Korean War Aerial Losses and Claims - Interim Look

[<AMPSOne@aol.com>]

I have been playing with these numbers for several years now, and this is what the current state of flux looks like regarding aerial claims and losses by both sides.

Here's a listing of everything that appears to have been claimed by USAF, USN, and USMC pilots during the Korean War from all sources I can find so far: 


Aircraft Type    USAF       USN/USMC        Total

A-20                 -        1             1   
Il-10               9         -             9   
Il-12               1         -             1
La-9/11            11         2           13
MiG-15             855            8 (10)            863 (865)   
Po-2               1          4                      5
Tu-2               9          -              9          
Yak-9D             20         5            26   
Yak-11/18           2         3              5  
Yak-17UTI          -          1              1                              
Total              908      23 (25)          932 (934)

As opposed to that, the Soviets indicate they lost 319 aircraft in combat and 38 in non-combat operations (training, accidents, collisions with each other, etc.), of which 314 were MiGs. The Chinese still indicate 231 combat losses. The Koreans are useless, as they claim no losses and nearly 6,000 shot down in air-to-air combat and 8,000 damaged; current evidence indicates that the Koreans did not fly many MiG missions as Kim Il Sung wanted them for a postwar force in being. Bottom line is that only 556 MiGs shot down for 863 claimed, or about 64% valid.  

As for US losses, according to KORWALD and other data bases 221 Sabres were lost or scrapped due to severe damage of one sort or another. Examining the stated reasons for loss in KORWALD, here's what emerges:

Reason          F-86s only  All other   Totals
                    USAF

Shot down              50              57       107
Operational Loss     14            1          15
MiG Debris Loss    8               -            8
MiG Damage Loss  37            21         58    
Collision with MiG     2               1            3
Engine Failure       24            77       101 
Enemy Action (NFI)     3               11         14
Battle Damage (NFI)   2            14         16
Unknown Reasons    2                 81       83

Subtotals              142      263      405
            
AAA                22       454      476    

Overall Totals      164     717      881
Combat losses

The Soviets alone claim 119 aircraft shot down which match up directly with a loss, albeit some are listed as AAA, Engine Failure, Unknown or Operational Loss in USAF accounts. While the USAF will certainly argue about the numbers being 250% of what they have held as fact for 50 years, the bottom line here is that of 1,097 Soviet claims and 271 Chinese claims,  even 405 is only 29.6% of that number. 

Cookie Sewell
AMPS 

PS Judy, hope this is easier on your eyes!