The Red Baron Reports: What They Really Said

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