|
|
|
Subject:
RE:MiG-29 Fulcrums in USA's hands! Artyom
sentinel28a
1/9/2004 3:59:10 PM
|
| I doubt Artyom is even checking this category, but here's my list of North Vietnamese/American air to air kills during Vietnam. (I'm writing my graduate thesis on this, so bear with me...I get all warm inside when I can actually use 4 years of research.)
US Kills: 190
VPAF Kills: 92
The VPAF claims about 150-160 kills, but their records are highly unreliable. For instance, the VPAF would claim having shot a F-4 down over Hanoi on such and such date. Looking at official American records, you find that there were no aircraft lost on that date anywhere in Southeast Asia, or that there was a F-4 lost, but it was over the DMZ, where there were no MiGs. Remember that postwar American records have nothing to hide; it is freely admitted that the US lost droves of aircraft to SAMs, flak, and small arms. Artyom's figure is accurate--IF you count all losses to all causes over the entire theater of war.
American kill claims are generally accurate, as they had an extremely detailed method of verifying kills. Even so, I've found three instances (so far) of VPAF MiGs that got home despite being claimed as kills.
Given the disadvantages the VPAF was operating under, 92 kills against the most technologically advanced culture on the planet at the time was no small feat. |
| |
|
|
|
