i decided to propose a myth-busting of my own During the Korean war, the F86 Sabre competed against the Mig-15 in what is considered to be the definitive comparison of western and soviet air tactics. The North Korean and Chinese air forces were supplemented by the finest aces the USSR had to offer, yet by the end of the war, the USAF had downed enemy planes on a ratio of 10:1 (proven to be less but still greatly in the US's favor). such an overwhelming air victory has been attributed not to any technological superiority of the sabre, but to the superior training of the American pilots compared to their soviet counterparts. The experience of the Korean War has led many to the conlcusion that American Fighter Pilots were simply better than Russia Pilots, as they had shot down the enemy in droves during Korea.This Myth can be proven wrong for three reasons. Firstly, using the ratio of 10:1 as an example assumes that all enemy aircraft lost were either F-86's or Mig-15's, this is not the case, in fact, most planes lost on both sides were supply and transport aircraft. secondly, it assumes that all downed planes were piloted by Russians. this again is untrue; the VVS comprised only a small part of the North Korean and Chinese air forces. Lastly the Americans covered up many of their air losses from the public; those which could not be covered up were often labelled as having occured in 'unknown circumstances'. Officially less than ~200 US aircraft were lost in combat circumstances, however the VVS alone has video footage of 225 aerial victories in Korea (against all aircraft types). The Soviet VVS lost 345 aircraft in Korea, most of them Mig-15's, accounting for almost half of all Mig-15 losses in the Korean war. Jon Halliday puts the number of VVS aerial victories at 1,309, of which 650 were F86 sabres. this was also supported by recently de-classified Soviet reports of the Air war in Korea, which due to strict soviet doctrine required guncam or serial number confirmation. by these numbers, the VVS achieved a kill ratio of 2:1 against US Sabres, and a ration of 3.3:1 against all US/UN aircraft. Total VVS victories were largely comprised of sabres because of the defensive role the VVS assumed in Korea, usually encountering offensive fighters in North Korean airspace. The US still shot down enemy planes at a rate of anywhere between 14:1 and 4:1, but this was largely against Korean and Chinese pilots. The soviet pilots maintained a higher kill ratio against Americans than the US had against Soviet pilots. illustrative of this is the fact that the Korean war produced 38 US Aces with 5 or more kills, yet it also produced 51 Soviet Aces with 5+kills. the quality of Soviet pilots was, if anything, higher than the quality of American pilots, largely due to the fact that many soviet flyers in Korea were themselves WW2 aces. The Americans remain the top guns of the Korean air war with such high aerial victory ratio's against communist aircraft, but it was the VVS who proved the most skillful pilots of the Korean War. for a comprehensive myth busting experience... http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/the_hu ... _sabre.htm
Quick reply before Dr. Who. Since the overall kill ratio is largely undisputed (or at least the fact that it was very much in the US's favour) then that already says something about the quality of pilots. IIRC (and it's while since I looked at the Korean air war) Russian pilots weren't officially in at the time so the claim was that US pilot quality/ tactics was better than Soviet TACTICS. Held up by the kill ratio. And So were a good number of US pilots. Gabreski springs to mind for some reason, but I'm sure there were others. Total number of aces count for little (other than actual aircraft destroyed ), since it depends on type of mission flown, availability of targets, type of target, etc... Last one until I've had a further look, but isn't aviation.ru part of Venik's Aviation website? The guy has a distinct pro-Russian bias in a lot of his articles.
Ooooh, you opened a big can of worms there! See here for a rather small example of this topic elsewhere: http://www.tgplanes.com/Public/snitz/to ... PIC_ID=464 But not any more - you can apparently trace the activities, and the fate, of every Sabre in Korea through the archives via their serial number. Can this be right? IIRC there were not even that many Sabres in Korea in the first place!
One reason for the relatively poor performance of Russian pilots (as agreed by most researchers) was that the Russians sent squadrons in to the battle to gain experience, then rotated them out again once they'd got the hang of it. So the Sabre units were frequently facing 'green' pilots who naturally performed worse. There was little difference between the MiG-15 and the F-86 initially - they had different strengths and weaknesses. But the F-86 was improved more during the conflict and had a clear edge by the end of it. Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
aye but theres no 'post-ww2 air warfare' topic and ive seen plenty of F-86 posts around here as further evidence promoting my hypothesis... this site lists confirmed air-to-air victories of the Korean Air war: note it regards all aircraft types and not just F-86s and Mig-15's; http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/cat_index_20.shtml the site displays all USAF air-to-air kills in the entire korean war (1950-1953). it also displays VVS kills up between 1950 1951. i pasted all kills into excel to get the exact numbers throughout the war, the USAF claimed 565 victories. 326 of these were made against the VVS (IAP and GIAP included in this number) the rest of the claimed 345 VVS losses were likely unlisted or due to AAA, bad weather etc. VVS victories are only listed between November 1950 and December 1951. In this period, the VVS shoot down 295 enemy planes, the USAF shoot down only 60 VVS fighters. that gives the VVS a 1:5 kill ratio in a period where the USAF (supposedly) had air supremacy. VVS air losses remain relatively consistent throughout the war, so i see no reason why their aerial vicory tally shouldnt as well. the VVS probably never shot down their claimed 1309 planes (including 650 sabres, which is more than were present in the entire theatre); the number is probably closer to 800-900. note that the larger part (probably 85%) of the 295 VVS victories in 1950/51 were scored against F86's, F84's, F80's and Gloster Meteors. so the Russian claims of 650 Sabres probably refers to 650 fighters of all types i would be interested if anyone could help find VVS victories for the remaining 2 years of the war.
Smeg: The Russians claim their pilots never participated in the Korean War... therefore those numbers are meaningless. 'Course I do remember reading of a couple of shoot-downs, where the "victorious" Sabre pilots claimed the Korean pilot sported a full shock of blond-hair?! One was even convinced his adversary was a female. Hmmm. Somebody ain't tellin' the truth here... Tim
Yes they do, in 1989, Russia de-classified alot of information including participation in the Korean War. Soviet involvent in the Korean war is no longer a state secret would you believe an American source? CNN no less, if not i have plenty more... http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/korea/story/moscow/ The Soviet Union was able to keep their involvment largely secret; Soviet pilots were restriced to flying over a small area, friendly controlled, in order to avoid capture and consquent US inquries. the UN had reason to know of soviet pilots in Korea, having intercepted Russian Radio chatter, but withdheld the information from the USA to avoid inflaming already tight US-USSR tensions
Smeg: I was simply teasing you. I know damn-well they were there. Fact is, US pilots were better-trained and many were veterans and aces from WW2 combat... just as the Russians. Given the equipment being equal, the advantage goes to the best-trained pilot. If your point of this is that the Russians are implied to be better pilots than their American counterparts... I don't agree. I will agree that both American and Russian pilots were better trained and more aggressive than North Korean ones. The Mig-15 and F-86 Sabre were pretty evenly matched. The NK and Russian pilots could pick their fight over home ground. US pilots had limited loiter-time and fuel restrictions which effected their abilty to provide top-cover to bombers and to mount fighter-sweeps. I think the stats specak highly of American aviators of the era. Tim
While refusing to comment on the kill ratios (therein lies a dark & stormy road) I will say that an airforce that is intruding over enemy territory does tend to have higher losses than its enemy (unless it has an overwhelming advantage of some kind). For example, check out the loss ration between the Luftwaffe & the RAF during the BoB & Blitz, then of the same airforces during the Rhubarb and Beehive (or was it circus? The missions where a swarm of fighters would escort 2 or 3 bombers in daylight, hoping to draw up German fighters)missions.
ahhh gotchya . No, i'm simply trying to point out that the Russian pilots poor performance record in the Korean war is a myth, due largely to the perfromance of their PLAAF and DPRKAF counterparts, and that they were no less well-trained than USAF pilots... in fact their skills were quite close to that of American flyers.
