Originally posted by Hangtime
Boy I hope this is as good as it looks.
I've always wanted to fly a Sabre vs a Mig15... imagine my dismay when I discovered the US propoganda was false, and that the MIG was superior in almost every way to anything the US put in the theatre.
I wonder when this will come out?
The MiG had a higher ceiling, better climb rate, better turn rate, and cannons.
The Sabre had boosted controls, much better high speed/transonic characteristics, superior gunsight/ranging radar (the Russian pilots were jealous), and like almost every American fighter, rugged structure and superior diving performance.
If only a slightly better engine had been available, the Sabre would have dominated the MiG.
Despite the above differences, the planes were pretty evenly matched (except for the boosted controls and the ceiling, most of the differences were marginal over most of the altitude band), pilot skills and initial conditions usually determined the outcome. Unfortunately, toward the end of the war, the MiG pilots got smart and refused to cross the Yalu until they had altitude and the Sabres were low on gas.
The US solution to the MiG-15 was the F-104: climb higher, go faster, fire 20mm rounds at 100 rounds per second
The F-104 has a terrible reputation, but I wonder how it would have done had it been around for Korea? I guess the F-105/F-4 versus MiG-17 in Vietnam is a fair approximation of performance differences, but the tactical environment was too different to really compare (SAMs and radar leading to low altitude fights versus the Korean War high altitude fights).
