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I concur with Joe, sorting out ACTUAL losses is more like herding cats than simple arithmetic.
Case in point: F-80 losses. I have a total of 24 listed right now in KWAAKE (my new database tool -- Korean War Air-to-Air Kill Evaluation) but as Joe noted many of the problem indicators come from KORWALD.
Normally KORWALD will give a reason for the lost but in some cases it either says "unknown," "operational loss" or "shot down" with no amplification. This can cause misery and an overestimate of how effective the other side really was.
When the numbers are run against claims versus losses, I can get the number down to 12:
03 Jul 50 (!), 19 Jul 50, 11 Nov 50, 27 Dec 50, 6 Jun 51, 24 Jun 51, 31 Aug 51, 9 Sep 51, 11 Sep 51, 27 Nov 51, 1 Dec 51, 30 Apr 52. The first one is a claim and a loss, but whether it is a second Yak kill is speculative. Most of the rest are pretty firm, as they are taken on days when units were in combat with each other.
My FEAF loss data base sits at around 3,050 aircraft, but of that number about 1,100 were non-combat (F4Us that stalled on launch, F-51Ds that undershot the runway, aerial fires on B-29s not over a combat zone, flameouts, etc.) Of the other 1,850 about 80-90% of THOSE losses were due to combat or AAA and the rest to air-to-air.
As noted, right now KWAAKE shows 240 air-to-air losses, but as I scrub it many of them are on days with no air combat or claimants. Joe's guess of 175 is a pretty good one.
The "78" Sabre losses broke down as 7 A models, 58 E models and 13 F models. But from the "Mig Alley" book the Korean War cost the USAF just over 200 F-86s lost in combat, to ground fire and in accidents. (They list over 700 Sabres that rotated through Korea as well.)
Cookie Sewell
AMPS
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