F-86 Sabre 10:1 Kill ratio over Korea

[+streakeagle 871]

If you take the total MiG-15 claims by US pilots of 792 and divide it by the 78 Sabre losses admitted by the USAF, you get an overall kill ratio of 10:1. Of course, MiG pilots claimed to have killed about 600 Sabres. When you read detailed histories, the kill ratio bounced up and down throughout the war from quarter to quarter as tactics and hardware evolved. The ratio was actually going against the USAF towards the end when the MiG-15 pilots had perfected attacking patrols just as they were getting low on fuel and heading for home.

 

If the Wiki entry is accurate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-86_Sabre

 

 

 

More recent research by Dorr, Lake and Thompson has claimed the actual ratio is closer to 2:1.^[32]

 

 

 

A recent RAND report^[35] made reference to "recent scholarship" of F-86 v MiG-15 combat over Korea and concluded that the actual kill:loss ratio for the F-86 was 1.8:1 overall, and likely closer to 1.3:1 against MiGs flown by Soviet pilots.

 

Not having read either of those sources, consider the implications if both of those 2:1 estimates are correct.

Assume the US is correct in assessing 78 losses in air-to-air, then F-86 pilots only shot down at most 156 MiGs.

 

From my studies of Vietnam losses that have been supplemented by the other side's data, I would bet that the USAF always assumed a loss was anything but an air-to-air kill unless a first hand eye witness said otherwise. Pilots that are shot down don't always know how they got shot down or don't survive even if they knew. In Vietnam, air-to-air kills were relatively rare compared to AAA and SAMs, so if in doubt, it could be assumed that a missile hit was a SAM or a cannon hit was AAA. Not only was that a legitimate assumption, it also has the added benefit of making the air-to-air kill ratio look a bit better than it might otherwise be.

 

I would be curious to know exactly how those two references arrived at a 2:1 ratio. I am buying the Osprey book [32] to find out ;)

 

Suddenly all those years of having the "10:1" in Korea versus the "2:1" in Vietnam have been erased. While the kill ratio in Vietnam could have and should have been better, it is suddenly no worse than Korea historically.

By the way, the RAND report is interesting and can be read here: http://www.mossekongen.no/downloads/2008_RAND_Pacific_View_Air_Combat_Briefing.pdf

Edited June 21, 2014 by streakeagle

[+streakeagle 871]

Got the answers I wanted from RAND, and like Vietnam, there was much to be learned from studying the enemies reports on kills and losses:

 

Recent Scholarship Reveals MiG-15 / F-86 Exchange Ratio Much Closer Than Traditionally Thought

 

• For decades Western sources reported that USAF F-86s achieved kill ratios as high as 14:1 against the MiG-15 

– Lop-sided kill ratio claimed to be the result of superior USAF pilot training, experience and tactics

– Research conducted since fall of the Soviet Union casts doubt on these claims

 

• Indicates actual number of MiG-15s shot down was just over 200 vs. almost 800 claimed by USAF 

 

• Overall kill ratio likely closer to 1.8:1 with F-86 kill ratio against Russian flown MiG-15s likely 1.3:1

 

• Why the big difference between USAF claims and actual MiG kills?

 

F-86 Armament a Key Factor

 

• F-86 designed as an air superiority fighter

– Primary mission to fight other fighters

– Designers believed six M-3s .50 in machine guns would be sufficient armament

 

• Developed versions of M-2 .50 in machine guns of WWII with increased rate of fire

 

• Fired 43 gram (1.5 ounce) projectiles with ~ 1 gram of incendiary composition in nose

–Effectiveness reduced above 35,000 ft (where most Korean War engagements took place)

 

• MiG-15 designed as a bomber interceptor

–Carried heavy cannon armament 

 

• NR-23 23mm cannon fired projectiles weighing 175 grams (6.2 ounces) with 19 grams of HE

– NR-23 hit ~ 6 times as destructive as .50 in hit 

 

• N-37 projectiles weighed 729 grams (25.6 ounces) with 49 grams of HE

– N-37 hit ~ 18 times as destructive as .50 in hit 

 

… and So Was MiG-15 Design

 

• MiG-15 was ruggedly built

– Self-sealing fuel tanks

– Rear armor

– Thick bullet-proof windscreen

– Jet engine much less vulnerable to battle damage than piston engines of WWII fighters

– Kerosene-based jet fuel less likely to ignite when hit than gasoline 

– In interviews after the end of the Cold War Yevgeni Pepelyaev, successful MiG-15 pilot of the Korean War stated: The US Browning .50-calibre guns bounced off our aircraft like peas! It was routine for our aircraft to return home having taken forty or fifty hits.

– One crash landed with 200+ hits and was repaired and back in the air in 8 days

 

• Postwar USAF study concluded:

– On average an F-86 needed to fire 1,024 M-3 machine gun rounds to kill a MiG-15 

 

• About 64 percent of an F-86’s normal ammunition load

 

• Required just over 8.5 seconds for 6 M-3 machine guns to fire 1,024 rounds 

 

• Bottom line – lots of MiG-15s were hit, damaged and seemed to fall from 

the sky, but lived to fight another day

Edited June 21, 2014 by streakeagle

[+streakeagle 871]

Interesting information. While the kill ratio drops from 10:1 down to 2:1 (actually a bit less at 1.8:1 overall), keep in mind that the aircraft are almost equal and in the key areas of climb, acceleration, and ceiling at high altitudes where combat took place, the MiG-15 had almost everything in its favor. The armament comparison fails to mention how the MiG-15 guns lethality was degraded by rate of fire and accuracy against an evasive target like the agile F-86. So, given all the limits the F-86 pilots were up against, a 2:1 kill ratio indicates that their training/skill/tactics were still the key difference, as further reflected in the lower 1.3:1 ratio against veteran Soviet pilots.

 

In Vietnam, we had numbers and to some extent aircraft quality on our side, and still only averaged 2:1 due to a decrease in USAF pilot quality. With the same principal fighter (the F-4) or even one with slightly lower performance (the F-8), USN pilots could get a much better kill ratio on the order of 4:1 when trained (all F-8 pilots and later F-4 pilots), or do about the same 2:1 as the USAF with intercept-only trained F-4 pilots.

 

In the end, the hardware mattered little, it was the pilots and air combat doctrine that had the greatest effect on the kill ratios. Political restrictions in both Korea and Vietnam kept the USAF from doing as well as it did in World War 2. You don't win air superiority by engaging in large furball dogfights or small duels, you win it by bombing/strafing the air fields, which allowed prop planes to overwhelm even the much superior Me262. Unable to cross the Yalu in Korea and just flat out denied the right to take out airfields in North Vietnam were costly restrictions.

[stuntman 170]

this is interesting, because in the SF2 sabre, i don't need 8.5 seconds to shoot a mig15. Is it overpowered?

[thodouras95 25]

I wonder how many air combat resulted in a victory. Not a complete shootdown, but a victory. As far as I'm concerned, the answer to this question could end gazillions of youtube debates :D

 

Anyway, interesting read, thanks for posting.

[Heck 496]

From the reading I've done in various sources, I've never bought the fourteen to one.  The ratio varied, according to who was flying the Mig.  With the Russian "Volunteers" (the Honchos) of 1951-52, it was probably 1.3-1 in favor of the Sabres.  Against other Russian units, it was more likely about 2/3-1 in favor of the US.  I believe it was against the Chinese that the myth of the overall 14-1 was born.  The Chinese had few, if any, combat experienced pilots, were malnourished (according to the Soviets), and poorly trained, with little time in the Mig, before they were sent into combat.  Yet, they were aggressive, unlike the North Koreans, who didn't start flying Migs in combat until late 52, and then, according to many, scrupulously avoided combat.  It was this aggressiveness, combined with the other factors I've mentioned, that led to very high, possibly 12-1 loss ratios for the Chinese.  

 

The Communist method of rotating whole units also led to higher loss rates, and contributed to the stories of the "Antung Air University."  

 

This was a war of powerful myth building, and many of those myths, like the Yalu Sanctuary, have been finally dispelled with revelations from Communist sources.  After 1951, the Yalu wasn't much of a sanctuary, except for the fact that we wouldn't bomb the bases.  Soviet sources make many references to Sabres amongst us as we took off, Sabres above us as we took off, and Sabres attacking them as they landed.  At certain times, the Communists actually had to perform CAPs over their forward bases, ala the Battle of Britain, because the Sabre pilots became so aggressive in their cross border attacks.  The USAF only had a problem with it when foreign observers caught us doing it.  One Colonel even told pilots to "turn off the damn IFF, if you're going to cross that damned river again."

 

So many myths, so little time.  Gotta go, the wife is giving me that "you're not paying attention to me," look. 

[MigBuster 2,884]

this is interesting, because in the SF2 sabre, i don't need 8.5 seconds to shoot a mig15. Is it overpowered?

 

Always comes down to where you hit it I guess - its certainly overmoddled if you take DCS P-51 as accurate in that regards

 

An adjustment of the gun data can probably be done to reduce effectiveness - more akin to First Eagles

Have looked into this before - its almost like the A6M Zero verses the Hellcat 

 

 

 

F-86 Armament a Key Factor

 

• F-86 designed as an air superiority fighter

– Primary mission to fight other fighters

– Designers believed six M-3s .50 in machine guns would be sufficient armament

 

• Developed versions of M-2 .50 in machine guns of WWII with increased rate of fire

 

• Fired 43 gram (1.5 ounce) projectiles with ~ 1 gram of incendiary composition in nose

–Effectiveness reduced above 35,000 ft (where most Korean War engagements took place)

 

• MiG-15 designed as a bomber interceptor

–Carried heavy cannon armament 

 

• NR-23 23mm cannon fired projectiles weighing 175 grams (6.2 ounces) with 19 grams of HE

– NR-23 hit ~ 6 times as destructive as .50 in hit 

 

• N-37 projectiles weighed 729 grams (25.6 ounces) with 49 grams of HE

– N-37 hit ~ 18 times as destructive as .50 in hit 

 

… and So Was MiG-15 Design

 

• MiG-15 was ruggedly built

– Self-sealing fuel tanks

– Rear armor

– Thick bullet-proof windscreen

– Jet engine much less vulnerable to battle damage than piston engines of WWII fighters

– Kerosene-based jet fuel less likely to ignite when hit than gasoline 

– In interviews after the end of the Cold War Yevgeni Pepelyaev, successful MiG-15 pilot of the Korean War stated: The US Browning .50-calibre guns bounced off our aircraft like peas! It was routine for our aircraft to return home having taken forty or fifty hits.

– One crash landed with 200+ hits and was repaired and back in the air in 8 days

 

• Postwar USAF study concluded:

– On average an F-86 needed to fire 1,024 M-3 machine gun rounds to kill a MiG-15 

 

• About 64 percent of an F-86’s normal ammunition load

 

• Required just over 8.5 seconds for 6 M-3 machine guns to fire 1,024 rounds 

 

• Bottom line – lots of MiG-15s were hit, damaged and seemed to fall from 

the sky, but lived to fight another day

 

 

 

Have looked into this before - seems almost like the A6M Zero Vs F6 Hellcat but reversed!

 

The F-86 had a better gunsight - but needed it to put in the required amount of ammo.

Edited June 21, 2014 by MigBuster

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

streak::

 

The armament comparison fails to mention how the MiG-15 guns lethality was degraded by rate of fire and accuracy against an evasive target like the agile F-86.

 

Maybe because most downed F-86s were not *being* evasive against their attackers, and at best, were caught while manuevering for position for something else when they were taken. I think most fighter-vs-fighter kills, from WW1 and after, came on unseen by the victim. No evasion.

 

For decades I have always guessed about 3:1 -- kinda an average I figured. What was important to me is that USAF and NAVY were generally able to operate interdiction without interference, so... lala

 

About the airfields: we made a Deal, you know, a Deal deal, with the Reds, business is business. They didn't bomb US airfields, we didn't bomb theirs. At one point, the Chinese front line commanders were planning on it, but were stopped at the last minute by Beijing, literally as the mission started, because Beijing knew all their airbase north of the Yalu and elsewhere belong to USAF if they tried it.

 

 

[+streakeagle 871]

Simply pulling g is being evasive against guns with lower rate of fire and lower muzzle velocities. It takes skilled gunners to pull the necessary lead with the necessary precision to use slow firing, low velocity, heavy cannons. Play any decent WW2 sim and try using German cannons, especially the 30mm versus using 0.50 cals or high velocity Hispano 20mm cannons. The MiG-15 was a hotrod design, but with several key flaws. As with many US planes, its key flaw was simply being large and heavy. If the 0.50 cals were so truly ineffective and the larger cannons so effective, how could the US still get a better than 1:1 ratio against comparably trained USSR pilots who had the acceleration at high altitude to have energy advantages in speed and altitude? If the USA had successfully mounted the 4x20mm package prior to the war, would the kill claims of 792 been true?

 

What is not really clear is exactly why the overclaims were so high. If the rules for making a claim are good, you don't get credit unless reasonably certain from gun camera footage or an independent witness that the aircraft was fatally disabled or completely destroyed. Based on recent studies comparing North Vietnam's claims and losses to the USA's claims and losses, there was very little overclaiming and even some underclaiming of enemy kills. The problem area was identification of the cause of a loss. If in doubt, the USA would claim flak or SAMs, which in a war with relatively few air-to-air fights and losses, artificially inflates the kill to loss ratio.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

streak, 0.50 is fine. Nobody is saying it wasn't. Although there's an interesting story about Vandenberg coming to Okw after the Namsi raid, asking B-29 tail gunners if they wanted cannon. Of course the idea was forgotten as soon as Van left the base.  The stunt was a morale building thing I suppose. Anyways, 0.50s were not the problem there, cos 0.50s are fine.

 

Lets start again with the cannon vs agile fighter: If you don't see the other fella coming, the other fella gets a chance at a good, close range shot, bb gun or 16 inch it doesn't matter.  Most of these kills came unseen.

 

No F-86 evasion ... no F-86 agility.

 

--- -- -

 

Here's one for the 0.50!! One Sabre guy freaked everybody in his squadron by consistently downing non-manuevering MiGs at (maybe) 2 miles, cos he alone realized at 30000ft there is no air to slow down his bullets. The other guys didn't think of that, according to the story. That reminds me of the story of the early astronauts wanting to rendevous flying "upright" but only one astronaut called them out on that -- cos they weren't *flying* - there is no up. The other nauts didn't see it. haha  .. I forgot which naut that was.

 

streak, don't get bent out of shape over kill scores. Its not worth it.  If I read correctly, there was a hushed up scandal of honcho F-86 pilots -- the yalu type maybe -- continuosly bouncing and downing F-86s, cos all the honchos saw was silver swept wings and a MiG score. I wonder what that did to the kill ratios lol.

 

One thing to consider, is USAF went out of its way to classify destroyed aircraft as accidents, well technically you could do that. This is why kill scores and ratios simply don't matter. The Japanese had the best idea early in WW2 of not worrying about kill scores, although its not a popular idea obviously.

[+Gepard 11,356]

The 10:1 myth was born by journalists who were unable to read a statistic carefully. If you look to the official 792 to 78 kill rate then try to find the dates of the timeframe of data. It starts in March or April 1952 when the best and most successfull soviet fighter units were replaced by second line air defence units. What means that a lot of MiG-15 scores were not counted by the USA statistic.

The other fact is the strange kind of kill counting by the US Air Force. A kill was credited if the gun camera showed 6 hits with a 12.7mm machine gun. In the last month of the war the number of "needed hits" to confirm a kill was decreased to 2. A MiG-15 survied easily 6 hits.

On the other side a loss was only an air to air loss if the US plane made a crash on battlefield. If a wounded Sabre was lost on way home, so this loss was counted as caused by technical failure. If it run out of fuel because the tanks were ruptured by MiG fire so it was counted not as loss caused by MiG-15, but as lost caused by run out of fuel. The us Forces were very creative to find other solutions for a loss. My favorit is "collision with unknown object".

Edited June 22, 2014 by Gepard

[Toryu 156]

 

Simply pulling g is being evasive against guns with lower rate of fire and lower muzzle velocities. It takes skilled gunners to pull the necessary lead with the necessary precision to use slow firing, low velocity, heavy cannons. Play any decent WW2 sim and try using German cannons, especially the 30mm versus using 0.50 cals or high velocity Hispano 20mm cannons. 

That is only an issue when someone takes a flawed approach to his attack. Spraying the other guy from half a mile out just doesn't work.

Get in close and fire only when the other guy fills-out your windscreen. That makes sure you hit something. Larger calibers with respective HE-shells need few hits to get the kill done.

 

The trend to larger calibers during the jet-age proves the german, russian, british and japanese approach on caliber-selection right.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Gep::

 

My favorit is "collision with unknown object".

 

We were creative, we were.

 

Gep, +, etc, about collision, I'm looking at F3D2 Skyknight. Neither US nor Russian sources give a Skyknight kill in combat, they agree although the Russian sources don't explicitly state this like US sources....except one odd loss where it looks like a Skynight and MiG-15 collided with a vertical vector component, at night, busting out the Skynight canopy and I suppose the 2 crew.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Lexx_Luthor

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Tor::

 

Get in close

The Star of Africa.

Spraying at long range has some use for the better pilots, in that fire can change behavior in an enemy. Tricking newbie Me-262 pilots into turning instead of jetting away, VVS P-39 pilots starting head on engagements firing the heavy cannon far out of range to scare Luft pilots into turning too early. Air combat, like any man~vs~man combat I suppose, is not just mechanical, but also a psyco thing. The better pilots figured out psyco air warfare.

Also comes to mind, the downing of yalu honcho Harold Fischer, zipping low over a Chinese base while an invisible (not silver) MiG comes down and fluffs him. Han Decai (sp?) is generally credited, although Russians dispute this. Decai was brand new, out of training, his first kill, but no deflection shot needed. As usual, an unseen kill, no legendary F-86 agility for miles around, cos legendary Fischer wasn't being agile, nor watchful. They met up in China sometime in the 1990s.

[Toryu 156]

The percentage of people that are able to do that is in the single-digit range. Everybody else is just happy when they eventually hit a barn-door.

Thus, there is no need for weaponry that favours those long-range shots. Instead, make sure that as few hits as possible send the other guy down in flames. That is achieved with larger calibrs and more chemical energy.

 

Israeli pilots converting from Mirages to Phantoms thought the M61 was inferior, compared to the DEFA guns. The M61 had a better spray-pattern, but it lost in both, chemical energy and firing-time.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Yes, not all pilots knew, but interestingly, notice that the psycho spray was useful no matter the shell size, P-47s and 0.50s with tracers that escaping Me-262 pilots can see and then panic into turning, or giant 37mm the Soviets used since they knew Bf-109 pilots feared that shell.

[Toryu 156]

 

Yes, not all pilots knew, but interestingly, notice that the psycho spray was useful no matter the shell size, P-47s and 0.50s with tracers that escaping Me-262 pilots can see and then panic into turning, or giant 37mm the Soviets used since they knew Bf-109 pilots feared that shell.

 

I wouldn't put too much into those "force to turn"-stories. You don't know anything about the 262's fuel-state. Maybe they had to get away from their pursuers in order to land. Landing the 262 wasn't all that much of an easy thing with constant enemy fighter CAPs above your airfield. Mix in a long, flat approach (thanks to Mtt. forgetting to put airbrakes on that thing) and you'll have a nice-heart rate.

There was no place to run for a 262-pilot.

 

Also, the russians liked to tell stories. The 37mm *could* possibly penetrate the DB60x in a head-on attack and thus the pilot wasn't safe behind it. Anyway, spraying the liquid-cooled engine with any caliber, you'll drastically shorten the remaining flight-time of the 109 due to the engine overheating after losing all it's coolant. Head-on attacks are not for the faint-hearted and pilots usually tried to avoid them for two reasons:

- collision-avoidance (target-fixiation is a bad thing)

- your chances are reduced, as the other guy actually gets to shoot back at you!

 

Again, only really experienced/ self-assured pilots would attack in head-ons. The number of those is probably single-digit as well, as many "old" pilots tended to not be too bold (I had to put that saying in here - sorry!    ). Many successful german pilots would be rather conservative in chosing when to attack and when to not accept a fight.

You CAN be more aggressive (especially american pilots seemed to be a bit more on the aggressive side), but surviving a couple of hundred to a few thousand missions against numerical/ qualitative superiority won't be granted...

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Tor::

 

I wouldn't put too much into those "force to turn"-stories. You don't know anything about the 262's fuel-state. Maybe they had to get away from their pursuers in order to land.

 

Increasing separation is a basic fighting tactic -- think "smart" F-4 vs MiG-17 -- and is what Me-262 should have tried to do with their speed advantage, hence the attempts at psycho spray in case some 262 pilots fell for it, and turned hard, and threw away their separation and acceleration.

 

I-16 pilots loved head on, I suppose mainly they were personally protected by that cyclone, and otherwise didn't have the performance (post 22 June) to get tail on as often as they would have liked.

 

Germans had alot of free range hunting duty available, while the Soviet pilots were like, escort and protect, or get arrested. Forced to close protect bombers, a core VVS escort tactic was to turn and fire across the path of Luft fighters trying to attack bombers, for distraction and/or fear purpose, although the occasional hit was certainly enjoyed; another example of psycho air warfare.

[+streakeagle 871]

Where on Earth is the info showing that the US claimed kills based on 2-6 hits of 0.50 cal on gun camera footage? The 792 to 78 ratio is a simple total of official "verified" MiG-15 kill claims versus official admitted F-86s for the entire war, not one specific time period. When the "official" USAF numbers are used over time periods, it gets pretty ugly for the USAF during the final months. The USAF was flying predictably and the MiGs adjusted their tactics to spank them bad, diving from above to catch aircraft departing with low fuel.

 

My focus on the 0.50 cals "ineffectiveness" is against the Russian pilot's bragging about MiG-15s watching the 0.50 cals bounce off of them, which is an easy way to explain how the USAF thought they got 792 kills when they only fatally destroyed about 200. But that would indicate a really poor standard of verifying a claim. In Vietnam, someone had to witness the target hit the ground or enter a cloud in a non-recoverable attitude/altitude, such as vertical at low level, or the gun camera had to show fatal crippling such as wings being blown off or the pilot ejecting. A lot were verified by calling out visuals on the parachutes of the downed pilots.

 

Given the similarity in the appearance of the F-86 and MiG-15, I could believe that there were more than a few confused situations that would have made friendly fire likely. I would hate to think that it actually resulted in downed aircraft more than a handful of times.

 

As my Vietnam era aircraft/aces Osprey library is nearly complete, I am going to start collecting the Korean era aircraft/aces books and get more up to date analysis as well as some entertaining anecdotes. Osprey books may not be perfect, but there are few other sources that go into such detail about each enagement. I just got the USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere duel book and was thoroughly impressed by the quality and quantity of information concentrated in such a small book in a format that was easy and entertaining to read. I had previously read every book I could get my hands on about the USS Constitution and "Preble's Boys" and still learned quite a bit more.

[Toryu 156]

 

Increasing separation is a basic fighting tactic -- think "smart" F-4 vs MiG-17 -- and is what Me-262 should have tried to do with their speed advantage, hence the attempts at psycho spray in case some 262 pilots fell for it, and turned hard, and threw away their separation and acceleration.

Look at the average experience of the plain-vanilla 262-driver in 1944 or '45* and then compare that with the expertise and determination that went into the ACM-programme that taught pilots how to employ the F-4 as a fighter. It took nearly a decade before pilots on a broad basis learned to fly the F-4 effectively. Only some squadrons had made their own efforts into that direction - with mixed results. IIRC, there were over 100 F-4s lost due to loss of control in the first 10 years of service accorss the three branches of US-service, flying the F-4.

 

The Luftwaffe never had a similar programme during the war. All the experience was on squadron-level and older, more experienced pilots showed the green guys how to fly. With new tactics arising in jets, there was no experience to dwell on.

 

 

I-16 pilots loved head on, I suppose mainly they were personally protected by that cyclone, and otherwise didn't have the performance (post 22 June) to get tail on as often as they would have liked.

 

I think the performance-difference was the main reason for this tactic. This way, they at least got to shoot at some other guy every once in a while.

Being a soviet fighter-pilot in 1941 was not a nice job.

 

 

But that would indicate a really poor standard of verifying a claim.

Did they use the same standards as in WW2?

Then again, if propaganda ("becoming a hero") and promotion favoured fighter-pilots and air-kills, then it's nothing out of the ordinary to have an increased amount of kill-claims.

The romantisation of fighter-pilots has ever-since been out of proportion. Unless you shoot-down a bomber that is out to nuke a city, killing a single plane is way less influential to the outcome of war than flying a good CAS or strike-mission.

 

_

* Most JV44 pilots found it difficult to employ effective tactics in the 262, as the speed-difference was so large to other aircraft. In jet vs jet fights, that issue was resolved, and new tactics evolved that could cope with the vast range of specific excess-powers available to different fighters. The "unload and separate"-maneuver is not specifically new (should be a no-brainer to think of that), but nobody really approached dogfights on a scientific base until the mid-sixties, when beople started taking an energy-approach to get rid of the vast speed-differences and differences in turn-rates.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Toryu

[+Gepard 11,356]

Germans had alot of free range hunting duty available, while the Soviet pilots were like, escort and protect, or get arrested.

 

Free hunt missions, in NATO slang CAP was a very common mission type of the soviet fighter units in WW2. The soviet fighter pilots may not have had the same high scores as the germans, but they had higher scores than the british and american fighter pilots. And even in Korea the soviet top scorers had more kills than the american top scorers.

 

 

My focus on the 0.50 cals "ineffectiveness" is against the Russian pilot's bragging about MiG-15s watching the 0.50 cals bounce off of them,

 

The skin of a MiG-15 is thin aluminium. There is nothing for a bullit to bounce. In contrary, the 12.7mm bullits penetrated easily the skin of a MiG-15, but the damage inside the plane was minimal. So a MiG-15 could easily "eat" 40 or 50 rounds. The most number of survived hits was over 200.

The only chance to kill a MiG-15 with one or two bullits was to hit the pilot.

 

Here two pictures which show the different destruction power of the guns

 

Here a F-86F hit by one 23mm shell. Pilot R.J. Dixon 1953

 

 

Here a MiG-15bis hit by a couple of shells. I have counted 19. It could be more.

 

Edited June 25, 2014 by Gepard

[Toryu 156]

 

Free hunt missions, in NATO slang CAP was a very common mission type of the soviet fighter units in WW2.

CAP is not "Freie Jagd" - that would be "Fighter-Sweep". CAP is a racetrack-shaped patrol-pattern around a certain point/ area.

Fighter-Sweep is more like going on a free tour and shooting up stuff (in the air and on the ground if nobody comes up to fight).

 

 

The most number of survived hits was over 200.

Sorry, but that's BS.

200 holes (mostly of shrapnel) - maybe.

But certainly not 200 cal-50 hits.

 

That's also valid for the stories of P-47s coming home with several dozens of 20mm-strikes. 

Edited June 25, 2014 by Toryu

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

streak, you need Earl McGill's Namsi raid book, his squadron was up at bat afterwards on the runway when they cancelled day missions. Also, Xiaoming Zhang's Red Wings Yalu book, about Chinese not Soviet, which I found didn't focus on kill scores (thankfully), but more on the psyco aspect, like Stalin and Mao never really trusted each other, typical of the authoritarian type, but still interesting view from the other side of the river. I gather the Chinese did VERY well considering they had only about 2 years to go from putt-putt around in a handful of Ki-43s to flying against F-86s. They had the enthusiasm, aggressiveness, and good yet short training, but sorely lacked decades of institutional air war culture that the other air forces in Korea had developed. Air war is a psyco, and a cultural thing, which is forgotten in the focus on shell size.

 

toryu, I disagree. SE-5 and SPAD pilots knew about energy, and knew how to use it. AVG pilots knew, well, that is, after they ignored Chenault's advice in their first combat and found they had to convert their turns into dives to escape death from A5M4. The old time pilots knew all this stuff, decades before the 1960s. Yes it was forgotten for a few years in the 1950s perhaps. The first time I saw "ooda loop" I thought it was some deprecated FORTRAN 66 statement.

 

 

[Toryu 156]

The OLD pilots knew about it.

In 1945, there were few old pilots left - the Luftwaffe consisted mostly of unexperienced pilots that had only few hours and barely knew the normal-flight procedures (fun fact: the Luftwaffe did not use check-lists!) of their operational aircraft. In order to grasp the idea of energy-fighting, one has to fly a couple of sorties, seeing it's impact at first hand. In 1945, there was not enough fuel, nor was there enough time and ressources to be wasted on training missions at the front-line squadrons. 

 

In Korea, there were lots of WW2-experienced pilots around to dwell on. They also had made-up squadron-structures that allowed for training dogfights. Hence the high quality of the average pilot. Pilots just out of training weren't quite that hot.

After Korea, with crash-numbers mounting (the macho-behaviour that many pilots hat at those times was not exactly safe), dogfighting got out of favour and the intercept-culture was more and more forced upon fighter-squadrons. That was understandable from a safety (i.e. "peace-time flying") point of view. What safes aircraft under peace-circumstances might cost you a lot of aircraft in actual fighting.

 

It took a while for that lesson to sink in and for results happening - see Top Gun and other specialized training institutions..

 

 

 

Air war is a psyco, and a cultural thing, which is forgotten in the focus on shell size.

Training is a cultural thing - cultures that are less likely to accept criticism (albeit constructive criticism), are more likely to suck at flying. No matter if it's safety-culture in civil aviation, or fighting-efficiency in military flying.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Toryu

[BasilBarfly 2]

Greetings,

I have a website as a reference for combat aircraft and a page devoted to the Korean Conflict.  I have done some research to develop this page and created pages for each of the major aircraft involved. I hope you like.

 

BasilBarfly

http://www.warintheskies.com/aircraft/Korea.html

Edited July 9, 2014 by BasilBarfly