much had their way with the Wildcat pilots in the early Pacific war. Wrong! Actually, from Dec. 7 to November, 1942, USN pilots, all in F4F3s or 4s, pretty much broke even with IJN zeros. The other surprise is the numbers. Only on the order of some 30 of each type to the other type. It would be interesting if someone as thorough as Lundstrom would research all the Hellcat kills. My guess is that the shootdowns would diminish. Unfortunately, the people who actually participated and who could interpret the records are growing increasingly scarce so I believe we are going to remain in the dark about this subject. My guess is that kills on the eastern front especially by the Soviets but by the Germans also are perhaps the most suspect of all. The sheer size and numbers of the conflict there would not lend itself to accuracy. The Germans, being Germans would probably be pretty precise in their record keeping after you get past the propaganda aspect. Still, real verification must have been difficult because of the size and fluidity of the front. The Soviet government, not the individual pilots, has not been renowned for it's veracity. IMO, all kill figures in WW2 should be labeled as alleged.

 

[Venganza]

Well said, Renrich.

Venganza

 

[JoeB]

Yes. but it is not what you done, you compared US, F-86, loss for enemy fighter to total loss for soviet forces

No I didn't, sorry if I was unclear. 319 is the total of *combat* losses given in German and Seidov's "Krasnye d'iavoli na 38-i Paralleli", and all combat losses were air combat, UN AA never fired at MiG's. The book details almost 300 of those in the various chapters. Comparing it to more detailed sources that cover partial periods of the war, they tend to leave a few out here and there, and a few they describe as non-combat losses look like combat losses when referring to US details of the same combats. The tone of the book is quite overtly nationalistic. I don't see a plausible argument that that book overstates Soviet MiG combat losses.

Around 90 F-86's were lost in air combat, but considerably less than all of them to the Soviets. The Chinese and NK's claimed around 250 F-86's together, v around 650 claimed by the Soviets. So prorating by claims the Soviets probably downed around 65 F-86's, that's almost 5:1 based on the Soviet combat losses, and few actual victories were scored by any other type than the F-86. Assume the Soviet claims were more accurate than Chinese (though I don't see much evidence of it investigating individual cases where Soviet and Chinese details are know for conflicting claims) and maybe the ratio is closer to 4:1. Anything lower than that is fudging to make it lower for some non-objective reason.

Joe

 

[JoeB]

In Korea, it had to be a big advantage for Mig pilots that if they saw they were at a tactical disadvantage they could flee across the Yalu where US AC were not supposed to follow. The F86s did not have that sanctuary. This perhaps is too small a sample to be significant but when 7 Migs out of Russian bases attacked the CAP of a US CV the two and then a third F9F5s knocked down two or three Migs(can't remember for sure) with no losses. The Panther could not have been equal in ACM to a Mig 15 and those were Russian pilots.

Overall Navy F9F's downed 5 MiG's, all Soviet, without loss to themselves. That included the first victory against the MiG's, first to show up in Soviet records as a loss that is, Nov 9 1950; another Nov 18 1950 (two were credited) and 3 more in the combat you mention, Nov 18 1952 (again two were credited plus a probable). There were only 4 MiG's present in that last combat though, v 3 F9F's in immediate combat (the fourth of the division couldn't develop full thrust so couldn't climb into the combat). One of the F9F's was hit. The Soviets downed one Marine F9F July 21 1951 without loss (they were credited with 7 'F-94's' in the combat). There were several other inconclusive combats between Soviet MiG's and Navy and Marine Panthers (with the Soviets pilots receiving credits for various straightwing types in most of them), and a couple of inconclusive fights between Marine F9F's and PLAAF MiG's; 11 combats altogether.

Back to WWII, yes all credited victories are alleged facts. The key IMO is to realize that the discount factor between credits and real enemy losses was *highly* variable.

One other (repetitive) point. Estimating overclaims is not a matter of general evaluation of 'trustworthiness' based on politics, nationality, etc. It's a matter of comparing accounts from each side for the same combat, and the quality of the accounts (how original, how detailed). It's a matter of common sense IMO that losses recorded in *detailed, then-secret* records were at least reasonably in line with reality, especially for the loss of pilots, but also planes if there were detailed records about planes (eg. USAF in Korea). Records didn't have to be in line with reality at all for what was claimed to have happened to the enemy, optimism or even deliberate fudging could run wild, or else a serious attempt might be made to be accurate. You can only estimate that if you know both sides' accounts. You can't assume overclaiming was uniform.

Joe

 

[renrich]

Thanks, Joe, for the info on that "secret" engagement. I thought I remembered that the F9F leader had a mechnical and his wing man accompanied him back to the CV and then climbed back into the fight. At any rate the USN did pretty well against Migs which says a lot about their pilots and perhaps the Panther. Do you have a link to that incident we are talking about? I found it once online and now can't find it again.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Just a question Clay - do you trust the German claims during WWII?

Venganza

Yeah, I pretty much do. The Germans might have overclaimed same as we did and the Japanese did, and we all had a love for propoganda, but the Germans were very internally competitive and very good about documenting things on their own soil.

I don't trust information under the heels of a man who routinely purged his officers. You wouldn't falsify internal documents to stay alive and out of the Gulag?

Hitler didn't KILL Goring for his failure to win the Battle of Britain.