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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.
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
I'm not sure I fully understand your post either, there seems to be a language barrier here, but I will try again.i want try,
1. if i understand you tell that 319 soviet,
2. 224 chinese
3. and <50 korean are the MiG 15 loss in combat
4. (in total ~600 MiG 15) this are all combat,
5. after you add that no MiG 15 was loss for western AA,
6. it's all for air to a air combat versus all western plane not only USAF Sabre. you tell also that USAF Sabre lost ~90 Sabre in air to air combat, so versus all eastern planes. This number don't give a 6/7:1 for USAF Sabre why we need know how many MiG 15 and USAF Sabre were killed from other planes.
7. There is an other, the not combat loss for USAF Sabre are ~150% of combat loss, for chinese MiG 15 ~75%, for soviet MiG 15 under 10%?? this is not reasonable, illogic.
1. See the response above, and Juha's too. We know the Soviet combat losses from ex-Soviet sources in fair detail. We don't (or I don't) know the specific cases of the operational losses. The 10 operational losses implied by the often quoted 345 total/335 combat is probably just wrong. Even with 319 as combat, 345 total might not be correct. 319 might not be exactly correct either, but it's clearly close building bottom-up from published sources directly related to Soviet records. If the issue is combat losses, there's no big mystery.1. wrt to korean war losses, I remain very sceptical. The 10% operational loss rate for the given time frame for VVS squads is IMHO unbelievable and does not compare with peacetime loss rates.
2. There are a number of cases where F-86 were officially lost to operational, non combat relates causes, when in fact, ground recovery crews reported 23mm and 37mm hits in the fuselage. Coincidence? No.
100+ kill aces have only happened in one war and all against one opponent, the Soviet Union. Numerically the Soviets had more wins and more Aces. That is extremely impressive if you don't care at all about losses. The Soviets probably lost more fighters in any given year from the Beginning of their war with Germany than the U.S. lost in all three of the wars I named put together.
Joe -
I was recently reading the book "Boyd" by Robert Coram, and it seems that John Boyd often pondered the question of the kill ratio of the F-86 to the MiG-15. According to the book, the E-M charts for the MiG-15 show it having an overall edge over the F-86. However, that left the problem of why the F-86 had such a high kill ratio (quoted as 10:1 in the book). You attribute this to superior pilots and pilot training, which is one possibility. However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. As a result, MiG pilots had to muscle their planes, to the extent that they would lift weights to improve their strength so they could handle their aircraft. This led to the F-86 being much better in flowing from maneuver to maneuver and in reacting to input from the pilot. Have you found this to be the case in your research, concerning the MiG-15 and the lack of hydraulic controls? If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and training?
Cheers,
Nightwitch
US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union. So, the Soviets probably lost about twice as many, which doesn't jive at all with what you said above, especially considering that these losses include the obsolescent aircraft of 1941, and that the US wasn't substantially involved in the air war in Europe until 1943 when the heavy bombing campaign really took off. Plus, the losses to the Luftwaffe on the Western front were shared with the RAF, the RAAF, the RCAF, and all of the other western allies, whereas the Soviets took on the Luftwaffe on the Eastern front alone.
The late start is deceiving as the total number of sorties flown by US matched all combined Allies in West against Germay by war end (IIRC- I will check) - as well as the number of German aircraft destroyed by USAAF in last two years
Joe -
I was recently reading the book "Boyd" by Robert Coram, and it seems that John Boyd often pondered the question of the kill ratio of the F-86 to the MiG-15. According to the book, the E-M charts for the MiG-15 show it having an overall edge over the F-86. However, that left the problem of why the F-86 had such a high kill ratio (quoted as 10:1 in the book). You attribute this to superior pilots and pilot training, which is one possibility. However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. As a result, MiG pilots had to muscle their planes, to the extent that they would lift weights to improve their strength so they could handle their aircraft. This led to the F-86 being much better in flowing from maneuver to maneuver and in reacting to input from the pilot. Have you found this to be the case in your research, concerning the MiG-15 and the lack of hydraulic controls? If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and training?
Cheers,
Nightwitch
Most MiG-15's in Korea were VK-1 powered MiG-15-bis, which did have hydraulically boosted aelirons. Only a few Soviet units units used the RD-45 powered all manual control 'regular' MiG-15's right at the beginning, though they served in Chinese and NK units until 1952. Exactly half the MiG's lost by the Chinese in combat were MiG-15 according to their official figures, the other half MiG-15bis; and the NK defector No Gum-suk described how his unit converted to the MiG-15bis in IIRC late 1952. He brought a 'bis' with him to South Korea just after the armistice in 1953, the a/c fully evaluated by the US afterward and still in the USAF museum. The early non boosted aeliron MiG's also had a wing assymetry problem which could lead to forces beyond a pilot's strength just to keep the wings level at high speed, but again that affected few Soviet AF MiG's in Korea.However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. .... If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and trainin
Remember also Boyd is viewed as pretty much extremist/purist for a certain type of fighter design later on, and was usually mainly arguing for that by way
of historical examples.
Joe
I agree, more right than wrong at a certain point in time. Although nowadays you have people spouting Boydism when it's kind of out date and out of context IMO (as with some anti-F-22 sentiment...OK that's *too* far off topic!Bomb throwing anarchist - yes.
Extremist - yes.
Right? - YES!!!
I agree, more right than wrong at a certain point in time. Although nowadays you have people spouting Boydism when it's kind of out date and out of context IMO (as with some anti-F-22 sentiment...OK that's *too* far off topic!).
I'm just saying that in his view the F-86's, F-86 unit's, success in Korea was mainly a starting point for his views and argument about a later time, not the main thing he was interested in. And it was anyway at that time somewhat harder to study, it wasn't fully known what the F-86's success really was or who it's opponents really were in Korea, not in detail.
Joe
Way to sneak unescorted bombers into your numbers.US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union. So, the Soviets probably lost about twice as many, which doesn't jive at all with what you said above, especially considering that these losses include the obsolescent aircraft of 1941, and that the US wasn't substantially involved in the air war in Europe until 1943 when the heavy bombing campaign really took off. Plus, the losses to the Luftwaffe on the Western front were shared with the RAF, the RAAF, the RCAF, and all of the other western allies, whereas the Soviets took on the Luftwaffe on the Eastern front alone.