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FLYBOYJ,
The authors do state that the Soviet pilots greatly overclaimed, but they also repeat the claim that the Americans intentionally understated their losses. Not that I'm an expert, but I do not beleive there's any evidence for that.Other historical aerial combats that are given in the book, such as Mig 15 cold war interceptions and Egyptian Mig 15 operations, do conform to generally accepted facts. All in all it's an excellent book.
FLYBOYJ,
I haven't done original research, but have read everything I can find on the subject. It just isn't reasonable to claim that much over 100 F-86s were lost to Migs.
What struck me was that figure of 268 Soviet losses to air combat. It's quite low compared to other figures. The authors also mention that the 231 losses for the Chinese represent all aircraft types and all causes. They don't give a figure for just Migs.
I do know that there were many F-86 losses that were attributed to "other than combat" or "weather" related that coincide with the time and place as Soviet claims.
Interesting analysis. On kill probability of 23/37mm, I've studied the USAF files of damage and loss in Korea. The number of F-86's hit by at least one 23mm shell but returned and repaired, is clearly geater than the number lost to MiG cannon fire*. OTOH only a few F-86's known to have been struck by 37mm shells returned, and those were usually write offs. It's not possible to tell which lost F-86's were hit with 23 v 37. Some anecdotal accounts from Korea from US side imply that MiG cannon had a very high probability of kill given any hit, and this is also what the Soviets believed, but the actual numbers don't bear it out. The 23mm did not have a high single hit kill probability v the F-86, though the 37mm apparently did.Now I don't really know the comparison of 23 mm or 37 mm to the 50 cal and of course, the probability of one hit one kill is not one, nor do we know how the effective distribution of over the aircraft. However, if one 20mm is equal to three 50s, it appears reasonable to me that one 23mm would be equal to four 50s.
OKI thought I would do a similar comparison with the F-86 and Mig-15. The Mig-15 has two 23mm NR-23 cannon firing a total of 27 rounds/sec* and one 37mm N-37 cannon firing 7 rounds/sec. To make this simple....
The F-86 has six Browning M3 machine gun capable of a total of 125 rounds/sec*. ...
88,8236% i don't know, but much more, sure....the F-86 will have 88% probability of four or more hits, or a bit better at getting four hits than the Mig has of having one hit.
False, except maybe in very short range : in general case heavy bullets mantain their speed (cinetic energy) much better than fast lighter ones...Additional notes would be that it is my understanding that the 50 cal has better ballistic characteristic than the 23 mm or 37mm (it certainly has better initial velocity) which could possibly affect the critical probability of strike per round.
OKAlso, the F-86 with its radar ranging gun sight would also improve the probability of strike per round. Both of these statistically improve the advantages of the higher rate of fire weapons.
Fighter to fighter in Corea Hit and Run conditions might be, in general conditions, no...In general, in my opinion, the armament of the F-86 was equal to or better than the Mig-15.
There seems to be somewhat of a controersy associated to this. Aerodynamics also has a play. I don't know.Hello
False, except maybe in very short range : in general case heavy bullets mantain their speed (cinetic energy) much better than vfast lighter ones...
The Sabre was an air superiority fighter and not optimize for ground attack. I am not sure BTRs or BMPs existed in 1950. In WW2, the 50 cal proved effective against soft and lightly armored targets.Fighter to fighter in Corea Hit and Run conditions might be, in general conditions, no...
MiG-15 was a frontal fighter, intended to fulfill Yak-9 and La-7 missions, many of them for ground attack (>30% from WWII statistics). The Sabre weapons would be ineffective even against light armored vehicules as BTR, BMP....
Show me your data for this statement. I used the Navy position on the effectiveness of the 20mm compared to the 50 cal (1944 joint fighter conference) with some guesstimation for the effectively of the 23 mm, and probability analysis.The admitted efficiency of an armement is not a matter of "opinions" but of the "quality factor" formula that includes alltogether rate of fire, cinetic energy (speed²), bullet weights. In that form the MiG-15 is beating the Sabre hugely...
I have read where the 50cal had problems with jamming on the tilted installations of the P-51B, but I don't think it was an unusual problem with the D and other US aircraft. I have not seen any indications of jamming problems on the F-86. G forces affect the Mig as much as the F-86, so, if g forces could affect the .50s, it could affect the Mig guns. If you have any supporting information to your comment, please provide it.Moreover. I'm not sure that submitted to 3 or 6 G, browning continue to deliver 120 rps, and not simply jamming as in Mustang wings...
150 50 cal hits is a devastating attack. The first picture I attached is a heavy steel car hit by about 40 30-06 rounds. Multiply that by 3 and make the hits 50cal and you would probably see that car almost totally destroyed.If some MiG's went back with some 150 12.7mm hits (or just 150 holes from ...), i'm far to be sure that a Sabre could survive to 40 23mm and 10 37mm hits!
Dav, thanks for the photos of B and Cs car. I think it shows quite well the destructive capacity of shoulder fired weapons. I believe there were no 50 BMGs in that attack but were 30 cals (BARs) 45 cals(Thompson guns) pistols and shotguns. The steel in cars of that vintage was much much heavier than material used in airplanes then and now.
Interesting stuff folks - a few comments...
At close range just a few hits from a MiG-15s cannons will bring down an F-86