"Joe Osman" wrote in message
oups.com...
In the Fall Air Power History magazine, which you Air Force types
can get from your unit historian, William Sayers wrote an article "The
Red Baron Reports: What They Really Said".
He looks at the now unclassified USAF Red Baron reports and tries
to explain the disparity between USAF and USN/USMC kill ratios. One
major point was that the AF for the most part had to go through longer
routes that were not covered by US radars, while the Navy had cruisers
just offshore to cover their routes. As proof of this he shows that
when the US finally had TEABALL in place and while it was working, the
AF kill ratio greatly improved to 4:1 for the first two months. He even
correlates US losses to the times when TEABALL was not functioning.
Another factor he points out is that the longer AF routes required
flying at higher altitudes, where the VPAF GCI could pick them up
earlier. This gave the VPAF more time to set up a higher percentage of
kill intercept. The Navy could fly lower due to its shorter routes.
Because of these factors, the VPAF put its best aircraft against
the AF routes and maximized its AAA along the Navy routes. The Navy
lost more aircraft to AAA than the AF did. The Navy only shot down 8
Mig-21s (one from a cruiser's missle) while the AF shot down 40.


Joe


Kind of overlooks the fact that of the 1000's of sampans, junks, etc. that
100's of them had radios to provide early warnings to Hanoi. Also how about
the ever present Russian trawlers that broadcast the news of every launch.
Besides historians are always making up excuses as to why things happened
the way they did. If they have to change a few things around to fit what
they believe so be it.

I will always believe that what happened in the early years was because
there were still people in power in Naval Aviation that had a fighter/attack
pilot mentality, as opposed to those in power in the AF which had been taken
over by SAC thinking.