Quote:
Originally Posted by John Beaman
Great thread guys. Thanks to all of you. So, what's the bottom line here?
1. Did we grossly overclaim or just some?
2. Did we understate our losses to MiGs to save face?
3. Understating losses is something all air forces do if they count a certain way. Recall the Schwinfert mission of 14-Oct-43 where we admitted officially losing 60 B-17s. We also had a further 30 return that were fit only for spare parts. Why are they not counted as losses and Luftwaffe victories?
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1. I think the figures are in an earlier post in this thread; UN fighters claimed around 800 MiG's destroyed (the vast majority by F-86's); apparently around 550-600 were destroyed (319 Sovet per Seidov's book, 224 Chinese per their official figures, probably several dozen NK, based on No Gum-sok's estimate that 100 NK MiG's were lost to all causes). That's quite accurate claiming by WWII standards. It's corroborated by the figures for certain sub periods of the war where individual Soviet losses are well known and Chinese a/c were not heavily involved, the % is similar. OTOH B-29 credits for MiG's were almost wholly erroneous, perhaps 3 destroyed v 27 credits and 2 of the real kills were not officially credited. B-26's downed 2 MiG's according to Soviet and Chinese accounts (one each) whereas no credits were awarded on the US side to B-26 gunners. Such a random relationship of bomber claims and actual victories though was also typical of WWII.
2. No evidence of systematic deliberate understatment, and actual understatement, which as you say depends on how you want to count, doesn't change the figures substantially. See the recent F-84 thread for a comparison of the monthly figures in 1953 Statistics Digest for F-84 air combat losses v incident by incident comparison with benefit of knowing the enemy claims. The actual total is relatively slightly higher, but in some cases the Stats Digest numbers for particular months are too high; there are simply errors in that table. It's similar for the F-86 and other types.
3. Two distinctions which might be made here are firstly, accounts and figures released to the public at the time v what records said, and secondly whether record keeping in USAAF in WWII was the same across numbered AF's or same as USAF in Korea, not necessarily. The number of a/c written off due to air combat damage was a small % of the total air combat loss in Korea*; in a few cases a/c are mentioned in unit historical reports as 'lost' (to the front line unit) which were actually later repaired and used by other units in combat.
*the largest proportional discrepancy between Stats Digest and case by case analysis is for B-29's. The 1953 Stats Digest gives 17 B-29's lost in air combat, one in July 1950, to Yak-9, the other 16 would be due to MiG-15's. It omits 2 RB-29's (operations and results still classified at that time and the column heading *is* 'B-29'), 1 B-29 outright known MiG loss in the records, 1 a/c believed lost to AAA which may have been lost to MiG's**, 1 a/c written off due to MiG damage, 2 a/c which may have been written off due to MiG damage (badly damaged by MiG's, their Individual A/c Record Cards or other proof of repair cannot be found), 1 a/c which may have been written off to either AAA or MiG.** All other B-29's damaged by MiG's (and a couple by Yak-9 and La-11) over Korea were repaired, AFAIK, as evidenced by their IARC's and/or presence on later missions.
**In the raids of Jun 10 1952 where MiG-15's first operated effectively at night, 1 B-29 was recorded as lost to MiG's, one to AAA (based on surviving crew accounts) one damaged final fate unknown. Soviet pilots made several claims, but it seems possible those were duplicate claims for the 1 B-29, rather than errors on US side as to loss/damage cause of the other two.
Joe