Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum

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- - 2 JoeB about KW (http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=21472)

Re: 2 JoeB about KW

Quote:

Originally Posted by FPSOlkor (Post 109002)

To be honest, i doubt it. To be mistaken this lettering has to be in green colour at first place, which is not likely - simply for better view irritating colors were used, at least in VVS... But - haven't been there, haven't seen it. And 11 claims by USAF against 2 losses is very serious overclaim level

I don't doubt combat with Chinese or North Korean units that day. We can't generally judge US credits v Soviet-only losses day by day at any time after September 1951. And OTOH I've concluded that Russian authors like Seidov are just guessing when they say particular US victory credits which appear as overclaims v the Soviets only *were* in fact v Chinese or North Koreans. We just don't know in most specific cases, yet. Specific combat accounts I've counted up from Chinese published sources amount to around 1/2 their total official claims in the war, but a much smaller % of their total official combat losses. Obviously the selection of specific accounts to publish over the years has emphasized the positive from the PLAAF point of view. But for May 1953, it's extremely likely F-86's engaged Chinese or NK a/c in any day of large scale combat, just frustratingly that the specific info from PLAAF/KPAAF isn't available yet, AFAIK. And, the worse a day May 18 might have been for the PLAAF, the less likely their account of it would have surfaced.

Joe

Re: 2 JoeB about KW

True, true... All I meant that any overclaim has to have an explanation, but here we are on a slippery way of "guessing game"... And I believe there must have been a combat with Chineese or NK fighters too, but have no way to prove it...

Re: 2 JoeB about KW

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeB (Post 108953)

Now that I see the commemorative dragon so relatively near the nose, I wonder more: could lettering like this possibly be mistaken for an art work image, perhaps even a dragon, in the heat of combat?

http://www.airforceworld.com/pla/gfx/mig15/mig15_1.jpg

Joe

As far as I know, CPVAF never painted those characters during the Korean War. Some old CPVAF pilots said that those characters were painted for taking the propaganda photos AFTER the armistice.

Re: 2 JoeB about KW

By this time, most of the PLAAF MiGs were camoufled, colours like of the related "Dragon" theme can be really difficult to see in a plane with schemes with various greens and (or) wavy lines. Slogans were quite usual in natural metal planes and also red tail or cone tail section, sometimes also wings tips.

Daniel

Re: 2 JoeB about KW

Daniel,

According to a radar operator of CPVAF 15th FAD, CPVAF's MiGs never had camoufled paints nor any other markings than the NPKAF insignia.