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My own 2 cents: the Communist air effort had only
one significant impact, preventing B-29's operating in daylight with acceptable
losses, "acceptable" under the circumstances of availability of B-29's and
what they were accomplishing. Then as Sandy says there was a see-sawing of
advantage in B-29 night raids which ended with the Commuist side basically
unable to inflict further losses after the crisis of turn of yr 52-53. *But* one
big factor in that refusal of Russians to commit radar equipped MiG's of which
they had a few already.
Otherwise losses inflicted by MiG's just not that
significant. That's partly based on my respectful disagreement with Cookie, I
think air-air losses were much closer to the 150 or so reported by the UN
than 400. Even at the latter figure it's a small % of overall losses. As
far as fighter-bomber ops I doubt there would have been much difference with no
Communist air opposition. Indeed as noted, there was hardly any as it was over
the great majority of the geographic area of NK.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2002 5:35
AM
Subject: Re: Almighty?
In a message dated
12/25/02 8:43:10 PM Pacific Standard Time, wanaki@infi.net writes:
FEAF had air superiority behind the MLR but only temporarily on
the other side of it, based on who was flying that day. The significant
indicators that they did not have air supremacy are the gradual changeover
of B-29 mission tasks to night operations and in favorable conditions (e.g.
weather favoring blind bombing with radar as the searchlights were
ineffective under such conditions.)
Cookie,
This
is true. And the B-29 raids got more costly as time went on. After sustained
losses in June 1952, escorts were authorized. In July, Marine F7F's from
VMF(N) 513 were used as escorts, but they didn't prove effective against the
Communist jet night fighters. In November 1952, the Marine squadron received
F3D Skyknights. These proved to be so effective that they were the
preferred aircraft for this mission.
The USAF had F-94B's as interceptors
in South Korea, but because of their advanced technical capabilities, the USAF
didn't want to risk them in North Korea. In November 1952 this was changed by
the Air Force Chief of Staff ordered them to be assigned to join the escorts.
However, the Communists continued to shoot down B-29's and USAF
planners figured that there were two Communist night fighter forces. One to
decoy the escorts away, while a second force hovered overhead waiting to
pounce on the bombers. So, Bomber Command requested that Skyknights fly 2,000
to 3,000 feet above the bombers, while flights of F-94's flew ahead of the
B-29's. This arrangement proved to be the key to protection of the B-29's.
Sandy
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