Re:The one time North Vietnam’s MiGs attacked U.S. navy wars...
by nl on Sunday April 24, 2022 @03:44AM
(#31142039)
> Another remarkable thing is how well the Vietnamese air force did against the Americans. They even had fighter aces and scored a lot of air-to-air kills!
It wasn't until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990's that American aircraft became irrefutably better than Soviet aircraft, and a lot of that was better systems rather than better the aircraft themselves.
During the Korean war, the Mig15 dominated until the US sent their new F-86 Sabre fighter. The US Airforce claimed a 10:1 kill ratio of F-86 vs Mig15, but in reality it was more like 2:1:
> More recent research by Dorr, Lake and Thompson however has claimed the actual F-86 v MiG-15 kill ratio is closer to 2 to 1.[365] A recent RAND report[366] 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 to 1 overall, and likely closer to 1.3 to 1 against MiGs flown by Soviet pilots[1]
During the Vietnam war the Mig17 was much better than the F105 fighter bomber. The Mig21 was probably the equal of the F4 Phantom, but the North Vietnamese got ambushed by F4s when they were expecting F105s and lost a lot of their airforce.
Outside Vietnam, most US vs Soviet aircraft fighting was in the various Israeli/Arab wars. But the Israelis were just much better trained pilots as their kill ratio in anything from Mirages to F16s shows.
It wasn't until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990's that American aircraft became irrefutably better than Soviet aircraft, and a lot of that was better systems rather than better the aircraft themselves.
During the Korean war, the Mig15 dominated until the US sent their new F-86 Sabre fighter. The US Airforce claimed a 10:1 kill ratio of F-86 vs Mig15, but in reality it was more like 2:1:
> More recent research by Dorr, Lake and Thompson however has claimed the actual F-86 v MiG-15 kill ratio is closer to 2 to 1.[365] A recent RAND report[366] 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 to 1 overall, and likely closer to 1.3 to 1 against MiGs flown by Soviet pilots[1]
During the Vietnam war the Mig17 was much better than the F105 fighter bomber. The Mig21 was probably the equal of the F4 Phantom, but the North Vietnamese got ambushed by F4s when they were expecting F105s and lost a lot of their airforce.
Outside Vietnam, most US vs Soviet aircraft fighting was in the various Israeli/Arab wars. But the Israelis were just much better trained pilots as their kill ratio in anything from Mirages to F16s shows.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Aerial_warfare