So we are back to the Cold War again?

@oralloy,

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

I don't consider "40" to be a decisive victory over "34 to 60".

I consider 40 documented, internationally recognized kills in air-to-air combat by the US fighters to be enormously decisive over 34 to 60 "maybe" kills by Russian fighters which are not internationally documented at all. So does everybody else.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

You can squawk all you want, you are still wrong, poorly-informed and woefully inept attempting to discuss such matters. You should stick to your hysterical worry over the 2nd amendment. Sorry tovarish, but this is way above your pay grade.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

I consider 40 documented, internationally recognized kills in air-to-air combat by the US fighters to be enormously decisive over 34 to 60 "maybe" kills by Russian fighters which are not internationally documented at all.

I don't.

I doubt that the American pilots who were downed by Soviet pilots did either.

Blickers wrote:

So does everybody else.

I doubt this.

But even if a majority of people are wrong, that doesn't make them right.

1 Reply

@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

You can squawk all you want, you are still wrong, poorly-informed and woefully inept attempting to discuss such matters.

Your failure to point out a single thing that I am wrong about must be so embarrassing.

glitterbag wrote:

You should stick to your hysterical worry over the 2nd amendment.

I am capable of defending the truth in multiple issues at the same time.

glitterbag wrote:

Sorry tovarish, but this is way above your pay grade.

You're the one who is perpetually unable to point out a single thing that I am wrong about.

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@oralloy,

Quote Blickers:

Quote:

I consider 40 documented, internationally recognized kills in air-to-air combat by the US fighters to be enormously decisive over 34 to 60 "maybe" kills by Russian fighters which are not internationally documented at all.

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

I don't.

I doubt that the American pilots who were downed by Soviet pilots did either.

There is no recognized documentation for those pilots to back you up, on either our side or the Russian side. We know how many planes we lost. And Russian claims of "flying aces" have to viewed skeptically, partly because the Russians didn't admit they were flying in the Korean War, (they were wearing Korean forces uniforms and only flew in the interior of the country), and partly because you can't trust the Russians to tell the truth. Russians are trying to claim that Ukrainian government forces shot down flight Malaysia flight MH17, even though it has been proven the passenger plane was shot down from a place that was behind Kremlin-led rebel lines.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Historians only question 30 of the 67 proposed Soviet aces. The other 37 are accepted as legitimate.

You can see the details farther down in the Wikipedia article:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Korean_War_flying_aces#Soviet_Union

37 Soviet aces (or even 34, since the article proposed that as a lower bound) was a respectable match to America's 40.

Americans aren't invulnerable supermen. If an enemy pilot is highly trained, he (or she) will be a serious opponent for an American pilot.

I am quite sure that the Chinese military knows this and is training their pilots very well.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Counting up aces, (pilots who have downed five or more enemy planes) is a rather inaccurate and roundabout method of keeping track of one nation's planes versus the other. One side might have more aces, but the other might have many more dozens of pilots who have shot down four or less of the enemy.

A much better way is just to try to find out which side downed more of the other's planes. This is from your own link:

Quote:

By August 1952, the tide of battle above "MIG Alley" had turned in favor of the United Nations. During that month 63 MiGs were shot down for the loss of only nine Sabres. .....

.....On July 27, 1953 the ceasefire came into effect. By that time there were 297 Sabres in Korea facing an estimated 950 Sino-Korean MiGs. During the conflict the F-86 pilots claimed to have destroyed 792 MiGs in air-to-air combat for a loss of 78 Sabres — a phenomenal 10 to 1 kills-to-losses ratio.

A 7 to 1 kill ratio in the first paragraph, and a 10 to 1 kill ratio in the second paragraph. And these sources are supposed to provide support for your position that the MiGs were as good, or nearly as good, as American aircraft? That's curious..... Confused

2 Replies

@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

Counting up aces, (pilots who have downed five or more enemy planes) is a rather inaccurate and roundabout method of keeping track of one nation's planes versus the other.

During WW2 the RAF, unlike the Luftwaffe, deliberately didn't keep tallies of Aces. They found it counterproductive because it hampered an esprit de corps, instead they focussed on what they were doing as a team which is ultimately why they won the Battle of Britain. (Over a year before America entered WW2 btw.)

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@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

Counting up aces, (pilots who have downed five or more enemy planes) is a rather inaccurate and roundabout method of keeping track of one nation's planes versus the other. One side might have more aces, but the other might have many more dozens of pilots who have shot down four or less of the enemy.

A much better way is just to try to find out which side downed more of the other's planes.

If such data is available.

Blickers wrote:

This is from your own link:

Quote:
By August 1952, the tide of battle above "MIG Alley" had turned in favor of the United Nations. During that month 63 MiGs were shot down for the loss of only nine Sabres. .....

.....On July 27, 1953 the ceasefire came into effect. By that time there were 297 Sabres in Korea facing an estimated 950 Sino-Korean MiGs. During the conflict the F-86 pilots claimed to have destroyed 792 MiGs in air-to-air combat for a loss of 78 Sabres — a phenomenal 10 to 1 kills-to-losses ratio.

A 7 to 1 kill ratio in the first paragraph, and a 10 to 1 kill ratio in the second paragraph. And these sources are supposed to provide support for your position that the MiGs were as good, or nearly as good, as American aircraft? That's curious.....

That includes kills against poorly-trained Chinese and North Korean pilots. It doesn't show how our guys fared against highly-trained Soviet pilots.

2 Replies

Jane's All the World's Aircraft

Published yearly since 1909

Jane's also publishes "All the Worlds Fighting Ships", another publication for Tanks and Combat Vehicles Recognition Guide and another the lists Armored Fighting Vehicles

There is a wealth of Reference Publications that are trustworthy enough to rely on.

0 Replies

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

[
]That includes kills against poorly-trained Chinese and North Korean pilots. It doesn't show how our guys fared against highly-trained Soviet pilots.

Are you by any chance asking how American pilots fared against Soviet Mig's??? If that's what you're asking, can you please tell me when during the last 50 years do you think engagement between those two countries (in the air, shooting at each other) ever actually occurred?

1 Reply

@glitterbag,

Is there some reason to limit it to 50 years?

If we exclude all conflict with the Soviets, that still undermines the claim that American pilots were superior to their Soviet counterparts. Lack of a contest is not evidence of superiority.

Good training counts for a lot in a soldier. A highly trained enemy is a deadly threat to American soldiers.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Is there some reason to limit it to 50 years?

If we exclude all conflict with the Soviets, that still undermines the claim that American pilots were superior to their Soviet counterparts. Lack of a contest is not evidence of superiority.

Good training counts for a lot in a soldier. A highly trained enemy is a deadly threat to American soldiers.

The Question is: When did the Soviet Mig's engage with US pilots in the last 50 years? We don't have to limit it to only the past 50 years....perhaps I missed news of the fierce dog fights between USSR and US in the last 300 years years, for instance how about the air battles that occurred during Catherine the Great's reign when she established the Russian Royal Airforce. How did Catherine's whale oil powered jets stack up against the 13 original colonies?

1 Reply

@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

We don't have to limit it to only the past 50 years....perhaps I missed news of the fierce dog fights between USSR and US in the last 300 years

How about the Korean War?

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@oralloy,

What about the Korean War??? Please enlighten me about the fierce air battles between Soviet and American Pilots, and remind me please which side flew MiG's.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote Blickers:

Quote:

A 7 to 1 kill ratio in the first paragraph, and a 10 to 1 kill ratio in the second paragraph. And these sources are supposed to provide support for your position that the MiGs were as good, or nearly as good, as American aircraft? That's curious..... Confused

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

That includes kills against poorly-trained Chinese and North Korean pilots. It doesn't show how our guys fared against highly-trained Soviet pilots.

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.

Have you finished grasping at straws yet? In NO war have Russian fighters ever achieved anything close to a 1:1 kill ratio versus American made fighters, Russian pilots or not. 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, and in fact they have never even been close to us. The US has introduced the world's first fifth generation fighters and they leave the Russians behind in the dust. Our allies are so impressed with the F-35 that they have ordered a whole slew of them. Our air force is dominant over the Russians'.

Which brings us to the original issue, which is that since Obama kept us ahead of the Russians with the F-35, what are we going to do with Trump who is clearly submissive to Putin in foreign policy? With Trump's constant attacks against our NATO allies and statements that NATO is obsolete, and all his advisors meeting Russian officials secretly and not disclosing it to the Senate or FBI, it is clear that Trump is carrying out Putin's foreign policy and working on weakening NATO so Putin can force his way back into the Iron Curtain countries who gained their freedom when Russia economically collapsed in 1991.

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

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Contrary to Glitterbag's nonsensical assertions, US vs Soviet made aircraft engagements have been routine in nearly every war or military action in which we have been engaged since WWII: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq are merely prominent examples.

Our relative effectiveness in these engagements has risen and fallen over time. Our so called "kill ratio" was highly favorable in Korea against the MIG 15, however in Vietnam against the MIG 21 we were far less successful until, late in the war our tactics changed to better utilize the advantages (and limitations) of our fighters and the doctrines prescribed for their use: Our aircraft relied on standoff missiles in combat limited initially by a sometimes absurd policy requiring visual identification in every engagement. The MIG 21 was more maneuverable than the F-4 in close combat and it took come time for us to learn how to exploit its superior speed and rate of climb relative to the MIG 21.

Later in Iraq and with more maneuverable aircraft equipped with bioth guns and missiles, we reversed the situation.

1 Reply

On the question of the relative merit of various fighter aircraft in battle, the issue involves more than just the flight and characteristics of the aircraft involved. 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.

The Japanese Zero was a very light, highly maneuverable and well armed fighter. Initially we had a rather poor record in engagements with them - the Zero could out turn every aircraft in our inventory, and at the start of the war the Japanese Pilots were better trained and more experienced than were ours. The first generation of USN & USAF fighters were no match for the zero. Later, with improved aircraft (F7F & F4U (Corsair)in the Navy & USMC, and with improved pilot experience we learned to avoid close maneuvering encounters with the Zeros, and instead exploit the better speed and acceleration qualities of our aircraft to make the game more favorable. Later, after the Battle of Midway in which the Japanese lost four carriers and most of their experienced pilots, we gained an overwhelming advantage over them. A contributing factor here was that the Japanese kept their experienced aviators in operating units, leaving the training establishment in relatively inexperienced hands, while U.S. forces cycled ~ 10% of the fleet aviators back to the training establishment every year to sustain a steady supply of well trained aviators.

All of this points to the several factors that affect these outcomes - it's not all just the qualities of the aircraft.

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

A couple of excellent posts georgeob1

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@georgeob1,

Quote georgeob1:

Quote:

Our relative effectiveness in these engagements has risen and fallen over time. Our so called "kill ratio" was highly favorable in Korea against the MIG 15, however in Vietnam against the MIG 21 we were far less successful until, late in the war our tactics changed to better utilize the advantages (and limitations) of our fighters and the doctrines prescribed for their use:

So much blather. The stats in Korea show between a 7 to 1 and a 10 to 1 kill ratio for American fighter aircraft in Korea vs Russian made fighters. That's for the whole war. The fact that the ratio varies week to week and month to month is irrelevant-that's the total for the war. So your "explanation" doesn't explain how anyone can maintain that Russian built fighters are on a par with American built fighters when the records show several Russian fighters downed for each American fighter lost in one-on-one engagements.

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So we are back to the Cold War again?

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