Cookie:
Not having much in the way of original primary
source info, (I love to read what's posted here in that regard),
but having read some of the secondary material over the years,
I want to outline an alternative devil's advocate point of view, on the
re-examination (revision?) of the air war. Take F-86/MiG kill
ratio.
The seeds of doubt on F-86 losses were planted by
changing totals of air combat losses totals of Sabers, 58,
78, 103? 78 is by far the most often quoted. 103 is supposedly from
the AF's study Saber Measures (Charlie) which I admit I've never actually
read.
Anyway now there's KORWALD. Hand counting I get
numbers not too different from yours. I counted "loss" by the USAAF WWII
criterion "failure to make a wheels down landing at a friendly base" and got
70 F-86's. By way of trivia it makes 49-1272 lost twice: bellied,
later shot down. Adding in all ambiguous cases ("enemy fire", "failed to
return") is another 10. So that's 80 corroborating the common historical
total if that's all we count.
Damaged "loss" in KORWALD? One method is to add
those on top, I count 34. But there's two issues. First some were clearly not
write-offs as they appear more than once (damaged once, lost later), or
in photo's with moderate damage. And 49-1272 is a survivor even today
(damaged 12/4/51, on display in Fresno CA). On the other side of the ledger I
note in Joe Baugher's database of serial numbers 16 F-86's "lost to enemy
action" without date and not in Korwald. Some are known cases (49-1281
Eagleston's a/c in "Casey Jones" incident, 49-1334 taken out in Po-2 raid
frequently published photo, 50-0666 is a MiG damage write off
pictured in Davis "4th Fighter Wing") but mostly mysterious (to me). Anyway
it's not clear how many would fairly be counted "lost". An interesting
research topic unless someone knows a source already that deals with this
in detail.
Second issue on "damaged" is apples and
apples vs. "UAF" losses which are stated only as totals (and not incl.
NKAF at all) as far as I've seen. Given the high rate of fire and low per
round lethality of F-86 armament many hundreds more MiG's must have been
hit for 500-600 to have been shot down. If we added all 34 (or 50) F-86's
wouldn't we have to add a bunch of MiG's?
Mis-reporting of cause of loss. This one is
harder than damage. But here's my devil's advocate position for debate. I
think each case has to be looked at separately with the burden of proof on
those who change the attribution from what's in the loss records. An
example of a loss I've seen re-attributed, Mir Aviatsii article
etc.:
F-84 51-636
Sietzinger 11/27/51 Korwald "strafing hit boxcars", matches date/type of a
Pepeleyev claim. But locations don't match (Chinanpo US,
"Sensen" Russian, meaning Sunchun; 70+miles apart) and this incident was
further investigated, though not conclusively, as friendly fire
(F-84's came head on at each other strafing, no enemy a/c
reported). Unlikely to have been Pepeleyev's target.
A large topic for research (maybe not
even possible at this point) to track down the dozens or hundreds of
incidents, but each one is interesting I find. Anyway my point
is matching losses to Russian claims same date is only an
indication of possibility.
The escalation of F-86 AAA losses toward the end
of the war, sometimes noted with suspicion in Russian writings, has
a straightforward explanation. Many from 8th and 18 Fighter Bomber
Gp's. More F-86's were lost to AAA once they began to be risked on
air-grd, from 4th Ftr's strikes at target of opportunity after sweeps
starting spring 52, and much more when FB units converted to F-86F's by
'53.
Kill claim support ratio: Almost all AF's
overclaim success in air combat (RN claims in Falklands a-a,
not grd-a, were almost right on the money) but not all by the same
ratio. It seems to depend on nature of the combat (hi or lo, furball
or 2 on 2, aam's exploding or not) and social/political etc
factors. The Soviets were on the high end of overclaim in
two previous wars (Nomonhan 1939, the world overclaim championship v. the
Japanese, and the GPW). Given that history and the difficult
conditions of Korea: hi alt furballs, bad gun cameras, poor visibility and
stability of the MiG (as Yeager described) 10% of claims actual
kills (strictly UN records v. their claims) is not unbelievable. Anyway
my idea is one side's claims don't by themselves
invalidate the other side's case by case, secret-at-the-time loss records (as
opposed to possibly propagandistic public totals) without more proof,
or obvious inconsistency in the loss records.
So in summary subject to further research (and
just being proved wrong) the F-86/MiG ratio kill-kill not
kill-(kill+damage) could be estimated at around 6, say
conservatively 500 kills vs. 80>90 losses (not so conservative
maybe, but that's the debate). Worse than the famous original
figures but better than the Saber Measures (Charlie) estimate.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002
10:06 PM
Subject: Korean War Aerial Losses and
Claims - Interim Look
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!