Originally posted by dooper
reply to post by rufusdrak

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My friend, you were mistaken. There certainly were Russian pilots in Korea. Russia wanted to do two things. Reduce the lop-sides losses of their aircraft, and acquire data on the F-86 Sabre, and how the MIG's would do while comparing highly experienced pilots against highly experienced pilots. Your denial does not negate the facts. And I never suggested that the Korean War was American against Russian. You came up with that. But it did demonstrate American equipment against Russian equipment.

Since we have few examples of Russians against Americans, we must go to the second and third tiers, or client states to match Soviet military equipment and practice against American equipment and practice.

And yes, the Soviet Union got kicked out of Afghanistan. I do not consider Wickipedia a good, authoritative source. It's good for general information, not very good for definitive historical knowlege. We all know what happened in Afghanistan to the Soviets, so let's just admit the truth, supported by the facts, and move on.

Americans did suffer 60,000 dead from 1963-1975, and by 1972, Americans were slaughtering NVA every time they met. And not only Chinese, but Russians were there too. I sold the pistol I took off the Chinese major, but I still have the coin from the Russian I killed in the field on another occasion. Both were advisors.

I stand by my comments on the Russian military's behavior in the Second World War. The reason Russia may have been surprised was the deal they made with the devil to mutually attack and carve up Poland. Russian greed for Polish land by surprise attack was paid in full when Russia was in turn surprised. Fun, isn't it?

Now that you've brought up the Finns, let's look at that a bit closer. When Russia attacked the small country of Finland in late 1940, the vastly outnumbered Finns handed the Russians their own heads. In one area alone, the Finns, outnumbered 4:1 slaughtered Russians. Of the Russian force of one tank brigade and two divisions totaling 50,000 men, the smaller Finn force of 10,000 men killed 27,500 Russians, had 2,100 taken prisoner, and lost 43 tanks against 650 Finns killed. The Russian 44th Division was destroyed by only 300 Finns. And that was on the Russian border! Again, Russia attacked a smaller country and got a good asswhipping. You think they'd really do better against Israel, who isn't right there, handy to reach?

My ignorance, as you suggested, apparently isn't nearly as great as yours.

And your comment on the greatness of the T-34 tank. Yes. It was a great tank. Based on the American Christie design, which the Russians bought a couple of, and then went home to copy and modify. Like how they get a lot of their technology.

And no, the T-34 didn't win the Second World War. Americans and British were knocking out Tigers and Panzers without T-34's. Wonder how that happened?

While the Sabres proved their superiority over the MiG when it was flown by Chinese and North Korean pilots, when the U.S. fighter went up against MiGs manned by Russians who were also veteran aces of the Second World War - as were many U.S. Sabre pilots - it was a different kettle of fish. The Russians of the 324th IAD (the first unit to enter combat) were commanded by no less that COL GEN Ivan Kozhedub, with 62 victories the Allied Ace of Aces of the Second World War; in fact, we now know that the Ace of Aces of the Korean War was not 16-victory ace Captain Joseph McConnell of the 51st FIW, but rather COL Yevgeny Pepelyaev, CO of the 196th Guards Fighter Regiment, a fierce believer in the adage "train hard, fight easy" who strove "to meet the American standard" with his pilots. During his 6-month tour in 1951, Peplyaev claimed 23 of the 104 victories scored by the 196th IAP.

Sergei Karamenko, a 13-victory MiG ace (on top of 12 WW2 victories), described combat between Sabres and MiGs thus: "The Sabre was the most dangerous threat to my friends and I in Korean skies. Our MiG-15 and the F-86 Sabre belonged in the same class, similar types with similar performance. They differed only in that the MiG had an advantage in rate of climb at altitude, while the Sabre was superior in maneuvering, especially at low level. These advantages could not always be used, however. The fight, as a rule, was decided in the first attack. After the first pass, we reached for altitude, while the Sabres rushed for the ground. Each tried to reach the altitude where it held a distinct advantage, and thus the battle faded."

Revised figures place USAF claims against the MiG-15 at 375, with admitted F-86 losses of 103, giving a 3.5:1 kill ratio. This is lower than the wartime claim of 10:1, but still very respectable.

members.aol.com...

Do we know today who "Casey Jones" was? YES, and Hinton's suspicions about his identity were right; he was not an Oriental. He was Sergei Makarovich Kramarenko, a member of the 176th GIAP (Guards Fighter Regiment) of the 324th IAD (Fighter Division) of the Voyenno Vozdushnye Sily, the Soviet Air Force. Actually Eagleston became the third aerial victory of Kapetan Sergei Kramarenko, who had shot down one F-80C on April 12 1951 and one F-86 on June 2. The score of that outstanding Russian pilot kept on rising, to 13 kills. On July 11 shot down the F-86A of Conrad Allard (KIA, despite the USAF sources credit the loss to "disorientation during a ferry flight") and on July 29 1951 bagged the F-86A BuNo 49-1098, which made him the First Ace of the Korean War and the First Jet-vs-Jet Ace of the History.

During the time that the "Honchos" (the nickname given by the Sabre pilots to excellent MiG pilots) were in Korea, between April 1951 and January 1952, they shot down or damaged beyond repair 158 UN aircraft against 68 losses, an overall 2:1 kill ratio. Their most successful month was October 1951, when the Soviet MiG-15s bagged 8 F-86s, 6 F-84Es, 2 RF-80As and one F-80C, one Meteor and 10 B-29As -25 victories- and suffered only 8 MiGs lost, achieving a 3:1 kill-to-losses ratio. During that period over 30 Soviet MiG-15 pilots became aces, among them Nikolai Sutyagin (21 kills); and also Yevgeni Pepelyayev (19), Lev Shchukin (17), the already mentioned Sergei Kramarenko (13), Mikhail Ponomaryev (11), Dmitri Samoylov (10), etc.

www.acepilots.com...

"The Sabre's combat record in Korea was, by any standards, impressive. Of the 900 aerial victories claimed by USAF pilots during the war, 792 were MiG-15s shot down by Sabres. The MiGs in their turn managed to knock down only 78 Sabres. American fighter pilots thus established a ten-to-one kill/loss ration in their favor.

The war in Viet Nam until after the Tet of 1968 was a guerilla war of Viet Cong in the South. It wasn't until 1972 that North Vietnames regulars entered the fray, and they in turn were shredded/destroyed.

The Russians have never done all that well against anyone but Nazi Germany who was fighting a war on three sides, outnumbered significantly.

And the Germans still managed to eat up millions of Russians. Russians, when defending their homeland are tough, but they never do well when required to attack across their borders.

Originally posted by dooper
reply to post by StellarX

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When the Americans began using Sabres, the results were in fact lop-sided. If you want to call 3.5:1 even, then we disagree on what even is.

Each plane had superiorities. Therefore, each group used different tactics to maximize those advantages. In a steep dive for example, often the MIG couldn't pull out.

I disagree that you can't compare the equipment in the hands of second or third tier groups. One may consider client states of each side as second or third tiers, thus the equipment will more fully account for itself. Keep in mind, the Soviets primarily in the 60's and 70's were often sharing tactical use of these weapons systems, that were in turn based on Soviet practice. In the Middle East, this was often a test bed for some of their first-line technology. Consider the effectiveness of Soviet equipment and tactics in the early hours of the Yom Kippur War.

The last American combat forces left Viet Nam in 1972, right after slaughtering the NVA during their Easter Offensive. Wholesale. Right after the North Vietnames pressed for a peace agreement, just prior to being bombed back toward the Stone Age. You're mistaken in the fall of Siagon, and how we got our embassy personnel out. That evacuation was not because we had fought back to our last redoubt.

And you're wrong that the US backed factions in Afghanistan that had the most to lose. We backed those who were taking the fight to the Soviets. Besides, the Russians did it to us in Viet Nam, and it was the least we could do to return the favor. Payback can be a bitch.

And I don't have any idea how many Russians or Chinese were in Viet Nam as either observers or advisors. I just know of one each. Our (my) operations? Long range patrols and ambushes.

Either way, Russia made their deal with Hitler. My only point there was that they got it right in the neck in turn.

You miss my point about the Finns. The technological advances of Russia over the past sixty years count for nothing. Others have advanced as well. And they can be consumed by a more highly trained, more motivated, but much smaller force. That's all through history, and kill ratios of superior numbers with similar equipment and weapons reaches 400:1.

If not for mass, the Russians are in deep trouble. (Nuclear weapons aside.)

Consider recently that the Syrians, using Russian air defense detection and shoot-down technology had their airspace penetrated and some mysterious facility (mysterious that neither Syria bitched about it, nor did Israel brag about it) was destroyed by air. And recently, when Russia went against little Georgia, they lost aircraft. Just imagine what would happen if the US gave them the good stuff.

I stand by my statement. The Russian T-34 most certainly was based on the Christie design, which the Russians bought a couple of.

And you are mistaken. I've personally talked to American tankers, and they talked about how they would have to gang-tackle a Tiger, often six at a time. But they killed them. The lesser Panzers were much easier, according to the tankers. Fact.

Originally posted by dooper
reply to post by wantawanta

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Your knowledge of history is only exceeded by your command of the English language and a keyboard.

Originally posted by rufusdrak
reply to post by dooper

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Many misconceptions and outright lies in your post.

First of all there weren't that many russian pilots if any at all in Korea, yet you are making that war out to be as if it was against Russia, sorry it wasn't it was against a highly inferior trained North Korean force with inferior equipment.
You keep using examples of Israel or other countries fighting countries armed with outdated soviet equipment and you make it seem as if that's some sort of testament as to Russia's actual combat effectiveness. Sorry that argument holds no water.
You said Soviet Union got beat up and kicked out of Afghanistan. Sorry can you name your sources please? Because that's not quite accurate. Soviet Union suffered 15,000 losses while Afghans suffered 2,000,000+ Russia left when it chose to leave and on its way out won a big battle to 'end its occupation with a symbolic victory' as quoted in wikipedia. Don't believe me go read up on it again. It's nothing compared to the slaughter Americans suffered in vietnam with 60,000 dead, now THAT'S an ass kicking.
Lastly, your entire argument keeps anchoring on the fact that Israel will win when the U.S. saves them, this thread isn't about a 2 on 1 it clearly asks Israel vs Russia. If you want to include tag team why don't you say who will win Russia + China vs. U.S. vs Israel? In either case Russia would be the clear and easy victor.

p.s. your comments on WW2 are greatly misinformed as well. The eastern front had by far the most German forces and their most elite forces of the entire entire war. Secondly, not only did Germany launch a surprise attack so Russia wasn't prepared but it wasn't just Germany attacking they had other countries helping out the Finns, etc. And on top of that it's not like Russia had all of its forces initially at the eastern front in fact half of Russia's forces were on the EAST COAST of Russia, i.e. Vladisvostok because they were anticipating a Japanese attack from the rear. But when the famed Russian spy (considered the greatest spy of all time) who spied on Japan finally convinced Stalin with his reports that Japan was not going to attack UNTIL AFTER Germans captured Moscow, that's when Russia quickly began shipping hordes of elite Siberian troops from the east to help defend Moscow, Stalingrad etc.
No offense to you I'm sure you're just being patriotic, but it simply makes you look ignorant when you speak on historical events without knowing the actual facts.
One last case in point if you don't believe me: Coincidentally just today on military/history/discovery channel (I forget which one of those exactly) was the show top 10 greatest tanks of all time. #1 tank of all time was the Russian T-34 and multiple historians on the show said that the ingenius and revolutionary design of the tank led to the breaking of the German army's back because the tank was the only thing on earth that could stand up to and defeat the up to then unstoppable German Panthers and Tigers. And the historians noted it was the single biggest reason for the turn around of the entire war and that if it wasn't for the T-34 being produced Germany might have won the war and you would have been speaking German right now.