Air Superiority Fighter of 60th-70th

[GScholz]

Then there is Nikolai Vasilievich Sutyagin:

Nikolai Sutyagin was born on May 5 1923 in the village of Smagino Buturlinsk, in a peasant family. He started his military career in 1941, and the following year he graduated from the Air Military School in Chernigov; in August 1945 participated in the short Soviet-Japanese war, which ended with the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Sutyagin served in the 17th IAP of the 303rd IAD when the Korean War began, and in May 1951 the Division was sent to Manchuria to reinforce the 324th IAD. He flew his first combat sortie on early June 1951, and his score began to rise:

    19 June 1951 - First victory, the F-86A of Robert H. Laier (MIA).
    22 June 1951 - his 2nd F-86 kill, his victim is Howard Miller (POW); he aso claimed a 3rd Sabre on this day.
    24 June 1951 - his most impressive victory when shot up the F-86A of Colonel Glenn Eagleston (CO of the 4th FIW), who had to belly land in Suwon. Eagleston's Sabre was written off.
    26 June 1951 - his 5th kill, the F-80C of Bob Lauterbach (KIA), officially becoming Asov (Ace).
    29 July 1951 - shot down the F-86A #49-1098, his 6th kill (his 5th kill confirmed by US records).
    9 August 1951 - claimed an F-80.
    25 August 1951 - together with the CO of the 17th IAP, Mayora (Maj.) Grigorii Pulov, intercepted what they identified as Australian Meteors and both claimed one Meteor each.
    26 September 1951 - one of his more successful days: in two separate sorties the 17th IAP engaged Meteors of the RAAF No. 77 Sqdn and Sabres of the 336th FIS, and he scored in both furballs: first shot-up the Meteor of Ernst Armit (written off later that day) and later shot down the F-86A of Carl Barnett (MIA).
    10 October 1951 - awarded with the Golden Star, he became Hero of the Soviet Union.
    November 1951 - claimed to have shot down three F-86 and one F-84 (none confirmed by US records).
    3 December 1951 - bagged another Sabre (the F-86A 49-1184) and claimed one F-84.
    15 December 1951 - shot-up one F-86E of the 334th FIS. The unfortunate pilot (William F. Prindle) crashed and died while trying to land at Suwon airbase.
    6 January 1952 - two victories: the F-84E of Donald Grey (KIA) and the F-86E of Lester Page (MIA).
    11 January 1952 - last victory, his 21st: the F-86E of Thiel M. Reeves (MIA).

After the war Sutyagin graduated from the Air Academy in 1956 and the Military Academy "Genchtaba" in 1964. Promoted to Mayora-General and retired in 1978. He died on November 12 1986.

[bozon]

Counting from that list Vasillevich had 15 confirmed kills.

[GScholz]

21 confirmed by the Soviets. War is a messy business... Of Epstein's kills, how many do you know the name of the pilot or the serial number of the aircraft? All of them? If not, should we discredit those that are unknown?

Please provide a list of the names of the pilots and/or the serial numbers of the aircraft that Epstein shot down. If you can't then those kills are not "confirmed" either by your standards...

Edit: You seem confused about what "confirmed kill" means; it does not mean confirmed by the enemy. It means confirmed by your own side.

[J.A.W.]

Gun camera footage can be conclusive.. if it is genuinely applicable..

Although - it is not exactly unknown for PR/propaganda  units to be, ah..
..creative in manipulation/hyping stuff up, too..

That is why historians do their best to establish time/date/I.D victory coordinates..

[bozon]

Please provide a list of the names of the pilots and/or the serial numbers

I don't need to provide anything. I don't even care who really got the most kills. My point regarding the crazy mig21 split S was the he was fighting one of the top jet pilots and the outcome does not say much about the relative performance of the planes as it was mostly determined my the pilots. The someone started to split hairs about the definition of "jet age" as if that mattered to 60-70 jets.

[artik]

I don't need to provide anything. I don't even care who really got the most kills. My point regarding the crazy mig21 split S was the he was fighting one of the top jet pilots and the outcome does not say much about the relative performance of the planes as it was mostly determined my the pilots. The someone started to split hairs about the definition of "jet age" as if that mattered to 60-70 jets.

+1

[J.A.W.]

So, how many 'supersonic' jet kills were made at 'supersonic' speed then?

Did an IAF pursuit-vector-intercept -attempt ever result in a kill on a high Mach MiG 25 over-flight?

[artik]

So, how many 'supersonic' jet kills were made at 'supersonic' speed then?

Probably 0, but it does not really matter.

You know, for this particular discussion you may assume that Giora Epstein isn't ace at all and its all IAF propaganda 

Seriously, how much can we discuss if "supersonic capable jet" is relevant category for ace of aces or not... Especially when it is absolutely irrelevant it is just a title. What is interesting is facts...

You know? If it suits you, lets call Giora Epstein the ace of aces of Israeli Air Force... or Ace of Aces of Israeli-Arabic wars. Is it ok by you guys?

Did an IAF pursuit-vector-intercept-attempt ever result in a kill on a high Mach MiG 25 over-flight?

As a meter of fact, yes... Totally 3 MiG-25s were killed by IAF. 2 by pure F-15 interception and one is shared claim with Hawk SAM.

First F-15 that killed a MiG-25 was an Israeli F-15A flown by Benyamin Zinker at February 03 1981. He intercepted the supersonic MiG-25 and shut it down with AIM-7F. These were supersonic reconnaissance versions of MiG-25 that IAF couldn't catch until F-15 entered the service.

I can't currently find the exact quote of the pilots story but AFAIR it was a classic interception.

[GScholz]

I don't need to provide anything. I don't even care who really got the most kills.

This is your fifth post arguing the matter, so I do get the impression that you actually care.

You know, for this particular discussion you may assume that Giora Epstein isn't ace at all and its all IAF propaganda 

...

You know? If it suits you, lets call Giora Epstein the ace of aces of Israeli Air Force... or Ace of Aces of Israeli-Arabic wars. Is it ok by you guys?

Much better, and you guys should care. Epstein may not be the "jet ace of aces" of all time, but he was one of the best and a hero of your nation. He deserves every praise you can bestow upon his name.

[bozon]

This is your fifth post arguing the matter, so I do get the impression that you actually care.

I was not arguing anything. Someone called 1944 the "jet age" and "jet aces" because of 262s and V1s, I replied that I was referring to jet on jet war. Then you mentioned the American and Russian ace of Korea that had about similar jet kill totals and I did not know about. I thank you for pointing that out, but non of that contributed to the main discussion, perhaps only diverting it.

Much better, and you guys should care. Epstein may not be the "jet ace of aces" of all time, but he was one of the best and a hero of your nation. He deserves every praise you can bestow upon his name.

This is not really how we do things. We praise our war heroes in a much more humble way than other nations.
Americans often say "thank you for your service" to their veterans. Here almost everyone is a veteran and many have been through at least one war, some even two or three.

[Widewing]

Counting from that list Vasillevich had 15 confirmed kills.

I see only 10 confirmed by actual loss records...

Doesn't surprise me much. Soviets claimed more Sabres (617) than actually deployed during the whole of the war when the Soviet "honchos" were active. Just 78 F-86 types were lost. USAF claims of a 10/1 kill to loss ratio is certainly inaccurate. Recent reviews of claims (witness reports and gun camera film) have reduced the kill claims by almost 40%. It is suspected that some of those disallowed are actually accurate, but the objective evidence is insufficient to establish more than a probable or just damaged. Some researchers believe that the number of MiG-15s shot down is even less that. Others, more. The Soviet records are simply not reliable enough to quantify. Why are the records unreliable?

Some researchers are realizing that Soviet Korean War loss and kill records were heavily doctored by local commanders. It's a legacy of the Stalin era. Never report reality if reality isn't glorious. One document shows that 578 MiGs were reported destroyed or damaged in operational accidents during the war. Some involved in the current research believe that more than half of these were combat casualties, but reported as operational accidents. Because of the general fear of political retribution within the Soviet Air Force during Stalin's tenure, it is thought that many records were doctored to avoid incurring political wrath. There were instances where this occurred during WWII. No one wanted Stalin to fully understand the magnitude of Soviet failure early in the war. Failure was softened up wherever possible and successes exaggerated. This was the political reality of the time. Thus, there will always be concerns about the accuracy of Soviet combat records during that period of Soviet history. I am trying to get an accurate total of Sabrejet losses and write-offs due to operational accidents in the Korean Theater.

There was one very interesting engagement during the Korean War between US Navy F9F-5s and MiG-15s. It wasn't over Korea or Manchuria. It occurred between Russia and Korea. I have copies of all records released. The image below is a portion of the AAR submitted by USS Oriskany, edited with later findings added in red. The short story is that 7 Mig-15bis fighters attacked one portion of the Oriskany's CAP. The result was 3 MiGs shot down, two badly damaged. One F9F-5 was damaged, but all returned safely to Oriskany.

[GScholz]

I see only 10 confirmed by actual loss records...

Then you need to look again.


How many of the US aces have their kill scores verified against Soviet records?

[Widewing]

Then you need to look again.


How many of the US aces have their kill scores verified against Soviet records?

Read my entire post and you'll understand that Soviet records for the time period are almost worthless. The only thing they can prove beyond doubt is that they had typewriters.

[GScholz]

Read my entire post and you'll understand that Soviet records for the time period are almost worthless. The only thing they can prove beyond doubt is that they had typewriters.

I did read your entire post, and while overclaiming was rampant on the Red side, most of the claims of the four top scoring aces, Sutyagin, Pepelyayev, Shchukin and Kramarenko, proved to be very reliable, as did the claims of several other aces, e.g. Aleksandr Smorchkov, Stepan Bahayev and Dmitri Samoylov.

Of Sutyagin's 21 claims, 12 victories are confirmed from UN records: 10 F-86s, 1 F-84, 1 Meteor. After the ceasefire there were hundreds of UN pilots MIA, lost to unknown causes. 31 USAF F-86 pilots are still MIA, 60 years later. Someone shot them down. The other UN members are also still missing pilots.

"Failed to return."

[GScholz]

Btw. Widewing, have you seen the guncam footage from that F9F/MiG-15 engagement (or maybe another one)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpsqUHWZmeY