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Joe,
Roger that. I remain pretty much neutral until I see one side or the other up to no good, and most of the US ones seem honest. Complaints raised by folks like "Mac" were that aircraft with severe structural damage from aerial combat were listed as "mission ready" when they were not, basically to avoid having nosy Newsweek reporters list another disaster like "Black Thursday". He has an account of the loss of "The Outlaw" on his website and cites the damage received as why it crashed on a check flight.
As I mentioned the Russians were getting 500 ruble bonuses for each aircraft shot down and "confirmed" ergo the rush to justify each claim. 500 rubles in those days bought a lot in the Soyuz and they all wanted that. The other welch by the command -- other than giving the claims over to the PVO or Koreans/Chinese -- was giving the unit a "group" kill claim, which means all the pilots can count it for a score but nobody gets any money. At least one "ace" did sheepishly admit he had one personal kill and four group kills, thus did not feel worthy of the title.
Cookie Sewell
AMPS
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