F-86 vs MiG 15, the claims...

[Jim Oxley]

Excellent, informative post JoeB. I sure hope that you are planning on putting that all into a book in the newar future.

I am surprised though at the various MiG losses reported by each country. I would have thought that China would have suffered the most, given they provided the bulk of MiG pilots. Yet the Soviets lost the most according to your research. That is interesting.

Keep up the great work.

[Six Nifty .50s]

Thanks for 411, Joe. Maybe this controversy is closer to being cleared up. I have read about the USAF study Sabre Measures Charlie but did not view a copy of the original document.

Did you figure out how many cases are still remaining in which the cause of loss is unknown?

[Leo Etgen]

Hello guys

Have any of you come across www.acepilots.com/korea_aces.html before? This seems to be a nice web site with considerable information on the American aces of the Korean War. There is a link included concerning the Russian aces as well www.acepilots.com/russian/rus_aces.html I hope that some of you find this information interesting.

Horrido!

Leo

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Leo Etgen

Hello guys

There is a link included concerning the Russian aces as well www.acepilots.com/russian/rus_aces.html I hope that some of you find this information interesting.

Interesting info qualitatively, but I'd be careful with the claim and loss accounting given on that site. For example, see the score of N. Sutyagin on that page, Soviet pilot credited with the most victories in Korea. The comparison of his credited victories v US sources purports to show 12 of 21 claims verified. I got quite a different answer using Soviet sources with exact types, times and places of his claims (beside date) v original US records. See this link for my findings v that site's day by day. I got a score of around 1.5 if his claims are weighted equally with other Soviet and Chinese claimants in the same combats. His maximum possible score would be 5, minimum possible score 0. Five US a/c of the general type he claimed (all F-86's as it happened) were shot down, one each on 5 different days when he was credited with victories. But, there were other Soviet claims at similar times and places each on those days, and known Chinese claims too on one of those days. See link:
http://www.acepilots.com/smf/index.php?topic=79

Re: Six Nifty .50's: there are still a number of F-86 losses whose cause I can't certainly determine, which is why I gave a range of 85-90. And it would depend on what burden of proof one used. For example if one said an F-86 loss in the same time window same day as a MiG claim was due to MiG unless it could be absolutely proved it wasn't, the number might be even higher than 90 (though not more than around 100 in any case). If one said it had to be proven it was a MiG loss, or if one rejected my inclusion of MiG damaged F-86's which returned safely but were never repaired as "MiG losses", the number might shrink below 85, though in no case less than around 80. I also still hope to get more US data on some incidents. And it's possible that detailed claim information from the Chinese and NK's might clarify a few situations, their claims aren't known in the same day to day detail as Soviet ones. But I doubt the end point will be complete certainty about all cases.

Joe

[drgondog]

Joe - I agree your approach and the directed result. On a smaller scale I have looked over ever 47 and 51 loss for the 355FG wrt fighter losses to GAF.

My numbers range from 28 (absolutely seen w/German fighter on tail if 'missing' and or seen to be be shot down) to 45 (all the prior plus 1.) shot up, returned and crashed, 2.) missing in area which had German fighters in area, c.) escaped/damaged but crashed when ran out of fuel) and careful to note the distinctions for each separate Pilot entry.

The most interesting research for me lately is developing the battle tracks, engagement locations and claims/macrs, and having a dialogue with the many very knowledgeable guys (Ruy, Erich, Leo, Richard, etc) on this forum to match LW units and pilots with the 355th FG encounters- which is kinda what you are doing on a larger scale.

It is particularly interesting when there is not a LW claim for a 355 loss and vice versa. These questions are the other side of Overclaims coin.

IMHO, every unit historian on either side should do as much as possible along these lines for posterity.

Regards, and Respect

Bill Marshall

[Daniel Nole]

Hi: Very interesant the theme. I have also investigate a lot about many of the claims of both sides in the Korean War and certainly is a very open theme. Sometimes also there are many differences in the version published.
A typical confussión with the numbers is the day June 17, 1951.

If you consult Korwald for F-86s losses this day, there are nothing but if you consult other publications you find:

49-1281 (4th FIG, 334th FIS) Heavy damaged by MiG.Written off Jun 25, 1951.(F-86A-5)
49-1334 (335th FIS) destroyed on ground by Bedcheck Charlie Jun 17, 1951 at Suwon.(F-86A-5)
49-1335 (335th FIS 4th FIW)shot down by MiGs Jun 17, 1951.(F-86A-5)

The 49-334 was destroyed early in the morning with grenadas by one Po-2 in Suwon, the 49-335 was shot down by Lev K. Shchukin of 17 IAP some hours after, and the 49-1281(LtCol Eagleston) was heavy damaged by Sergei Kramarenko of 176th GIAP and write off the 25th of the same month.

The confussion about the 49-1334 and 49-1335 in a constant in many publications.Already the published photos are not a good help to clear the id of the destroyed F-86 at Suwon.

The second "official" F-86 loss in combat with MiGs was the 49-1307 the June 18, 1951 but there are before this date some curious events with F-86 and MiGs.

The first one was the Apr 3, 1951. This day was loss the the 49-1173 of Maj Ronald D. Shirlaw. The official version say: "crashed behind enemy lines due to fuel exhaustion " .Korwall speak of:" Instrument malfunction, fuel exhaustion, bellied in on river bank 10 mi NW of Kaesong".

And what is the version the V-VS?

"A MiG-15 pilot of the 176th GIAP, Kapetan Ivan Yablokov,
caught by surprise the F-86A BuNo.49-1173 flown by Major Ronald D. Shirlaw, and riddled the fuel tanks and the fuel
boost with 23 mm shells. Shirlaw managed to belly land his crippled Sabre over NK territory, only to become a POW."

Iam near certain , this plane can be counted as a victory for the MiGs but is not so in the "official version".

As example If you count this F-86 and the two others of the Jun 17 , there are now 3 F-86s more "in credit" for the MiGs.

There are so many myths and historic deformations ; a typical example is the combat of the Dec 22, 1950.

In a early combat was shot down the F-86A-5 49-1176, the first one loss in Korea and in the second combat of the day the 4th FIW engaged the MiGs of the 177th IAP.
The 4th FIW claims were for six MiGs ; actually the losses were 2 MiGs ,pilots Zub(Wounded) and Barsegyan(KIA).
The MiG of St Li V. F. Deynegi was slight damaged with five 12.7mm and repaired.

Score of the day USAF 2, V-VS 1. And not : USAF 6 , V-VS 1.

The June 1953 was a great month for the F-86. "Officially" 77 MiGs were claimed as destroyed with the only loss of one F-86. The V-VS and PLAAF versions confirme in part the USAF version:

The V-VS losses were 24 MiGs and the PLAAF loss 43, with a total of 67 MiG destroyed.
Worst day, and the record in the Korean war was the Jun 30, 1953 with 16 MiGs destroyed(14 PLAAF and 2 V-VS).

In the other side the V-VS claims were for 36 F-86s , actually, after investigation of all claims and losses, only 3 of the F-86s were definitively destroyed by the MiGs this month.

Daniel Nole

[Daniel Nole]

Already in theme , I search information about the circunstances of the loss of this F-86s:

48-305 damaged by MiG.(F-86A-5)
49-1318 - lost to enemy action(F-86A-5)
50-587 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-1)
50-622 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-1)
50-666 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-5)
50-672 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-5)
51-2768 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-10)
51-2770 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-10)
51-2792 - lost to enemy action(F-86E-10)
51-12942 -lost to enemy action(F-86F-10)
52-4313 - lost to enemy action(F-86F-30)

The F-86A-5 49-318 was used for the photo sessions with James Jabara after the combat of May 20, 1951(Actually this day he had used the 49-1319). After that, no more informations are available about the loss of this plane.

The 49-1319 in the other side was shot down by Pepelyayev the Oct 6, 1951, recovered, was transported near Moscow for study and investigation. The Sirena warning device installed in the MiGs after 1952 was part of the results of this investigation. Also works with the G suits systems but no utilised in the MiG-15.

Thanks

Daniel Nole

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Daniel Nole

Hi: Very interesant the theme.

1. The first one was the Apr 3, 1951. This day was loss the the 49-1173 of Maj Ronald D. Shirlaw. The official version say: "crashed behind enemy lines due to fuel exhaustion " .Korwall speak of:" Instrument malfunction, fuel exhaustion, bellied in on river bank 10 mi NW of Kaesong".

And what is the version the V-VS?

"A MiG-15 pilot of the 176th GIAP, Kapetan Ivan Yablokov,
caught by surprise the F-86A BuNo.49-1173 flown by Major Ronald D. Shirlaw, and riddled the fuel tanks and the fuel
boost with 23 mm shells. Shirlaw managed to belly land his crippled Sabre over NK territory, only to become a POW."

Iam near certain , this plane can be counted as a victory for the MiGs but is not so in the "official version".

2. The F-86A-5 49-318 was used for the photo sessions with James Jabara after the combat of May 20, 1951(Actually this day he had used the 49-1319). After that, no more informations are available about the loss of this plane.

Hi Daniel, I welcome someone new interested in this topic which so fascinates me. May I make minor comments about just the two points above

1. The problem shown by the source you quote is what I might call the 'Korwald feedback effect'. Some researchers have in recent years read Korwald as well as published accounts from Russia, but then the info in Korwald kind of 'feeds back' into the Russian accounts to imply a neat correlation of facts from each side that wasn't really there. For example, the quote you gave tends to imply that the Soviets later found Shirlaw's plane to have been riddled by cannon fire causing a fuel problem, but there's actually no evidence of that. The Soviets didn't do their own wreck surveys at that time, and their verification comment for this downing is very vague, in fact it says the a/c crashed into the water and the fate of the pilot was unknown, though Shirlaw obviously turned up in the hands of their allies eventually, spent the war as prisoner and was released in 1953.

The part about "riddled fuel tanks" comes from the assumption or imagination of the writer of the website you quoted, putting together the Korwald entry including a fuel issue with knowledge that a Soviet claim was registered the same day.

Also note that Korwald is not 'the official version' in sense of some publicity release. Those explanations of loss are in almost all cases directly from then-secret records.

As best I can tell from April 3 '51's intelligence summary of the 5th AF, which has details of each flight, Shirlaw's particular flight didn't contact MiG's, though others did, which would explain the Soviet claim. It seems he really did get separated and have a navigation problem, and ran out of fuel. He also said so in his POW de-brief interview after his release in 1953. These were all secret documents at the time. I rate this incident 'probably not MiG' in my database, though I admit it's not 100% certain.

2. 49-1318 was damaged in air combat November 29, 1951. Although a photo dated December 5 seems to shows the damage to be relatively minor, there was a severe parts shortage for F-86A's in Korean in late '51; and 1318 was probably cannabalized for spares, and officially written off January 2, 1952, code M (combat loss). I count this as 'MiG loss/writeoff'. This is one of the legendary 'F-86's that were damaged and never repaired but the USAF didn't count them as losses'...except there are only a handful of such later write offs, and some *were* counted as combat losses.

Joe

[Daniel Nole]

Thanks Joe for the answer and a pleasure to speak with a another passionate with this theme.Very interesant the history of the 49-1318. A good day this one for the V-VS, apart the damage of 49-1318 , Pepelyayev had also heavy damaged the 48-301, one of de A-5 of the first early series.This second one was also written off.
Losses for the V-VS this Nov 29, 1951 was one MiG downed by Vernon L. Wright of the 336th FIS.

After the point about the loss of the 49-1173 of Maj Shirlaw, that mean no F-86 were losses in combat with MiGs between Nov 22, 1950 and June 18, 1951 with the loss of 49-1307 of Capt William D. Crone of the 334th FIS? "Officially" the 49-1307 was the second F-86 loss in combat with MiGs.
Maybe the only "light"exception between this two dates was the damage with a hit of 37mm at the rudder of the 49-1227 the Apr 18, 1951 but this plane returned to Suwon. After my documentation was again damaged the Sept 13 of the same year.(A lucky F-86 this one after so a such hit).

I have finded also in the Korwald a curious event, but his one no with F-86 but with F9F Panthers of the USMC.
After the information the tragic loss of a complete formation of six Panthers with his pilots(All MIA) of the VMF-115, MAG-33 the Sep 10, 1952.Korwald speak of "Bad wx diversion from K-3 to K-2 after combat mission, crashed into Unmun-san 23 nm SE K-2". Maybe a navigational mistake, very bad weather with limited visibility and colission with montanious terrain. Very tragic.

Daniel Nole

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

BTW, may it would be interesting for you? Just now has been edited a new book about Russian aces of Korean war 1950-1953. Looks very serious, and good done. Only in Russian, edition of 750 copies, not so many. Author has spended a lot of time writing it, as it is written.

Regards,
Mirek Wawrzyński

See more:
http://aerospaceproject.ru/book/46.html

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