So we are back to the Cold War again?

@georgeob1,

Quote georgeob1:

Quote:

Other issues including pilot training and tactics and the rules of engagement are in practice often just as important as the technical qualities of the aircraft they fly.

We've already gone through the pilot question. American fighters in Korea had between a 7 to 1 and a 10 to 1 kill ratio vs Russian made fighters in Korea. Mathematically, if the Russian piloted aircraft achieved a 1:1 kill ratio in their engagements with American fighters, then the Russian piloted MiGs could only be one seventh to one tenth of the MiG air force in Korea. But everyone knows there were more Russians flying the MiGs than anyone else in Korea. So the American kill ratio vs Russian fighters might be slightly lower than 7 to 1 or 10 to 1, but it still adds up to several Russian piloted MiG fighters killed in engagements with American fighters for each American fighter lost.

Allow me to post this chart outlining the kill ratio of American fighters vs Russian made fighters yet again, just to illustrate how poorly Russian fighters perform when pitted against American fighters:

3 Replies

@Blickers,

Now that it has been demonstrated that Obama has maintained American military superiority over the Russians, the question still remains about what we can do with a Commander-In-Chief who is clearly submissive to Vladimir Putin and seems intent on carrying out Putin's plans to weaken or even disband NATO.

The US has had bad presidents in the past, but before Trump we never had a president who was actually trying to aid in the subjugation of America to a foreign power. The notion of having the Russian ambassador actually at the Republican convention talking to all the GOP bigwigs was both nauseating and indicative of just how far Trump planned to take American interests down to please the Russian leader.

What can we do?

1 Reply

I didn’t say that Migs were not flown, my question to poor oralroy is does he really think there were pitched battles between Russian/USSR pilots and American piolets. Countries in the Soviet sphere (including North Korea and North Vietnam) purchased Mig fighters but they didn’t come equipped with Soviet piolets.....

That being said, the USSR and now Russia always has a hand in every conflict, especially when the US and allies are involved. If the question is “are the Russians/Chinese/North Koreans friends or foes” the answer is foe.

2 Replies

@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

What about the Korean War??? Please enlighten me about the fierce air battles between Soviet and American Pilots,

In the Korean War, enemy planes flown by highly-trained Soviet pilots were quite lethal against American aircraft.

glitterbag wrote:

and remind me please which side flew MiG's.

The Soviets did.

0 Replies

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

Quote georgeob1:

Quote:
Other issues including pilot training and tactics and the rules of engagement are in practice often just as important as the technical qualities of the aircraft they fly.
We've already gone through the pilot question. American fighters in Korea had between a 7 to 1 and a 10 to 1 kill ratio vs Russian made fighters in Korea. Mathematically, if the Russian piloted aircraft achieved a 1:1 kill ratio in their engagements with American fighters, then the Russian piloted MiGs could only be one seventh to one tenth of the MiG air force in Korea. But everyone knows there were more Russians flying the MiGs than anyone else in Korea. So the American kill ratio vs Russian fighters might be slightly lower than 7 to 1 or 10 to 1, but it still adds up to several Russian piloted MiG fighters killed in engagements with American fighters for each American fighter lost.

I believe you have missed or are ignoring several important factors that are usually more significant than the simple technical merits & capabilities of the aircraft involved. The skill and adaptability of the Military leadership applied; the training regime for their pilots and the degree to which initiative and creativity are encouraged and rewarded; are together at least equally as significant as the relative performance metrics of their aircraft.

In Korea we were faced with the Soviet MIG-15 and Soviet trained Korean pilots and commanders. The MIG-15 was a then truly revolutionary aircraft, much cheaper and therefore deployable in greater numbers than the then new US F-86, and much superior to the then current Navy fighters (F2H Banshees). Our performance in combat with the North Koreans (and the Soviet pilots who flew with them) was initially poor until the USAF F-86 pilots discovered an exploitable weakness in the MIG - it had insufficient hydraulic boost for its flight controls, and at high speeds its maneuverability was limited by high stick forces for its pilots. Soviet training and doctrine were top down and very authoritarian, compared to ours which emphasized local initiative and adaptability. These two factors quickly led to widely used U.S. tactics that exploited that weakness, while the more closely controlled N. Koreans stuck to their preconceived scenarios & scripts. Together these factors quickly yielded very high kill ratios, which continued throughout the conflict.

The air war over Vietnam chiefly involved USN and USAF F-4s vs North Vietnamese MIG 21s piloted by Soviet trained Pilots but led by more creative and adaptable Vietnamese leaders. our F-4s were armed with medium and short range missiles, both very effective, but no guns. The MIG 21 had both and was in some flight regimes, more maneuverable. The big factors in our reduced kill ratio was the asinine Policy of then Secretary McNamara requiring that U.S. pilots visually identify MIGs before firing at them. thereby wiping out all their built in advantages. ( no one could make him understand that those radar contacts approaching our aircraft at 550Kts were clearly MIGs, even without visual confirmation) Over time our pilots (and their leaders) began ignoring these restrictions and the kill ratio improve3d markedly. We also, after that war, recognized that in the missile era we had insufficiently emphasized dogfighting skills in our pilot training - a problem the services quickly corrected after the war.

Again my point here is that the differences in the technical merits of the aircraft involved are very often less determinative of success in battle than are the skill in which these aircraft are employed and the character of the training of their pilots.

0 Replies

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

The kill ratios favoring the American fighters over the MiG fighters were 7 to 1 and 10 to 1 respectively-this from your own sources. For the Russian pilots to be at a 1:1 kill ratio with the American fighters, simple mathematics would require that the percentage of MiG fighters piloted by Russian pilots be only one seventh to one tenth of the total number of MiG fighters piloted in Korea-the rest would have to be piloted by the Chinese and North Koreans themselves. Of course, the percentage of Soviet pilots was much higher than that, so mathematically, the Soviet pilots' kill ratio was considerably less than 1:1.

Where are you getting figures for the percentage of Soviet pilots?

Blickers wrote:

Have you finished grasping at straws yet?

Condemning Barack Obama for deliberately sabotaging the US armed forces is not grasping at straws.

Blickers wrote:

In NO war have Russian fighters ever achieved anything close to a 1:1 kill ratio versus American made fighters, Russian pilots or not.

That is incorrect. Highly trained Soviet pilots were a match for American pilots.

Blickers wrote:

You are trying to pretend that the US needs the F-22 to keep ahead of the Russians because they are breathing down our neck technologically,

No. I'm not worried about Russia at all. We need to keep up with other peer powers around the world.

Blickers wrote:

and in fact they have never even been close to us.

That is incorrect. The Soviets were an even match for us during the Cold War.

Blickers wrote:

The US has introduced the world's first fifth generation fighters and they leave the Russians behind in the dust.

Only because the Russians are no longer a major power. An F-35 couldn't shoot down a Mig-29 from the early 1980s.

Blickers wrote:

Our allies are so impressed with the F-35 that they have ordered a whole slew of them.

The F-35 is a great ground attack plane. It has all of the ground attack capability that the F-117 had.

That doesn't make it useful for air-superiority missions.

Blickers wrote:

Our air force is dominant over the Russians'.

Only because the Russians are no longer a credible power.

Unfortunately, thanks to Barack Obama, our air force is not a match for other peer powers in the modern world.

Blickers wrote:

Which brings us to the original issue, which is that since Obama kept us ahead of the Russians with the F-35,

The F-35 is not what keeps us ahead of the Russians. An F-35 couldn't shoot down an early 1980s Mig-29. We're ahead of the Russians because the Russians are no longer a major power.

Blickers wrote:

How do we repel Russian expansionism with this Manchurian Candidate in the White House?

No one is preventing the Europeans from giving heavy weapons to Ukraine so that Putin is too busy with the fighting there to think about invading the EU.

No one is preventing the Europeans from stationing heavy ground forces in Poland and the Baltics to deter a Russian invasion.

2 Replies

@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

my question to poor oralroy is does he really think there were pitched battles between Russian/USSR pilots and American piolets.

Yes.

glitterbag wrote:

Countries in the Soviet sphere (including North Korea and North Vietnam) purchased Mig fighters but they didn’t come equipped with Soviet piolets.....

They did in the Korean War.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

We've already gone through the pilot question. American fighters in Korea had between a 7 to 1 and a 10 to 1 kill ratio vs Russian made fighters in Korea. Mathematically, if the Russian piloted aircraft achieved a 1:1 kill ratio in their engagements with American fighters, then the Russian piloted MiGs could only be one seventh to one tenth of the MiG air force in Korea.

Not necessarily. How many total fighters were on the Soviet/North Korean side?

Blickers wrote:

But everyone knows there were more Russians flying the MiGs than anyone else in Korea.

We do? How do we know this?

0 Replies

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

Now that it has been demonstrated that Obama has maintained American military superiority over the Russians,

Maintaining military superiority over a minor power is no big deal. The problem is Obama's sabotaging of our military so that we are no longer a match for other peer powers.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

glitterbag wrote:
my question to poor oralroy is does he really think there were pitched battles between Russian/USSR pilots and American piolets.
Yes.

glitterbag wrote:
Countries in the Soviet sphere (including North Korea and North Vietnam) purchased Mig fighters but they didn’t come equipped with Soviet piolets.....
They did in the Korean War.

Nope. The Soviets trained The North Koreans to fly the Mig’s.

2 Replies

@glitterbag,

Do you really think North Korea and North Vietnam had fighter pilots?

0 Replies

@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

Nope. The Soviets trained The North Koreans to fly the Mig’s.

Wrong. The Soviets also sent their own highly-trained pilots to fly in the Korean War. And they shot down a lot of American pilots.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

The Soviets also sent their own highly-trained pilots to fly in the Korean War.

True, they did. Officially those Russian pilots weren't there, so the Russians dressed them in Korean uniforms, forbid them to speak Russian on the radio to ground control, (that didn't last long), and didn't let them fly near the South Korea border lest they get shot down and revealed as Russians.

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

And they [Russian pilots in Korea] shot down a lot of American pilots.

They shot down some, but most of them were bombers or transport planes. They got their ass handed to them in one-on-one fights with American fighter jets. Look at these kill ratios:

2 Replies

@Blickers,

Check the website I sent you, It also lists the major role the Chinese had in Korea. The Russians developed comms nets in China to serve Korea and Manchuria supporting Communist aircraft, commercial and military.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

Quote Blickers:

Quote:

In NO war have Russian fighters ever achieved anything close to a 1:1 kill ratio versus American made fighters, Russian pilots or not.

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

That is incorrect. Highly trained Soviet pilots were a match for American pilots.

Any examples? Certainly not Korea-Russian piloted fighters got their butt kicked by American fighters there. Several Russian piloted fighters went down for each American fighter shot down. And to illustrate American aircraft superiority, the fighting took place in northern Korea, which was controlled by the communists which could give ground radio support to the Russians. And still several Russian piloted fighters went down for every American.

1 Reply

@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

Nope. The Soviets trained The North Koreans to fly the Mig’s.

They did indeed train them, but there were also a number of instances of Soviet pilots ( or locals with excellent Russian language skills and accents) in both Korea and Vietnam air operations.

We encountered this as well with Kaddafi's forces in Libya ( also a few north Korean pilots there as well). After Kaddafi claimed control of the Gulf of Sidra in the early 1970s, we began flying routine missions through the Gulf and just off the Libyan coast, with a decoy aircraft up high and easily detected, and with a group of fighters at the ready below at very low altitude. We also had other intel aircraft monitoring Libyan communications and watching for any response. I led several of these missions. There were several instances of the Libyans launching fighters to intercept but somehow they always failed to come out and engage ( in at least one case we recorded their pilots refusing orders to come out and intercept). Finally in one operation in the late 1970s they took the bait and we quickly downed a couple of their Soviet Built Fighters (SU- 15s I believe).

I'm very surprised to see that you appear to be so unaware of these well documented actions in Korea, Vietnam and even Libya.. In both wars the Soviets were heavily involved in supply, support and training and sometimes operations as well. I'll agree that overall they weren't a very significant fraction of the pilots involved, but they were there.

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

Oral is claiming the Soviet pilots were more involved in the air battles than they actually were. The Soviets, North Koreans and Chinese cooperated in many conflicts and the Soviets would never ignore the US forces in any military action. It’s a military Intell collection opportunity bonanza for them......and we are no slouches either. The fact that the Soviets provide training, aircraft, comms support is a given, the next question is,do they insert themselves while trying to conceal themselves as Korean or other nationalities and avoid using Russian language on air? Yes they do, but they are also crafty enough not to insert large numbers into conflicts to hopefully conceal their activities as long as possible before the eventual detection by NATO or the US. That could catapult them into a conflict they may not be ready to begin.

You unknowingly have just assured oral that the Russians kicked the US pilots butts in North Korea. No one is saying the Soviets then or the Russians now are not formidable, certainly I hope we never have to enter another world war to see if we (US) can still survive. But since you are the flyer here, you can be the authority that oral is looking for to confirm his views on US military capability.

If either of you is looking for justification for a strong defense, leave me out of it. I’m not in favor of a crippled US defense capability. We were caught short in WWI, WWII, Korea....I wouldn’t want to see us as unprepared as we were in Korea. We only had 3 Korean linguists at that time, not nearly enough Russian linguists but we did ramp up quickly. I wouldnt want us to be as unaware of a looming conflict as we have been in the past.

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

One other thing George, I was addressing Korea, not Vietnam or Libya. I didn’t think oral had claimed the Russians kicked our butts in Vietnam and Libya, I’m pretty sure the topic was the supiority of Russian pilots in Korea.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

They shot down some, but most of them were bombers or transport planes.

Is there a source for this claim?

Blickers wrote:

They got their ass handed to them in one-on-one fights with American fighter jets.

Is there a source for this claim?

Blickers wrote:

Look at these kill ratios:

Those ratios do not seem to deal with Russian-piloted planes.

0 Replies

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

Any examples?

The Korean War.

Blickers wrote:

Certainly not Korea-Russian piloted fighters got their butt kicked by American fighters there.

Is there a source for this claim?

Blickers wrote:

Several Russian piloted fighters went down for each American fighter shot down.

Is there a source for this claim?

1 Reply

So we are back to the Cold War again?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know