RE: MiG pilots got worse

["Diego Zampini" <dzampini@hotmail.com>]

Hi, Dan and Ron

>For the most part you are right.  The old history books are wrong.

I know that you will dislike that, but Dan is right. The reason why such 
thing is true is because the books written about Korea until 1990(and many 
other written after that year!!!!) used the same source: USAF statistics. 
And those were tendencious to inflate the amount of both enemy planes and 
kills scored.
You can say: the US vets say that US kill ratio was 10:1. But the vets of 
both sides thought the same. The Russian vets still think that they scored 
8:1. Neither USAF nor VVS scored in such ratios.

>Except the official Military archives on Korea are open, after 50 years, 
>and verify everything I have said.  The Russians have opened their 
>documents and the historians are evaluating and rewriting the data. Our 
>Pilots are verifiying much the same data the Russian pilots are stating.
>What we thought was a lost in action from ground fire was actually shot by 
>a Mig.
>Surprise, surprise...they had sucessful tactics.

I fully agree with you.

>Basically we got our asses kicked as good as we gave.  The US lost some 
>5000 aircraft in Korea and the Russians claim some 1300 shot down.  Go read 
>some new data.  There are books about every Nation in WW2 and on Korea and 
>about every aircraft in each theatre of operation.

Personally I think that the figure of 405 planes -including 142 Sabres- shot 
down by MiG-15s against 538 MiGs lost, given by Cookie a month ago is the 
most reliable that I ever heard.

>Every air group did the same thing.  When the data is compared, each side 
>knew who they lost, but rarely knew who they shot down.
>There is one book to read that fill you in on reality. Flying tigers by Dan 
>Ford. The old history books say they shot down 300/299/289 Japanese 
>aircraft in 6 months. Documentation and written accounts can only stretch 
>this to 120. No surprise really.

The overclaiming was a very common event in all wars and combatants. In 
general terms in the Pacific, for each 100 planes actually lost by the 
Japanese, the US pilots claimed 150 or 200. The Japanese overclaimed worse. 
The same happened in Korea, USAF overclaimed in a 30% percentage -sometimes 
60%, as June 1953- and the Soviets at least in a 50% rate.
Diego.

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