% of Verfiable Victories

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And that's my whole point...

Because I have an opportunity to sometimes work with people from the USAF at the Academy (where I am currently employed) who also does this research as well and it's one of the only sources available to "begin" any type of research, AND I have opportunities work on F-86s and Mig-15 and in doing so met Korean War Vets, some who were aces. We could start with ACIG or go with some of the sites from Russia that still touts 630 F-86s were shot down by Soviet pilots. Its a matter of which source is more biased or fudged than another.....
 

1. I don't understand. You said the ACIG list was excellent, I just gave specifics that it's not, and you say that's just your point? Then what was your original point, adressing me by name? Again who is 'we'? It's confusing.
2. Place to begin, is not "excellent source". It doesn't seem the people you refer to had told you of the extensive mistakes in that list. Are you sure they know?
3. That's nice, so have I interviewed many KW era pilots who flew all kinds of types. But it's nothing to do with the accuracy of that list.
4. The ACIG list is actually worse IMO than websites that simply repeat statements in Soviet sources from their side, without any reference to US sources. Those are just telling their side as it was reported, those present facts which can be shown to be incorrect, but are not consciously fudging anything themselves. And it's easy to access the basic opposing facts, what the USAF says it lost, then you have both sides' stories. The ACIG list pretends it's going further to compare those stories case by case and sort out the truth. But it's got obvious bias and fudging in that comparison (anyone actually interested, which I doubt you are, read the link I posted of Sutyagin's claims day by day, and see if you think the guy who found 12 real victories, same author as ACIG list, just made that many mistakes). That's a menace to learning unless used with utmost caution with a lot of other info. It's tempting to use it because it's the only such list (on the internet), but it's unfortunately far from an "excellent source".

Joe
 
Joe,

I guess my assessment of ACIG was premature -it sure gave the impression of in depth research. How do you evaluate their computation of US claims vis a vis communist force losses in Korea and Vietnam?

Arab-Israeli wars?

-Rob
 
JoeB said:
1. I don't understand. You said the ACIG list was excellent, I just gave specifics that it's not, and you say that's just your point? Then what was your original point, adressing me by name? Again who is 'we'? It's confusing.
Click to expand...
Because in past post you have made it abundantly clear how errored the kills/ claims list by all Korean War combatants have been, at first on the US side. That's my point
JoeB said:
2. Place to begin, is not "excellent source". It doesn't seem the people you refer to had told you of the extensive mistakes in that list. Are you sure they know?
Click to expand...
Sure they know - do you have another internet source that isn't skewed or biased?
JoeB said:
3. That's nice, so have I interviewed many KW era pilots who flew all kinds of types. But it's nothing to do with the accuracy of that list.
Click to expand...
No it doesn't but by meeting some of these people and knowing how the aircraft operate would provide part of the "Benefit of the doubt" you spoke about several posts ago.

As you said, IYO....
 
1. I never put any priority or order "first" on overclaiming in Korea. And please quote (in context) any posts by me with broad brush statements about anything w/o specific facts.

2. You obviously had no idea how many errors were in that list. That's my point. Whereas anyone with common sense knows that 'Soviets claimed X planes in their records' is just *their* side of the story. There's not nearly as much risk of confusing that with a settled fact as there is with a list that purports to distill the truth from a fair comparison of both sides's stories, but does not in fact do it fairly. Especially when people who clearly have no idea the accuracy of the list, keep repeating it's "excellent".

Re: Rob how did I evaluate the work of the author of the ACIG Soviet KW claims list, and the three lists of 'real' ace scores? For an example, see again this link I post again about Nikolai Sutyagin's score, that author's finding of 12 v mine of 1.5 (and 5 'benefit of doubt' has nothing to do with meeting veteran pilots, of either side, it's just a figure of speech for the calc method I described above).
Korean War Ace Sutyagin's Score
I checked the real claims of Sutyagin and other Soviet pilots in Russian language published and original sources, plus limited info on Chinese claims from published sources. I was able to get quite specific type, time and place of each of Sutyagin's claims. Then I compared these to US original records for the same days (supplemented by some published sources too). I also did that for total claims every day between Nov 1 1950 and August 29 1951 wrt to the ACIG list.

Note that virtually all Soviet claims in the war correspond to real combats also in US records at the same time and place and featuring the same general type of a/c (F-86, straigthwing jet, prop; within the last two categories ID's were frequently mistaken, but never AFAIK were F-86's mistaken for another UN type, and straigtwings jets and props were mixed up in only one case I recall). It's mainly the *results* of the combats that differ; with US claims also differing from Soviet recorded losses, though not by nearly as much as vice versa (anyone please try and find a statement by me otherwise, ever).

For the Vietnam case I just checked published sources (including Hobson's excellent "Vietnam Air Losses") and noted that at least one of the same fudge factors was being used: crediting all US losses of a given type in a given day against Vietnamese ace claims, regardless of the US stated cause of loss, and apparently irrespective of other Vietnamese claims (I don't know those in detail, but no mention is made of trying to apportion credit among multiple claimants in an action, which must have been the case at least sometimes).

Joe
 
JoeB said:
2. You obviously had no idea how many errors were in that list. That's my point. Whereas anyone with common sense knows that 'Soviets claimed X planes in their records' is just *their* side of the story.
Click to expand...
You're right I don't know how many errors are on that list. My point its one of the few sources that have some data rather than following some of the lists compiled by folks who put together similar list that backed up original Soviet claims.

Well have you or do you have a better product?


Both the NVAF and US Forces over Vietnam had a better "handle" on claims and actual kills because most of the encounters were "watched" by someone, either by NVAF radar operators or by EC-121s. I doubt there was much dealing with "multiple claimants" considering most of the air to air kills in Vietnam were done by missile.
 


Where is Billy Bishop, Barker or Buzz Beurling?
 
Post was too long -so I had to edit out Bishop.

Billy Bishop (55 Credited Kills / 72 Official Victories)
20 of 55 Claims ( 36.4%) -more recent evaluation of German Records than at billybishop.net/bishopP.html as per Al Lowe 6 Oct 98
2 of 55 Claims ( 03.6%) -It seems highly unlikely to me that such exaggeration would be tolerated by his squadron


If you've got info on the other two, I'm sure we'd all love to see it.

Rob
 
1 I don't understand that logic, you have no idea how accurate a source is, you've been presented evidence it's *deliberately* fudged, but it's the only one around, so what the hey, let's quote it.

I don't know what other lists you are talking about that purport to cross check Soviet claims and US losses in Korea, what are those? There's this list, but it simply lists Soviet claims. It has some omissions (the Soviet source it uses omits some claims that other Soviet records have) and some mistakes about which units claimed, but it basically conveys a historical fact: what the Soviets *claimed*. It doesn't pretend to cross check that against US info and list what the Soviets *really shot down*. There's nothing dishonest about the way this list was complied, a huge distinction in my book.
Russian Claims the Korean War 1950-53

2. (Anyone) feel free to ask about any specific KW air combat incident you'd like to know about. For those lists of aces and kills by that author, there shouldn't be any credit given for presenting deliberately fudged analysis, in my book, irrelevant whether it's the only one on the internet.

3. See "And Kill MiG's" by Drendel, and "Air War Over North Vietnam" by Topczer, US and Vietnamese sides. There were numerous days where multiple kills were claimed by one side or another. If you compare the Topczer list of VPAF claims to Drendel's list of US losses to MiG's (which is about the same as the more detailed info in Hobson, "Vietnam Air Losses") you'll see quite a number of times VPAF claimed and US lost but VPAF claimed more than was lost. So which particular VPAF pilot's claim is verifed by a real US loss is a real issue, as it usually is for analyzing invidual claims.

But back to basics about sources, the same guy who wrote the Vietnamese aces list writes clearly fudged stuff about other air wars. Third time, look at this link and tell me it his analysis could be the result of random mistakes, or tell me what you disagree with in my analysis, specifically.
Korean War Ace Sutyagin's Score
Why would I believe or use his results on other aces or other wars (other Soviet ace scores, Vietnamese ace scores, AGIC Korea list, all by the same person), unless I verified them some other way?

Joe
 
This is darn interesting fellas, sucking up like a sponge....
What does these lists say about 1Lt James P Hagerstrom? I've seen somewhere that he's one of only 7 pilots that become an Ace in two wars. When did and what kind of machines did he shoot down?
 




Well Off the top of my head, Buzz Beurling a canadian Pilot with the RAF over malta shot down 29 german planes

Im gonna look up Barker, because i always forget his first name
 
JoeB said:
1 I don't understand that logic, you have no idea how accurate a source is, you've been presented evidence it's *deliberately* fudged, but it's the only one around, so what the hey, let's quote it.
Click to expand...
Yes let's quote it and then figure out if it's indeed accutrate - that's my point.
JoeB said:
I don't know what other lists you are talking about that purport to cross check Soviet claims and US losses in Korea, what are those?
Click to expand...
They were put out by people in Russia and it shows that 625 F-86s were shot down during Korea, I'll try to find them...
OK

Then you would have to go with the the US side - as stated most of the aerial action was being surveyed by EC-121s. I would also believe that if the NVAF had unsubstaciated multipe claims, it was because their AA batteries were taking credit for a kill that might of been carried out by an aircraft. By 1972 there were hundreds of AA around Kep Airbase and it was probably very confusing who or what brought down a US aircraft from the NVAF perspective. I have "And Kill Migs."

They maybe you should put together another site clarifying those who fudged these lists....
 
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