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north vietnamese aces

There are only 3 Vietnam aces that match our loss records and I don't believe this list presented is correct with the matching. Of course we probably lost more aircraft to Mig's than known or admitted, either in the confusion in battle or when an aircraft was lost for unknown reasons, it was often attributed to something other than a Mig. For sure, the Navy has another 8 to 9 Mig kills that were not officially credited to us for various reasons. The three NVPAF aces that match on that list are Nguyen Van Coc (6 of his 9 match or 7 of 9 if you count the drone); Nguyen Doc Soat with 5 matching out of his 6 claims; and Nguyen Tien Sam, from what I've read, all 5 of his kills match our records. Van Coc and Sam were both shot down as well but survived. The thing with Mig-17 pilots is if a flight of 4 17's engaged an aircraft and say an F-4 went down, every pilot got credit for 1 kill. Kind of like how the Brits have always given full credit for shared kills, 4 guys kill a FW-200, all four get full credit. Again, from what I've read, the famous Nguyen Van Bay was only the shooter on 2 or 3 of his 6 claimed kills.

Yeah, I'm a huge history geek, love it :)
 
The Air Force debriefer told us that the Mig-21 pilot that blew by us and shot a missile at a BUFF formation was Comrade Tomb. But then those guys told us lots of stuff. He did come within 10 miles of us since his "spinscan" radar saturated one of my operator's reciever, but he was after bigger game. He missed by the way. I did comfirm that repeatedly pushing on the throttles of an EA-3 doesn't make it go any faster.
 
bunk22 said:
.....Kind of like how the Brits have always given full credit for shared kills, 4 guys kill a FW-200, all four get full credit......
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I thought they did that in WWI but went to 'fractional' scoring inWWII (4 pilots shoot down Fw200, each get .25 credit for the kill).
 
Flash said:
I thought they did that in WWI but went to 'fractional' scoring inWWII (4 pilots shoot down Fw200, each get .25 credit for the kill).
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They still went with the WWI type of scoring. For example, the first Royal Navy F4U Corsair ace was LT Leslie Durno, 1 kill and 4 shared, but listed as an ace or the first Royal Navy Ace of WWII is listed as having 5 shared kills.
 
How were the B-52 MiG kills handled? Did the whole crew get a kill or just the tail gunner?
 
Col. 'Toon' or 'Tomb' was a myth, a composite of three or more VPAF pilots, and exagerrated by many after Cunningham/Driscoll.

Yes I tried as hard as I could to kill them, just as they tried to kill me. Some of them were indeed good. Some may have been ringers. Today I find myself a bit interested about them and their tactics. Objectively comparing notes long after a life and death struggle - a professional debrief, if you will.

This article below article gives an interesting perspective:
Nguyen Van Bay and the Aces From the North​
"As an F-4 Phantom pilot, I had tried to kill these men. And they had tried to kill me. I thought it was time we had a talk."​
By Ralph Wetterhahn​
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I have no idea how many aces they had, nor do I really care. I do know we lost a lot of guys to some of them that we should not have.

The Global Security organization weighs in:
"...Flying Soviet fighters like the MiG-17, and -19, the VPAF produced over a dozen aces, while the Americans managed just two pilots and three navigators (sic)...."

There are reasons for this discrepancy of the opposing number of aces, but it was not because of the dedication, talent, or training after TOPGUN of our fighter pilots.
 
Interesting-- The guy who trained me in thai boxing had been a South Vietnamese pilot who was shot down over Cambodia. He didn't really talk about it much, but he did tell me about getting shot down and then floating under a pile of dead bodies down a river to get out of Cambodia.
 
The Navy had 8-9 more actual Mig kills than is officially recognized and there are probably a few more Navy aircraft that were shot down by Migs but overall, the VPAF greatly exaggerated their kills and aces. They have 3 aces, maybe 4 but they ROE favored them and they did fly in a target rich environment.
 
have russian mig drivers flying for the north ever been formally reported/documented.?
 
flaps said:
have russian mig drivers flying for the north ever been formally reported/documented.?
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I've read both yes and no. I think the VPAF as claimed they never flew combat missions while the Russians have said otherwise. So who knows.
 
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