US Aircraft Losses over Vietnam

[Lancer1978]

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.

Ok, if we assume equal honesty on both sides;then the Vietnamese still come out better. The United States claims to have downed 193 Vietnamese aricraft; yet the Vietnamese admit losing 134. Thats an accuracy of about 70% for the US. For their part the Vietnamese claim to have downed 4,181 US aircraft; while the US admits to losing 3,720. That eqauls an accuracy of 89% pretty good by any standard. These numbers seem back up a an excellant statment made by you on a previous post; "that the losing side tends to be less accurate, then the winning side."

I assume that you are referring to a comfirmed kill on April 3rd, 1965 credited to a Mig-17F flown by Pham Ngoc Lan against an F-8E Crusader flown by Lt. Cdr. Spencer Thomas. The F-8E although badly shot up by the Mig; did infact make an emergancy landing at Da Nang. However it still met the VPAAF criteria for a comfirmed kill; the gun camra cleary showed the Mig scoring hits on the F-8 and there were witness both in the air and on the ground. So it was reasonable assume to the F-8 was downed, and the kill was confirmed in good faith.

As for US the being a society that could conceal aircraft losses I disagree with you on this. If I were to list all of the things that the US gov. lied about, concealed, and distorted during the 60's anf 70's it could fill another site! So their record speaks against them in my opinion. They have motivation to distort their losses; the Vietnam war is sore spot, which scares the American psyche and the war was extremly unpopular at home. So while I dont know for a fact that the US gov. intentionaly lied about or disturted aircraft losses. I am saying given its track record and motivation, that it is possible and perhaps even likey!

Thank you

 

[Todjaeger]

I assume that you are refiring to a comfirmed kill on April 3rd, 1965 credited to a Mig-17F flown by Pham Ngoc Lan against an F-8E Crusader flown by Lt. Cdr. Spencer Thomas. The F-8E although badly dameged up by the Mig; did infact make an emergancy landing at Da Nang. However it still met the VPAAF criteria for a comfirmed kill; the gun camra cleary showed the Mig scoring hits on the F-8 and there were witness both in the air and on the ground. So it was reasonable assume to the F-8 was downed, and the kill was confirmed in good faith.

This instance illustrates an important point to keep in mind during any discussion of aircraft kills or losses between countries and conflicts. That point is namely what is considered a kill or loss, if different sides and/or in different conflicts different standards are used, that can makes statements, claims or assumptions misleading. Similarly, judging the accuracy of kill/loss claims by comparing the numbers from the opposing side(s) does not give a true picture since without honest and accurate record keeping on both sides, great dissimilarities from the absolute and correct numbers will appear. If as mentioned, differing standards for kills/losses are used, then any depiction of accuracy will be further divergent from reality.

In the case of the Vietnam War, it is quite possible that on the US side there was some inflation of kill claims achieved, much like the body count claims sometimes being based off the number of rounds fired as opposed to bodies recovered. By the same token and for similar reasons of propaganda, it is quite possible that North Vietnam overstated how many kills were achieved by their air defence apparatus.

If the standards used to define a claim were to be examined and found comparable and then comparisons and contrasts were made to each claim made by either side as well as any before and after aircraft inventories, then perhaps something close to the correct number of losses would emerge.

-Cheers

 

[swerve]

...

As for US the being a society that could conceal aircraft losses I disagree with you on this. ...

Thank you

What I actually said was that the USA could not conceal aircrew losses. The most that could be done was to conceal the causes of deaths, & systematic falsification of the causes of death of aircrew would have shown up very quickly. There are people who trawl through local newspapers looking for death notices, y'know.

I think short-term concealment of aircraft losses would have been possible, but not long-term, not in large numbers. Too many people involved. Too many thousand mouths to keep shut. Too much public disclosure of the inventory of combat aircraft, so discrepancies would have shown up.

The sort of concealment you talk of is possible when everyone involved is committed to it in advance. It is not possible (at least, not in any Western country) for an enterprise involving tens of thousands of people at any one time, several hundred thousand cumulatively, who are committed only to operational security, not long-term falsification of history. People who were there peruse the published lists of US losses & add their comments & corrections in public fora, & have done so for over 30 years. Do you really think that systematic concealment would not have been uncovered?

 

[M21]

Zyzy1 read more and more before make comments

For zyzy1

US pilot is good, but North vietnamese has nothing to lose. be fair, If you are South vietnamese, you got defeated by north army i think nothing to be ashame. your country now is united as one. here in this forum just about history. Don't be mad and said Rubbish,history is history. My country give to north vietnam only 7156 SAM 1-2 missiles for total whole war...North vietnamese used to shoot down american 4160 airplanes...and other 4 thousand hellicopters they shoot down by ..guns, RPG,igla portable missiles...all statistic you can go to US university to get it (ARVN in the war heavy depend on US and ROK,Philline,Thai.newzland..I think like that. So yo lost the battle that is your command is not good..not by you.

 

[ZPU2]

US aircrafts obliged to attack at lower levels.

To go back to the initial question, the US aircrafts had to go down for several reasons:
- threat of SAM 2 and lack of proper countermeasures.
- lack of precision guided munition warranting a kill of the target beyond 10000Ft.
- Threat of migs which could engage the fight on their terms.
- powerful doctrine enforced in US and Nato air forces about the attack at 100ft above 500Kts.

Even if the SAM 2 were not statiscally so efficient, they were a real threat and necessitated the incorporation of ECM, ECM tactics with ECM pods dictating strikers formations, and ultimately the creation of units specialised in SAM sites destructions, the Wild Weasels and Iron Hand units. And as the SAM were effective in altitude, aircrafts had to go low and fast to avoid SAM threat as US doctrine believed that SA2 was inefficient at low level. A lot of US pilots would discover this was wrong..

Presence of Migs and an excellent GCI procedure dictated also the need to go low to avoid Migs and GCI detection close to target.

The main reason was the lack of PGM enabling a kill at long range and high altitude without obliging the aircraft to keep a predictable path (as was the case with the Bullpup or the Walleye)

 

[khoilie]

As a Vietnamese living under Communist regime I know too well about their propaganda. So I would not trust completely any numbers VC claimed to shoot down US planes. yes Uncle Sam lied here and there, but in the end we still could discover some truth because we live in an open society while the VC don't.

 

[swerve]

Foreigners have been given limited access to N. Vietnamese records. Cross-checking of US records with them, & with published N. Vietnamese claims, has been done, in considerable detail. There doesn't seem to be any systematic falsification of Vietnamese records of aircraft losses & claims of US aircraft shot down. Any exaggeration appears to be due to the usual accidental sources: - two or more people shoot at an aircraft, all see it crash, & all claim it; an aircraft is seen to be hit & damaged, & is mistaken for being shot down. Etc.

The N. Vietnamese have owned up to aircraft losses the USAF & USN hadn't claimed. That adds credibility to their own loss figures.

They have no real reason to lie. Their record was good enough to be proud of.