Modern Vietnamese's AD systems include the S-300. The S-400 was only exported to China.
US Aircraft Losses over Vietnam
- Thread starter Izzy1
- Start date
S-400 EXPORTED??? Lol. S-400 is not exported anywhere, and will be not for several years at least.
Of course they didnt. Only undeniable loss for USA would be NV tanks in Washington, that couldnt happen no matter what anyway. There is also no question what USA could steamroll NV if they would declare full scale war and allocate ALL resources. Simply becouse USA is much, much bigger. But USA failed to achieve claimed objectives, completely failed. In most definitions it is consdered lost war.
US aircraft losses in Vietnam are very accurately recorded, & details are publicly available. The only areas of uncertainty are the exact causes, & in some cases locations, of losses.
Here are U.S's losses. Btw, N Vietnam fired a total of 5885 SAMs, this number from the Vietnamese sources, not from some Westerners. As for the number of aircrafts losses by N Vietnam, I have no figures of this but the total number of combat aircrafts that N Vietnam had for the entire war numbered no more than 200.
Last edited:
Lancer1978
New Member
US air losses (claimed)
:nutkick With all do respect, according to the North Vietnamese and the Russian's the actual number of US airccaft shot down over Vietnam, was 4,181. In most cases backed up weckage. This does not count helicopters! Also its worth note that both the Russians and Vietnamese state the excellance of Vietnamese People's Army Air Force; and that Migs downed aircraft then SAMs. For example the VPAAF claims that Mig-21's downed 320 US aircraft; including 110 F-4 for the admitted loss of 54 Mig-21s. At least 13 airmen became aces flying Fishbeds. Thats a 6 to 1 kill ratio in favor Mig-21 overall, and a 2 to 1 ratio against the best America fighter at that time. Great job VPAAF! viva la Vietnam.
:nutkick With all do respect, according to the North Vietnamese and the Russian's the actual number of US airccaft shot down over Vietnam, was 4,181. In most cases backed up weckage. This does not count helicopters! Also its worth note that both the Russians and Vietnamese state the excellance of Vietnamese People's Army Air Force; and that Migs downed aircraft then SAMs. For example the VPAAF claims that Mig-21's downed 320 US aircraft; including 110 F-4 for the admitted loss of 54 Mig-21s. At least 13 airmen became aces flying Fishbeds. Thats a 6 to 1 kill ratio in favor Mig-21 overall, and a 2 to 1 ratio against the best America fighter at that time. Great job VPAAF! viva la Vietnam.
Interesting that you assume the N. Vietnamese published figures are accurate, & that the Americans lied about their own losses. Care to explain why?
The way an air force confirms/verifies kills varies among countries. I recall for example that the Luftwaffe's kill verification wasn't as quite stringent as the allies, so their pilots were credited with kills that might have been "probable" for the allies. Not that it matters, Hartman, Marseille, and the rest probably would have been legendary whatever the method of crediting kills.
Why?
Most of the high scores by German pilots are hard to achieve for allied pilots.
Not because they were better but when one starts to fly fighters at the beginning of WWII and go on flying till it ends or till you die you just have a lot more opportunities to make kills than the usual allied pilot.
Most of the high scores by German pilots are hard to achieve for allied pilots.
Not because they were better but when one starts to fly fighters at the beginning of WWII and go on flying till it ends or till you die you just have a lot more opportunities to make kills than the usual allied pilot.
The Allies had different kill verification systems, & their application varied from time to time & place to place. British & American got better as the war went on, German got worse, but remained better than Soviet, IIRC. I remember an interesting point someone once made: claims tend to be more accurate when an air force is winning than when it's losing. This can be seen in WW2 in both Europe & the Pacific, & on both sides.
RAF kill verification in the BoB was terrible. The RAF made no attempt to cross-check claims against the Ministry of Aircraft Production data on recovered German wrecks, for example. The USAAF was even worse when it first started operating over Europe. Partly this was political: high claims were good for morale, & trying too hard to verify them was not encouraged.
The best kill checking I know of was the USA over Vietnam.
The Nth Vietnamese also used to count Firebees in their aircraft kills.
The Serbs included UAVs (most of what they shot down . . . ) in their claims of aircraft shot down in the Kosovo affair.The Nth Vietnamese also used to count Firebees in their aircraft kills.
Lancer1978
New Member
[[quoteswerve122081]The best kill checking I know of was the USA over Vietnam.[/quote]
Swerve I have disagree with you on this; during the Vietnam war the United States claims to have shoot down 193 VPAAF aircaft. The North Vietnamese only admit losimg 134 and at least several of them were downed by friendly fire. So that works out to about 70% accuracy, not very good.
Some in exceptional cases of accuracy that I can think are the Finnish AF in WW2 and the Polish AF during the 1939 campaign. In both cases their respective adersaries the Red AF and Luftwaffe admit losing slightly more planes to enemy aircaft then they claimed. Thats over 100% accurate!
Swerve I have disagree with you on this; during the Vietnam war the United States claims to have shoot down 193 VPAAF aircaft. The North Vietnamese only admit losimg 134 and at least several of them were downed by friendly fire. So that works out to about 70% accuracy, not very good.
Some in exceptional cases of accuracy that I can think are the Finnish AF in WW2 and the Polish AF during the 1939 campaign. In both cases their respective adersaries the Red AF and Luftwaffe admit losing slightly more planes to enemy aircaft then they claimed. Thats over 100% accurate!
Last edited:
Lancer1978
New Member
I ask you why do assume that they are not accurate? Are Americans inherently more honest then Vietnamese or Russians? I don't think so. There are always two sides to a story. Often people forget that and I thought someone should mention the other prospective. I have studied the Vietnamese People's Army Air Force;and in my opinion, as well the Russians and the Americans the VPAAF is a well trained, professional AF. So why would I write off their claims. Like most air arms VPAAF pliots needed to meet at least 2 of 3 criteria; produce gun camra footage, eyes witness or weakage to get a confirmed kill. These were meretriciously scrutinized, for historic record and propaganda; as well providing empirical proof of effective defense to their Soviet and Chinese advisers.
Also while I have utmost respect for the American fighting men and women, do I trust the US governments word? "NO" The US gov. lied and did plenty of underhanded things during Vietnam War era, for example the fabricated attacks by torpedo boats in the gulf of Tonkin, or the CIA backed coup and assination of South Vietnam's Presdent Diem. Would I put lying about Aircraft losses and/or their causes above them? NO
Thank You
Last edited:
Swerve I have disagree with you on this; during the Vietnam war the United States claims to have shoot down 193 VPAAF aircaft. The North Vietnamese only admit losimg 134 and at least several of them were downed by friendly fire. So that works out to about 70% accuracy, not very good.[/QUOTE]
Much better than most, even if not quite as good as the other examples you cited.
I'm not assuming greater honesty on one side or the other, though you seem to. If we assume equal honesty, we must assume US statistics on own losses to be more accurate than N. Vietnamese claims. They know what they lost. Sometimes, they did not know the cause, & they may have a loss attributed to ground fire, or unknown, which was actually in air-air combat. Cross-checking N. Vietnamese & US records has identified the causes of many US losses, but also shows that many claims do not correspond to a loss, & that multiple claims sometimes correspond to a single loss.
One need not assume N. Vietnamese dishonesty for this to be so. It is notoriously difficult to work out exactly what happened after an air combat. Things happen fast. In one case written up (IIRC) by Toperczer, an F-8 was last seen by the N. Vietnamese trailing smoke & going down over the DMZ. It was perfectly reasonable to assume it was shot down. It actually landed, damaged but still (just) flyable, at an airfield in S. Vietnam, & was repaired & returned to service, by which time the pilot (uninjured) had been back in action for weeks. AFAIK, that's still logged as a kill for the VPAAF pilot.
As for the accuracy of US statistics: the USA was not, in the 1960s, a society in which it was possible to conceal the losses of aircrew, & there is no evidence of falsification of USAF & USN records of aircraft losses, which are far more open than those of N. Vietnam.