You wont find anyone that agrees with you that the US won in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese may have taken a sound beating on the tactical side (up to when the US left) – but strategically they got the US out of the war which also cut funding to South Vietnam to a trickle eventually. Therefore the invasion in 75 was literally a walkover ( despite the South having a lot of very good US equipment) and North Vietnamese achieved what they had set out to do after WWII.
During the air war we know they only faced North Vietnamese flyers (some were quite experienced by the end of Rolling Thunder (were beating the USAF 5:1 at this point) and the Soviet based IADS was still very effective even up to the start of Linebacker II . They were not idiots and when they suffered set backs they changed tactics – and were still a nuisance. By the end of Linebacker II the IADS was literally crushed by overwhelming B-52 bombing and having the supply lines cut – but that had more to do with the lack of equipment rather than the type of equipment.
I cannot summarise the complexity of this air war – but this is a good primer despite being old is based on declassified info and writen by a USAF F-4 vet who is rightly very critical of an incompetent USAF high order and their obsolete tactics.
https://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972/dp/1591145198
As for Korea that kinda finished as a stalemate on the ground (and still is to this day). Fact – the MiG-15bis was considered and proven superior in certain aspects to the early F-86s – there is nothing classified or unknown about these. Some very good Soviet flyers (WW II vets) started the war in combat but they were not there that long because they got replaced on a division basis and the Soviets wanted to pass it off to the PLAAF as soon as they could.
Short book by ex USAF pilot Doug Dildy might be useful:
https://www.amazon.com/F-86-Sabre-MiG-15-Korea-1950/dp/178096319X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473255677&sr=1-1&keywords=mig-15+vs+f-86
What I actually meant was that they defeated the Soviet pilots in air engagements.
The result is debatable. In the Paris Peace Accord after Linebacker II the NV agreed to all US terms and they didn’t dare invade whilst Nixon was still in office because they knew he meant business. But Ford was a pussy who made a series of mistakes including cutting funding. Congress also refused the funds. If Watergate hadn’t happened and Nixon served a full second term, the NV would have got bogged down fighting in Cambodia and not had time for South Vietnam. The invasion of the South actually lasted 5 months even with the NV spending 1 out of every 2 $s in revenue on the military.
As it was, the outcome was quite satisfactory in that they managed to pit Soviet sponsored Communists against Chinese sponsored Communists causing a rift between the two.
Bull crap. During the air war, they faced Soviet and VPAF pilots. They had a few aces but the USAF and USMC still beat them 3:1 and the USN beat them 6:1. The aces mainly went after F-105s and weaker aircraft. The US realised this and instituted Operation Bolo, sending F-4s down fighter bomber routes, the results was a 7:0 walkover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo
The AAA was effective, the SAMs were nice on useless aside from the fact they scared people into flying at low altitude. Even with a 440lb warhead, only 1 in 29 proved effective overall and they only had to get within 150m of an aircraft to achieve a kill. Many were so bad that they were fired blind and set to burst at a given altitude. They were no better than long range flak-pipes.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/weapons-war-the-five-deadliest-air-defense-missiles-10969
The SA-2 formed the backbone of North Vietnam’s high and medium altitude air defense, where it was known as the “flying telephone pole” among American pilots. North Vietnam reported a staggering 5,800 SA-2 launches which downed a total of 205 American aircraft. In 1965 SA-2s scored one hit per fifteen launches; by 1972, due to American advances in tactics, electronic warfare and defensive systems, the ratio had worsened to one hit per fifty launches.
Oh many mistakes were made. Hell the USAF didn’t really even fight the war until 1972. They pussy-footed around avoiding key enemy targets for political reasons. You can’t fight a war that way, it’s impossible. By week 2 of Linebacker II, enemy jets weren’t even coming up to intercept, the NV were literally crippled. They had to chain drivers to the steering column of trucks to get them to drive the Ho Chi Minh trail. Why do you think they returned to the negotiating table?
Stalemate in Korea my ar5e. The North tried invade the South, they failed, the Chinese even pitched in and suffered such ridiculous losses so quickly that they gave up and forced the North to sign a truce. In the air the kill ratio was heavily in the US’s favour. There are pilot interviews even stating that they were all flown by Soviets. They even strafed one of their own pilots in the water after he got shot down in case anyone found him.
History even says they had 26,000 there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-43694886.html
‘In Korea We Whipped the Russian Air Force’
America fought a hot war with the Soviet Union in Korea during the Cold War. This secret aerial conflict claimed the lives of hundreds of U.S. airmen, but has yet to be fully revealed.
There was no doubt about it,” Col. Walker M. Mahurin, commander of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Group (FIG), said in his biography, “we were fighting the Russian air force.” Indeed, a July 30, 1952, National Intelligence Estimate stated “…a de facto air war exists over North Korea between the U.N. and the USSR.” Yet no one in Washington was willing to risk divulging this provocative fact.
“If we started to disclose these facts,” said Paul Nitze, who was head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Division in the early ’50s, “the American public would demand retaliation, and we did not want war with the Soviets. …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_Alley
One Soviet pilot who was shot down in UN-controlled territory shot himself with his pistol rather than be taken captive. Another pilot who bailed out into the Yellow Sea was strafed to prevent him from being captured. Soviet pilots were not allowed to pursue UN aircraft over the UN-controlled Yellow Sea.[
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