MiG-15 vs F9F Panther: was name this plane (13)

[Widewing]

 

Originally posted by Dinger:
With all respect, a nugatory response cannot further discussion.  

Is this your way of stating that you have no evidence to support the claim of 1,002 Sabres destroyed by MiGs?  

You see, when push comes to shove, claims must be supported by more than blather. Wishful thinking or hope-against-hope nationalism is understandable. I have no problem with someone being proud of their heritage. It's healthy. However, I do question whether they have an open mind when they accept unsupportable claims that fly in the face of the undisguised public record.

The USAF says they lost 78 Sabres in air to air combat.

The Communists (Soviets and company) claim that they shot down 1,002 in air to air combat.

You can go the Maxwell AFB and examine USAF records, right on down to squadron level data. I assure you that every aircraft that was in service is fully documented as to its final disposition. Moreover, make the claim of 1,002 lost Sabres to any F-86 pilot or ground crew and ask them what they think. I suggest that you not wait for the answer if you don't have a thick skin.

Evidence Dinger, where's the evidence? Without some real evidence, your argument is already lost.

As I have said before, the USAF claims are not out of line with the actual Soviet loss/victory ratio in WWII.

I wonder which Soviet squadron commander would notify Moscow that they had been receiving a beating at the hands of the USAF
Sabres. How long do you think this commander would avoid the gulag had he told the truth?
Am I implying that on some level, the Soviet fighter command fabricated its kill totals?
You're damn right I am. Does anyone actually believe that there was one senior officer who would tell Stalin that they were being beat like a drum? Not an ice cube's chance in hell that this ever happened. It would mean the end of his life as he knew it. Doesn't that make more sense than 1,002 Sabres shot down? It certainly offers a hell of a lot more plausibility than those wild-ass numbers presented on that web site you offered.

Let's consider the reliability of Soviet claims. Between November 19, 1942 and February 2, 1943 (Stalingrad campaign), the VVS claimed to have destroyed just over 3,000 (3,022) Luftwaffe aircraft. German losses, as seen in their records indicates that 691 aircraft were actually lost during this same period. What happened to the other 2,331 phantom aircraft? I'll wager they're hidden away with 924 Sabre apparitions. How about Kursk? The VVS claimed over 1,500 German aircraft shot down. This is remarkable when you consider that the Luftwaffe had no more than 1,900 combat aircraft assembled on the entire eastern front. The Soviets admitted losing around 1,000 aircraft, but the Luftwaffe claimed somehwere in the area of 1,300. Actual German losses did not exceed 450, with many of these being lost to triple A. Again, we have anywhere between 1,000 and 1,200 phantom aircraft shot down by the VVS. Finally, let's have a look at the Nomonhan incident of 1939. The Soviets claimed that they shot down 654 Japanese aircraft. However, Japanese records show that just 162 were lost to ALL CAUSES. So, here we have at least another 500 mystery aircraft shot down and credited.

Does anyone seriously think that the Soviets changed their ways between the middle of 1945 and the middle of 1950? Clearly, the Soviets have established a pattern of grossly exaggerating their air to air victories. 425% overclaiming at Stalingrad. 335% at Kursk. 402% in Manchuria. Let's look at the total of USAF Sabres lost to ALL CAUSES. 78 air to air, 31 to triple A, and 140 to non-combat accidents. Now, let's assume that half of those accidents were the direct result of battle damage sustained with MiGs. Add those to the 78. 70 + 78 = 148. Now I will multiply that figure by the worst overclaiming ratio established earlier. 148 x 425% = 629. Gee, that's mighty close to the 650 figure cited by Dmitry. With this in mind, perhaps we can come to a reasonable crossroad. 148 Sabres lost as a result of combat with MiGs. It seems reasonable to state that the Chinese and N. Koreans probably accounted for 30 of these. So, that leaves 118 Sabres shot down by Soviet pilots. Suppose we reduce the MiG claim total by 30%, which is certainly too generous as this is well above typical American overclaiming habit. 792 - 30% = 554 MiGs claimed. Figure half of those were Chinese and North Korean. That leaves 277 Soviet MiGs. 277/118 = 2.35 to 1 in favor of the USAF flown Sabres over the Soviet flown MiGs. Can everyone live with that estimate?
It's a damn sight better than 11 to 1 as claimed by the USAF.

God knows, I wouldn't want to anger my newly made friends in the Former USSR.  

My regards,

Widewing

[This message has been edited by Widewing (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Widewing]

Here's a photo consisting of three frames of gun camera film of one of the MiGs clobbered by the F9Fs mentioned throughout this thread. It's from the Naval Aviation Museum web site. This is the one seen going down trailing heavy smoke. Doesn't look like he's going to make it home.

The text accompanying the photos is as follows:

"On 18 November 1952, three F9F-5 Panthers of VF-781 off the carrier USS Oriskany (CVA-34) intercepted seven Soviet MiG-15 fighters while operating 100 miles from the giant Russian naval bases at Vladivostok. In one of the epic small engagements between the Soviet Union and United States during the Cold War, the outgunned Navy fighters shot down at least two enemy "bandits" and damaged a third. In this photograph, a Soviet MiG-15 trails smoke after being hit by 20-millimeter cannon fire."

       

My regards,

Widewing

[This message has been edited by Widewing (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Dinger]

No, widewing, all I was saying is that my goal never was to prove that 1002 Sabres were shot down; that's just the straw man you've constructed.  Point to one place where I make that ridiculous claim.  If my response to your claim is outright ignored and you continue to misconstrue my position (hence the nugatory response), then we cannot have a discussion.

BTW, if you want the Oriskany AAR, I've got it.

[This message has been edited by Dinger (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Wisk-=VF-101=-]

Here is the modern Russian view on those kill ratios.

"Soviet Aces" by Nikolay Bodrikhin, general editing: Lt Col P.I. Muravyev (42 kills total, 3 in Karelian War, 39 in 2nd Great Patriotic War), Moscow, 1998, ISBN 5-89883-001-4

From the Foreword
"
...
The rules of counting shot down enemy aircraft were always extremely strict
in VVS RKKA. Aviation Marshal S.I.Rudenko mentioned in his memoirs that at the beginning
of the war even the plate with the factory number from the enemy aircraft engine was required as confirmation. In the vast majority of cases the written documents from the ground troops about the exact position of the crash site were required. The dispatcher functions were assigned to officers of ground control stations located in the advance positions of ground troops. It was much harder for the "free hunters" who got their victories hundreds of kilometers behind the frontline. Usually their victories were not counted. The victory was counted only if the pilot indicated the coordinates of the crash site and the remnants of the enemy aircraft were found there by ground troops. The witness accounts and guncamera footage were never enough grounds for counting a victory - only the wrecks of the shot down aircraft.
...
The book uses materials of Central Archive of Ministry of Defense (TsAMO), Russian State archive of cinema-photo-documents, photo libraries of ITAR-TASS, Central museum of Armed Forces, Museum of VVS in Monino. With the feeling of pride and gratitude I am calling out the names of Soviet fighter-pilots who read fragments of the manuscript and made corrections:
I.N. Kozhedub, K.A. Yevstigneev, V.D. Lavrinenkov, N.M. Skomorokhov, F.F. Arkhipenko, N.A. Arkhipov, G.A. Bayevsky, P.V. Bazanov, V.F. Bashkirov, I.M. Berezutsky, P.M. Baykov, N.V. Buryak, L.A. Bykovets, P.F. Gavrilin, G.G. Golubev, S.D. Gorelov, A.A. Grachev, V.I. Davidkov, V.S. Yeliseev, A.S. Zakalyuk, L.N. Ivanov, V.P. Ivanov, A.F. Kovachevich, V.S. Levitan, A.S. Makarov, V.V. Maslov, I.V. Maslov, E.P. Mel'nikov, P.I. Muravyev, G.D. Onufrienko, D.P. Os'kin, E.G. Pepelyaev, M.G. Petrov, P.A. Pologov, B.M. Rivkin, D.A. Samoylov, A.P. Silantyev, O.N. Smirnov, A.P. Smorchkov, N.L. Trofimov, I.V. Fedorov, N.V. Khudyakov, I.I. Tsapov, A.E. Shvarev, P.F. Shevelev, A.D. Yakimenko, P.G. Yakubovsky.

Important information was given by the widows of the famous aces: V.N. Kozhedub, M.K. Pokryshkina, N.I. Gulaeva, M.I. Yevstigneeva, M.I. Markova. Their help in preparation of this edition was invaluable.
Col (Ret) V.F. Valuysky did a huge amount of technical work in the archives of TsAMO that was reflected in the published materials.
"

Excerpts of chapter summaries:


The Red fighters in China

In Chinese-Japanese War the Soviet pilots participated at the side of China.
The Soviet Union delivered to China 985 airplanes - fighters and bombers. The air combats
were nevertheless intense and nearly 200 member of flying staff were killed in action.
The most succesful Soviet fighter pilots in China were: Peter Kozachenko (11 victories),
Alexey Blagoveschensky (8 plus 2 shared), Konstantin Kokkinaki (7), Anton Gubenko (7).

The aerial combat on Khalkhin-Gol

In June of 1938, in a short period, VVS RKKA created the air supremacy in the battle on
Khalkhin-Gol. The Red Army was thus able to stop the Japanese aggression on Mongolia
and smash the ground forces of Japan. The fighters played a dominant role in the air war
on Khalkhin-Gol.
   In accordance with the Soviet data in the battle of Khalkhin-Gol 589 Japanese
aircraft were shot down, 57 were destroyed on the ground. The war losses of the Red Army
Air Force were 207 aircraft.
   The most successful Soviet fighters on Khalkhin-GOl were Nikolay Zherdev (11 victories), Mitrofan Noga (9 personal and 2 shared victories), Victor Rakhov (8 personal and 6 shared victories), Stepan Danilov (8 victories), Anton Yakimenko (7 victories).


The battle on Karelian Isthmus

In accordance with the Soviet data the Finnish side lost 362 aircraft, the losses of the Soviet Union were 261 aircraft. But already in 1940 the Finnish VVS had 300 aircraft that
were mainly supplied by Britain and France.
   The highest scoring aces of the Finnish campaign were Alexander Bulaev (9 in this conflict, 24 total) and Vasily Efremov (7 in this conflict, 19 total).

The aces of the Great Patriotic War

At the beginning of invasion of the Soviet Union, German fighter pilots knew the intoxicating feeling of air supremacy. In the first week of teh assault almost 3000 Soviet aircraft of all types were destroyed. Only after Stalingrad, in heavy battles at Kursk,
air supremacy was won by Soviet fighters.
   Unfortunately, it is impossible to compare the real scores of Luftwaffe and Soviet
aces. Mathematically, from the point of view of the theory of probabilities, it is absolutely clear that the huge scores of the German aces had mostly purposes of propaganda and political roots.
   Soviet war time losses were 106400 aircraft including all types of the planes. But only 46100 of them were combat losses (shot down in aerial combat, by flak, destroyed on the ground). Germany lost 77000 aircraft in the war with the Soviet Union (data of the Sviet General Staff).
   Many of the best Soviet aces were never shot down. Among the first 20 aces, the following were never shot down: I.Kozhedyb, K.Evstigneev, A.Vorozheykin, A.Koldunov, N.Skomorokhov, V.Bobrov, A.Reshetiv, S.Morgunov, P.Muravyev, A.Yakimenko. At the same time many German aces were shot down and killed on the Eastern front. The most famous were Otto Kittel and Anton Hafner. Such aces as Eric Hartman, Gerhard Barkhorn, Gunter Rall, Heinz Bar, Anton Nakl and Eric Rudorffer were shot down by Soviet fighters. Some of them were downed several times.


The Soviet aces of the jet era

The 3 Yaks shot down by F-82s on June 27, 1950 were the first of around 2000 aircraft to be shot down in the three years of the war in Korea. In July USAAF started their favorite "battle work" - "the carpet" bombing.
   In October 1950 the first Soviet fighter aviation regiments from 64th aviation corps arrived to the North-East China.
   On 3rd of November the first all-jet battle took place. The Soviet fighters reported one F-80 shot down. Americans noted that "one of the MiGs flipped over and fell out of the sky". They decided it was a victory, but all MiGs returned to their base in Antung.
   The best fighter regiments in Korea were 196 and 17 (each of them have 108 victories) and 176th Guards fighter regiment (107 victories). Eventually, according to Soviet data 1377 USAF aircraft went down in Korea. The losses of 840 enemy aircraft were verified by ground teams - reports of examination of crash sites were written and complemented by parts of the shot down aircraft together with their factory numbers. The losses of the Soviet Air Force were 335 MiGs and totally (including aircraft piloted by Chinese and Koreans) 566 MiGs. One must note that the air war in 1950-1953 took place primarily over the territory of North Korea, where, consequently, the vast majority of shot down aircraft crashed. So the reports of Soviet pilots had material support (wreckage), while the americans were only left with guncamera footage. Nevertheless, initially, apparently under impression of lessons given, the americans were relatively objective and in serious publications estimated their losses at 2000 aircraft and those of their enemy at 1000. For example on the "black Thursday", April 12 1951, MiGs terminated the american raid on the Yaludzyan hydroelectric powerplant and shot down 10 B-29s not counting the escort fighters. 100 parachutes of bailed out crews of american planes was a phantasmagoric sight. Later, inspired by the apologetics of Luftwaffe, in popular literature, they reversed the loss figures in several times, calling all "U-2s", "Yaks", and "Las" as MiGs. One also has to note that the high command prohibited "illegal" pilots (i.e. Soviet) to fly farther than 100km to the south of the 38th parallel and fly over the sea. The aircraft shot down outside of the North Korean territory were not counted.
   The Soviet highest scoring ace in Korea were N.Sutyagin (21 personal plus 2 shared) and E.Pepelyaev (20 personal victories). A.Smortchkov scored 15 victories, L.Schukin and A. Os'kin scored 15 each too.
   The names of 50 jet aces who scored more than 5 victories in Korea are known today.
 

What some Soviet aces think of their scores:

Excerpt from the interview of I.Ye.Fedorov (chief test pilot of the Lavochkin design bureau, first Soviet pilot to break the speed of sound in the La-176, CO of 157th fighter regiment and later 273rd fighter division in GPW) published in "Krylya Rodiny" magazine, issue 7, 2000:
"
...
Q: Ivan Yevgrafovich, how many personal kills do you have ?
A: Arithmetic is simple and accurate. So write it down without any doubts: in Spain I shot down 24 aircraft, in China - 2, in Finnish war - 4, in Great Patriotic war - 96, in Korea - 7. So the total is 135 shot down.
Q: But officially you are credited only with 49 personal kills and 47 shared ??
A: You can ask any ace and he will tell you a number that will be very different from the official one. And the thing is that I couldn't get confirmation for any kills that crashed over the frontline.
...
"
 http://www.airforce.ru/awm/ivanov/part2.htm

"On August 20th (1952) the 726th regiment participated in a difficult fight with "Thunderjets" escorted by "Sabres" in which Nikolay Ivanov got his third victory, so to speak. Namely, "so to speak". He fired at short range and a large aspect angle, so the moment of the damage was not registered by the guncamera. The victory was confirmed by radio-intercept that heard the report of the american pilot about his ejection. The enemy was shot down by him personally, but it was not counted for him. This could only be explained if to consider that a pilot received 1500 rubles for a kill. The division HQ simply didn't risk to "waste" the "people's" 1500 without having required documentation for it...."

".. When I was taking off - I kept one hand on the ejector seat. Dropped the fuel tanks at the take-off run. I was never taught this, never talked about it, but when I was shouted at: "You are attacked!" - and I was about to roll up and get into the air I couldn't stop, - I would crash into the hills, - so I pressed the tank's release button. Probably that's what helped me. Those who were on the ground told me later that my take off made a strong impression on them. I don't know... it didn't make an impression on me.

Everything went OK. Only one round hit my plane and the wingman had no holes at all. On that day the cloudiness was of 5th-6th grade. I punctured the clouds and a pair of "Sabres" flies fast over me, going in direction of the gulf. And I shot down one, for certain. This was over the airbase and everyone saw it.

I landed and got out of the plane, the anger still boils in me, and here Ivan Yevdokimovich Godin runs up to me. Started hugging me, - you are a hero etc. Then the superiors asked me what is better for me, the next rank or the order of Lenin. Of course, I said: "Both the rank and Lenin". And very soon, the next day, the chief of the political department calls me: "Major Ivanov!" - I continue sitting as I was a Captain and he: "Ivanov, - it's you who is Major Ivanov".

But that "Sabre" was not counted as shot down! The pilot was firing against the sun and the "Sabre" crashed into the Korean gulf. Only the sun is on the footage and the material clues sank to the bottom. As the document of 133rd IAD says - the fall of the shot down "Sabre" was observed practically by the whole Antung - from pilots and mechanics to sentry soldiers. Apparently, just like it was on the 20th, the monetary renumeration played its role. It's nothing that I shot it down, that the whole airbase saw it. As the chief said: socialism is accounting; no material clues - no money and no victory in addition to that."


Pokryshkin claims an additional 20 victories that were not credited to him in the beginning period of the war. He mentions that in his memoirs. e.g. "In the skies of the war" or "Test yourself in combat" (available in Russian in electronic format at http://www.aviation.ru/contrib/Andrey_Platonov/Memoirs/Pokryshkin.htm  ).


F.F. Arkhipenko in his "Notes of figher pilot" (Moscow, 1999, ISBN 5-900824-02-0) mentions (p. 135):
"By the end of the war I have accumulated ... 44 shot down aircraft: 30 personally shot down, 10 personally shot down in the Belgorod area, but not credited to me, and 4 shared with my wingman (Footnote: according to the documents of 205th IAD in TsAMO, F.F. Arkhipenko is credited with 32 personal victories)."

etc. these are just some I recalled.
  http://aces.boom.ru/all1/all1.htm

gives the statstics of the victories by Soviet aces (official vs claimed by pilots)
One can definitely see that the Soviet HQs were not easy to convince of victories.

BTW, I.Ye. Fedorov is apparently the Soviet pilot whom Hartman mentioned in "Blonde knight" - the one with over 80 kills and not liked by the party officials. Fedorov indeed was not disciplined at all based on what I read about him. No wonder superiors "kept him down".


For those interested in getting proofs and verifying information here are addresses of the archives:

Russian State Military Archive (Russian acronym: RGVA)
125884, Moscow, Admiral Makarov St, 29
Russian Federation

Central Archive of Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation (Russian acronym: TsAMO SSSR/RF)
142113, Moscow district, city of Podol'sk, Varshavskoye highway, 9A
Russian Federation


[This message has been edited by Wisk-=VF-101=- (edited 03-21-2001).]

[Sorrow[S=A]]

Hi Widewing:

I am looking at that film you gave- frankly I don't see how you can construe any evidence from that. You are lloking at a large plume of whitish smoke from a bandit about 600+ yards away (Probable range? looks about right- defintely over 400 going by general scale of circle expanded and relative Mig size) passing at 90 degrees.
Did this Mig make it home? If I had to guess I would say very much yes. That is probably unignited fuel and that Mig is headed back home ASAP with emergency clearence. It would definitly NOT be a conclusive kill gunfilm.

BTW you have referred to this engagement several times and I am not sure why- from the AAR it's incredibly obvious that those F9F pilots took advantage of a good position to fire upon the two Migs, getting one confirmed kill and one damage then using a wingman covering strategy to disengage from 2 other Migs- not entirely succesfull as one still got a rudder strike. As for their claims I would say it's conjecture but extremely unlikely the other Migs they smoked went down- .50 cal can smoke up a mig but killing it takes more than that. These guys just took advantage of an opportunity then escaped- hardly the heroics you paint them as and definitly not conclusive of anything in concern to the planes.

[Sorrow[S=A]]

Also- the last time you brought up VVS kill claims you made these same errors in USSR kill statistics. This is not even funny Widewing- it's unfairly biased using an improper understanding. VVS kill claims are very accurate if read correctly and nowhere near as inaccurate as you portray.
Kills had to be confirmed by the following:
A: Gun camera film
B: Ground wreckage
C: Ground verification
D: Flight leader verification
USSR planes after 1942 all had gun cameras- the comment about Mig's not is silly. Obtaining it is much harder than US as these types of material have never been released in the Former Soviet Union.

The misunderstanding you seem to have is that when more than one person was involved in an engagement VVS did not give out "partial" kills like US or British did. Instead these are referred to as "group kills" and are seperated from the individual kills. Looking at Stalins Falcons (A record of all kills claimed by soviet pilots listing what was claimed and who claimed it and in what) shows that typical pilots would average an almost 2 to 1 ratio of group kills to individual ones. Only in WESTERN sources was this misunderstood to mean all kills were individual ones. Using this to understand the system most VVS engagements were underreporting kills by 5% often leading to propoganda exagerrating for large engagements to boost morale. The actual numbers we have now shows the VVS knew damn well what they were shooting down and were concerned as hell.

In regards to Korea- I don't know enough about it, Thats why I asked about this in the first place (and what a can of worms I opened!). But it seems there are a few good points you are ignoring.
  78 Planes in A2A kills is, as pointed out, extremely unrealistic. I agree someone was fudging here and with that many planes actually going down across the whole engagement it strikes me as probable the US was not counting planes that ditched in the sea or were unaccounted for and attributed to AAA fire. Do you have any numbers on F-86's lost to AAA fire Widewing? If it's a porportionally unrealistic number its probably suspicous.

As for news etc etc as evidence. Bah. C'mon Widewing- you know damn well that it took until Vietnam before news sources could gain enough access to military to question outright lies. Fudging kill to loss records would have been easy as hell during Korea due to the nature of the conflict and the touchy nature of relations at home with such a costly ground war. They couldn't cover up dead bodies but since planes usually ditched in the ocean covering wrecks wouldn't have been too hard.

I'm sorry if I seem to harsh here Widewing- UBB boards are often hard to express things properly on and believe me, I have great respect for you and value what you say. But looking at your previous posts I am inclined to believe you have a strong Anti-Communist background I have met in many servicemen from that era. I truly hope you can set that bias aside and help provide information on this topic that would be interesting and educational and respect that inormation coming from the former USSR can be of value too in understanding both sides of the conflict.

[Boroda]

Sorry, looks like I missed something, but where did this "1008 Sabres" come from?

Widewing, I have a book that describes all 64th IAK engagements until August, 1951. Could be nice if you'll give me some USAF info on Sabre pilots shooting down MiGs in that period of time, including dates, locations and times. Could be great to compare two points of view. Even if you have some descriptions of engagements theat didn't result in any kills - it still will be very interesting.

Regarding overclaiming kills: Japanese scores  against US aircrafts in the Pacific that we know now were divided by 3 or 4 by American historians. While Japanese kill numbers at Khalknin-Gol were not - some Japanese pilots claim 50+ kills there. The same thing with German scores in WWII - why Tolliver and Constable didn't make some realistic number out of Hartmann's ridiculous 352 kills? OTOH - Americans admitted that their confirmation procedure was very unreliable, but spaking about Korean war scores they never mention it.

I have a strong feeling that this thread should belong to another UBB, but HTC board is more popular now and it's very nice to meet opponents like Widewing  

------------------
With respect,
    Pavel Pavlov,
    Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS

[mx22]

 

Originally posted by Boroda:
...Widewing, I have a book that describes all 64th IAK engagements until August, 1951...

Boroda,

Mind if I aks for the name of the bookand where can I get it? I don't doubt what you are saying, I'm simply interested in getting a copy of the book for myself.

mx22

[Boroda]

V. P. Naboka, "NATO hawks in gunsights of Stalin's falcons (Soviet pilots protecting the sky of China and North Korea) [1950-1951]", Krasnodar, "Soviet Kuban", 1999. ISBN 5-7221-0253-9

Only 3000 copies.  

I ran across this book on Moscow Airshow in August, 1999. Never saw it in bookstores  

Author says it is only the first part, other books OTW.

I want to find the author - it's the most professional air combat description I have ever read.

The title is "politicaly-incorrect" because it was printed during NATO agression in Yugoslavia.

------------------
With respect,
    Pavel Pavlov,
    Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS

[hazed-]

interesting...BUT WHAT HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH ACESHIGH????  
I want the history of WW2 not koria!
migs and sabres????
ok so my favourite jet of the 50's era was the sabre   but im here for WW2 stuff...mmm nice silver,shiney....All i want to read about is LW stuff!....mmmm silver,shiney,fast.....

oh i give up, carry on  




------------------
Hazed
3./JG2

[-lynx-]

 

Let's see something beyond the wild claims. Let's see some REAL evidence.

With deepest respect Widewing - let's see yours? You made a claim about 8:1 kill ratio (OK, you didn't but you seem to rely on it's reliability) yet as evidence all you produced so far was a shot of a MiG trailing unidentified vapour. There's no hits, no visible damage... Now multiply that by ~800 MiGs you say that were shot down. I'm watching all there's on Sky Wings channel and the amount of gun camera footage is, to say the least, scarce... The same footage is being shown over and over again while according to sources you quote there bound to be an absolute shedload of film showing MiGs being blown to bits? Where is it?

Nath - may I just remind you that inspite of obvious German supremacy in just about everything there is it was uneducated/unrefined Ivans who marched all the way from Moscow, through Eastern Europe and to Berlin. I guess I need to apologize on their behalf for not recognising their mistake and bending over like most of so called "civilised" world did at the time...

The Winter war was an exercise to provide Leningrad with buffer zone. Soviet army went into Finland and took required territory ignoring the resistance put up by Finns. I've read a book by the most decorated Finnish ace - he described several engagemenmts where it was clear that Soviet pilots were not seasoned veterans, quite the contrary. Finns fought with skill resulting in high K/D ratios. I16s and I153s were not that different from Fokkers and Brewsters - pilot skill and dedication pushed the results to where they were.

...

"unbiased analysis by Western historians"? What a joke: History channel showing a program about Kursk; a elderly German guy is telling how much better in design/built quality Panther and Tiger tanks were compare to crude T34s; it's a real shame that even though Hitler sent them to spearhead German attack not a single machine made it into battle - all broke down on the way...

[Boroda]

Hmm, how many other Russian-speaking AH pilots will join this thread?  

BTW, I am OCRing an above-mentioned book right now.

------------------
With respect,
    Pavel Pavlov,
    Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS

[Dinger]

alexei, I could get my hands on this book if you're interested.

Author:
                Naboka, V. P. (Vitalii Petrovich)
           Title:
                Natovskie iastreby v pritsele stalinskikh sokolov : sovetskie letchiki na zashchite neba Kitaia i Korei,
                1950-1951 / V.P. Naboka.
       Published:
                Krasnodar : Sov. kuban', 1999.
 Physical Details:
                236 p. : ill., maps ; 20 cm.
        Version:
                Library of Congress
     Cover Title:
                Sovetskie lėtchiki na zashchite neba Kitaia i Korei, 1950-1951.
        Subjects:
                Korean War, 1950-1953--Aerial operations, Soviet.
 LC Call Number:
                DS920.2.S65 N33 1999
         LCCN:
                00-351979
          ISBN:
                5-7221-0253-9
      Record ID:
                DCLC00351979-B

[Sable]

You know, they only real accurate way to compare kills, is to ignore the victory claims and look at the losses recorded by each side.  These are far more accurate for a number of reasons:  If one of your own planes doesn't return to base it's real obvious, You don't want to fudge this figure low because then you aren't going to get the replacements you need,  Families start making noise when the Air Force says "What are you talking about, we never heard of that guy".  So here's the recorded losses for each side:

According to Wisk's info, that's 566 MiGs(335 of which were Soviet) lost to all causes.

According to Widewing's info, that's 249 Sabres lost to all causes.

Given that a large percentage of the F-86's were lost to accidents or anti-aircraft, and that they were operating at long range over enemy territory, on top of the over 2:1 loss ratio, it's pretty obvious who was winning this fight.

Sable
352nd FG

[mx22]

Dinger,

Do they allow to make photocopies of books in the Library of Congress? If so, I would really apreciate you making copies for me (I won't mind paying for that), but I really doubt that it's true

mx22

 

Originally posted by Dinger:
alexei, I could get my hands on this book if you're interested.

Author:
                Naboka, V. P. (Vitalii Petrovich)
           Title:
                Natovskie iastreby v pritsele stalinskikh sokolov : sovetskie letchiki na zashchite neba Kitaia i Korei,
                1950-1951 / V.P. Naboka.
       Published:
                Krasnodar : Sov. kuban', 1999.
 Physical Details:
                236 p. : ill., maps ; 20 cm.
        Version:
                Library of Congress
     Cover Title:
                Sovetskie lėtchiki na zashchite neba Kitaia i Korei, 1950-1951.
        Subjects:
                Korean War, 1950-1953--Aerial operations, Soviet.
 LC Call Number:
                DS920.2.S65 N33 1999
         LCCN:
                00-351979
          ISBN:
                5-7221-0253-9
      Record ID:
                DCLC00351979-B