View Single Post
  #8  
Old 11th September 2011, 05:58
JoeB JoeB is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 121
JoeB
Re: Korea-MiG-15 and the other side of the history

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miguel A View Post
According to Mr. Diego Zampini and Mr. Igor Seidov

270 Sabres were killed by VVS MiG-15
293 VVS MiG-15 were killed by Sabres (89 during Maple Special missions)

What should I believe?

6+:1 or 1,08:1 ?

Mr Zampini and Mr. Seidov had researched declassified Soviet records of that time. They have writen a book in which they explain almost each case.

I'm asking for help in this theme.

Thanks in advance.
The USAF Statistics Digest for 1953 showed a total of 78 F-86 air combat losses, listed by month. The real number is apparently around 85-90, counting a/c which returned with MiG damage but were never repaired. A very 'pro MiG' count might get close to 100 counting even slightly ambiguous cases of other loss causes as *all* turning out to be MiG losses (though that doesn't seem an objective thing to assume), but numbers beyond that cannot be supported by archival evidence on US side.

I base this conclusion on direct research in USAF records as preserved at a couple of different archives in the US, many different forms of records, a very large amount of material (individual a/c records, daily 5th AF and FEAF summaries, supplementary 5th AF reports about loss and damage, missing a/c reports, accident reports, periodic unit history reports, squadron maintenance records which survive in a few cases, etc.).

And not to directly criticize those authors without having read the book, are you sure 270 is just F-86's? The earlier edition of 'Red Devils' makes no firm statement about US losses. 270 would be somewhat closer though still too high for total MiG aerial victories in Korea, which probably totalled around 175 (150-some by UN side official count at the time).

OTOH the previous version of Red Devils quoted a total of 319 MiG-15's lost in air combat. Not all of those were shot down by F-86's. But perhaps Mr. Seidov has also further refined the number. Although, it seemed to me that he'd omitted a few in the original 'Red Devils' compared to VB Naboka's 'Nato's Hawks/Stalin's Falcons' which was a pretty direct transcription of 64th Fighter Corps combat summaries through the summer of 1951. And even Mr. Naboka's attributed a couple of losses to operational causes which seem from US archival sources to be the result of US a/c. But anyway 293 is within the already widely accepted range for *Soviet* MiG losses to F-86's.

But, the PLAAF says it lost 224 MiG's in combat (a number which needs much more 'bottom up' research incident by incident to fully corroborate IMO, but I haven't complete evidence to say it's wrong). And the 1953 defector No Gum-sok said the KPAAF lost 100 MiG's to all causes during the war. His checkable statements were highly accurate, and his unit was in action suffering losss from November 1951. So I believe 50 combat losses is a conservative figure for KPAAF MiG-15 air combat losses. Add up and divide using 90 as F-86 air combat losses and it's ~6:1.

So the crux of the disagreement is total F-86 air combat losses, and secondarily if we agree a particular F-86 air combat loss total there'd be question which were due to Soviet v PLAAF and KPAAF a/c. The Soviets claimed 642 F-86's (per first edition of Red Devils), the PLAAF 211 (official), and an NK source Mr Seidov quotes mentions 44 by KPAAF. The Soviets were long more numerous than their allies and more experienced and effective on average. So of course they scored many more victories, but also claimed a lot more. My general impression based on cases where detailed Soviet and Chinese accounts are known for particular days or combat is that the PLAAF claims were perhaps more exaggerated, but not greatly more. I don't think it would be far wrong to assume the proportion of F-86's downed by the Soviets was similar to their proporation of the claims, so perhaps 70-some% of the 90 or so F-86's downed by MiG's in total.

Re: Mars, I spoke to a guy who says he is translating (to English) what I believe to be the same book.

Re: Daniel from long ago, sorry yes B-29 44-61835

Joe
Reply With Quote