MIG vs SABRE

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by FLYBOYJ

Great info guys...
Joe B - you state "78 F-86's were officially lost in air combat, but reviewing one by one I estimate 90 including those written off from combat damage." Ever consider the same train of thought from US combat reports of "damaged" Migs? ...

But I'm not counting MiG losses per *US* combat reports, but rather by Soviet and Chinese reports of their losses. Just like I'm not counting F-86 losses according to Soviet and Chinese claims or victory credits, but by US loss records.

IOW assuming the 319 and 224 are correct, they already include a/c credited as 'probable' or 'damaged' by the US but actually destroyed, while a fair % of US 'destroyed' credits were mistakes or duplicates, as in every other air war pretty much. Let's take a specific example. The first MiG was credited destroyed by USAF F-80 Nov 8, 1950. Soviet records have a combat at the same time that day, but no loss; That MiG is included in the US victory tally but not in the Soviet 319 loss tally. The next day a USN Panther was credited with a MiG and this loss is reflected in Soviet records, it's included in the US tally and the 319. Two days after that, Nov 11, an F-80 was credited with a 'probable' MiG, but the damaged MiG crashed and was destroyed on landing, killing its Soviet pilot; it's included in the 319, but not in the US tally.

The Soviet and Chinese losses of 319 and 224 are not sacred any more than the US 78. I know of a few additions to the Soviet total (but I'd rather stick with a reasonably accurate, I believe, published number, and not have everything be 'I say'). And colleagues who study PLAAF history have told me of at least a few extra's in their case was well.

But, just mathematically in a ratio, adding a few to the small denominator, 78, makes more difference than adding a few to the big numerator (319+224+50?). And I specifically know those extra F-86 losses, so there's no reason to omit that information from the analysis.

Joe

[FLYBOYJ]

Thanks for the info Joe - so I guess it would be fair to say (based on your analysis) that if you include all communist combatants the F-86 still maintains about a 6 to 1 kill ratio? Even if we had the ability to further dissect the US losses it still seems the F-86 still had a upper hand on the Soviet flown Mig-15s.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by ppopsie

One thing I would like to point out is that for the communist's air defence not only the F-86 Sabres but also other UN airplanes must have been very important target.

Naturally the scores craimed by the Soviet pilots include F-80s, F-84s, F-51s and even some F-94s.

The MiG's downed about 90 F-86's and about 100 other UN a/c (official totals 78 and around another 75), so a considerable but not vast number of other a/c. As I mentioned, F-86's destroyed the great majority of MiG's lost, actual MiG kills by other types is within the margin of error of what the MiG loss total actually is (B-29's were credited with a fair number of MiG's, but almost none of those credits check out as real MiG losses). The MiG ratio of course improves markedly if we include their non-F-86 victories, as was always known.

In the big picture of an air war, yes we have to note the actual mission and overall effect of a given plane. But OTOH if we want to compare fighter effectiveness, it tends to distort the picture to include non-fighter targets of fighters, because some fighters had plenty of those to go after, and some didn't. For example the F-86 had hardly any non MiG-15 targets by which to run up its score; in one combat v. Chinese prop bombers it practically anihilated them, even though MiG's also intervened. If it had that opportunity every day, it's ratio would be far higher.

Same thing is true in WWII, when comparing planes like F4F and F6F that engaged lots of non-fighters, with say P-51 which encountered few non-fighters. Fighter v. fighter kill ratio (according to each side's loss records) is not the only measure, but it's one important measure, and the F-86 v MiG-15 measure I'm trying to clarify.

Btw the big 'haul' of MiG claims of F-94's was July 21, 1951, at least 7 credited. The actual opponents were F9F-2's of VMF-311, one was lost. Not only does the time and place match, but this Soviet gun camera shot from the combat pretty clearly shows an F9F (there were no F-94's in Korea at the time anyway).


Joe

[lesofprimus]

Found a link showing Soviet Aces in Korea....

Any comments or corrections???


Russian Aces of the Korean War

[FLYBOYJ]

Again great info Joe - I might of mentioned this before but I seen some Soviet sources "claiming" something like 683 F-86s when something like 683 Sabers actually rotated through Korea! Same with the P-80 - they claimed almost the same amount that were actually in theater.

I've seen the information on the F-94s. I believe F-94Bs were in Korea the last year of the war.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by lesofprimus

Found a link showing Soviet Aces in Korea....

Any comments or corrections???

Here's an alternative accounting (by me) for Nikolai Sutyagin's score which gets a pretty different answer, dealing with the statements in the original accounting one by one. The original doesn't deal at all with competing claims by other Soviet (or Chinese) pilots. If a Soviet ace was credited and any US plane was downed in air combat, the credit is viewed as verified, even if that was the only US loss that day and many other MiG pilots were also credited with victories the same day. That's misleading IMO. In addition there are quite a few errors as to what types Sutyagin was credited with on what day, which by coicidence or not all end up making his US record-verified score appear higher. As a general introduction those articles might be OK but I would take the correlation/verfication with US records part with many grains of salt.
Acepilots Discussions

Joe

[fer-de-lance]

For example the F-86 had hardly any non MiG-15 targets by which to run up its score; in one combat v. Chinese prop bombers it practically anihilated them, even though MiG's also intervened. If it had that opportunity every day, it's ratio would be far higher.

The result of the "Taehwa-do Massacre" was that there were no further attempts by the Communist forces to use bombers during the Korean War.

The debâcle may have had even more far-reaching consequences for the later Taiwan Strait Conflict.

The PLAAF realized how vulnerable their bombers were which limited their use to attacks on Nationalist-held islands (Yijiang-shan and Ta-chen in 1955) which were at the limit of the range of Nationalist F-47N fighters. Even during the heavy shelling of Matsu, Wu-chiu and Quemoy at various times in the 1950's, the PLAAF were inhibited from using their bombers.

The Taehwa-do battle was all the more remarkable because of the US ability to concentrate the whole 4th FIW at the right spot and at almost exact time when the bombers arrived. We now know it was excellent work by USAF signals intelligence.

Chinese sources also confirmed that the one MiG claimed by George Davis was, in fact from the Chinese 7th air regiment, 3rd (Fighter) Air Division. The pilot, Mou, Dun-kang (牟敦康) was a deputy leader of an 8-plane flight (副大队长). Chinese accounts claimed that Mou lost control and spun in but Davis had gun camera footage to show that Mou had some help.

It is also clear that the damaged fighters in the Chinese units subsequently written off were not listed as losses. They are listed as ... "damaged" (surprise, surprise!)

[pbfoot]

something that might interest TV viewers in North America in Dec 19 2007 the PBS show NOVA a premiere science show is doing a piece on the Mig /Sabre called Missing In Mig Alley . I'll wager it will be superior to Dogfights by a fair margin if equal to their previous docs
NOVA | Missing in MiG Alley | PBS

[FLYBOYJ]

I gotta remember the 19th....

[Arsenal VG-33]

"Hear it from the horse's mouth" would be the saying I guess, but here is a short film by the USAF on it's evaluation of the Mig-15. A wee bit of propaganda near the end, as the narrator is sure to tell you of the 13:1 ratio of superiority over the Mig. Interestingly enough, no comparison made on the weapons on the two aircraft.

YouTube - Evaluation of MiG-15 by USAF

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Arsenal VG-33

"Hear it from the horse's mouth" would be the saying I guess, but here is a short film by the USAF on it's evaluation of the Mig-15. A wee bit of propaganda near the end, as the narrator is sure to tell you of the 13:1 ratio of superiority over the Mig. Interestingly enough, no comparison made on the weapons on the two aircraft.



YouTube - Evaluation of MiG-15 by USAF

They both had advantages and disadvantages.

The 50s' with radar computing gunsight was more accurate, much faster rate of fire and had a greater effective range. Above 40,000 feet, the API's would seldom start a fire until the MiG dropped to lower altitude and more oxygen available.

The MiG had far more firepower and was superior in short range in context of lethality, but slower rate of fire and ballistics meant less chance of a hit in a manuevering fight. Against B-29s, neither of these 'deficiencies' mattered.

An intangible was that the F-86 was considered a more stable gun platform also.

[FLYBOYJ]

Former MiG-15 drivers I got to meet gave the same description of the MiGs big guns as Yeager made about the P-39's cannon - at range it seemed like you were lobbing bricks.

As a maintainer I loved the MiG-15 for its simplicity and those same characteristics were inherited in the L-29. Even though the F-86 was way more complicated and harder to work on, it was quite evident it was the superior aircraft in many respects.

[pbfoot]

Seeing how the Canadair Mk VI was the premiere Sabre with consideration given to the Aussie version with the 20mm I thought I'd share this little tidbit i found it's humourous and enlightning

This little story is directed at those of our group who did not have the opportunity to fly the Mk 6 Sabre. I post it here as a tribute to a thoroughbred and with the hope that the statute of limitations has run out.

Sometime in the late '50s I was tasked to do an acceptance test flight on a nearly-new un-tanked Sabre 6 that had just come out of its storage cocoon. The machine had just enough hours on it to do the pre-ferry flight testing and make the trip to France. What a beauty: no twists from over-stressing, no boot marks up and down the wings and a canopy that was crystal clear! To cap it all off, it was a one-in-a-million day for Grostenquin: CAFB (CAVU for the politically correct).

The test card took very little time and I ended up at angels 40 with a bit of fuel left. I happened to see a con reasonably close and gave chase. It turned out to be a Hun (F-100) dressed in aerobatic team livery all by himself, probably doing a test hop too. I was able to close on him until he noticed me and plugged in the burner and started to climb. I was able to follow quite easily as my machine was now getting pretty light and would climb at .95 mach at a good rate of up. The Hun pilot was getting a bit antsy as we passed through angels 50 and he still had this "model T" on his tail. He would come out of burner and I would close up easily, so he'd plug in the burner again. This went on 'til we passed through angels 54 and still going up at a good rate! I remember it clear as yesterday, I had .96 and still had 1000 feet/min up. I think he was getting a bit low on fuel with all the burner pumping he had to do so had resumed flying in normal power. This allowed me to pull abreast of him an give a waggle. He shook his head and stared as I broke away, momentarily touching 4 "G" albeit killing all speed in the process.

At this point I had 200 pounds of fuel on board. GT was right under the nose so a power off vertical descent and quick circuit got me onto the ground with enough juice to taxi in with.

Tex Gehman - 430 Sqn

[ppopsie]

Beautiful story!

I only regret that I couldn't afford to do that. Clean and clear canopy and smell of a brandnew aircraft is always good.

Wait! If so, the same kind of situation could happen if you fly a fighter of the other side of similar performance and characteristics.

[FLYBOYJ]

Great story Pb - I think that sums it up right there!