"The Enlightenment" wrote in message
...

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Rasimus wrote:

It's impossible to make such a comparison on the Air Force side of
Korea, as the only
piston fighter they used for ground attack was the Mustang, and
there's absolutely no
doubt that a jet is superior to a water-cooled engine in damage
tolerance. I've got
the USAF fighter statistical data for the Korean war, and the
Mustang's loss rate is
far higher than either of the two USAF jet fighters that were
largely dedicated to
ground attack. Here's the Korean War total combat sorties / losses
credited to
ground fire / % loss rate (credited) to ground fire per sortie for
the F-51, F-80
(centrifugal) and F-84 (axial). I've left out the losses credited
to aircraft and
unknown causes:

F-51: 62,607 / 172 / 0.27%

F-80: 98,515 / 113 / 0.11%

F-84: 86,408 / 122 / 0.14%

Guy, these numbers do not necessarily support your contention that,
"...there's absolutely no
doubt that a jet is superior to a water-cooled engine in damage tolerance."
You are entering the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" arena with that claim
supported by these numbers. How can you be assured that the numbers purely
reflect a result of "damage tolerance"? Could they not also be influenced by
other factors, such as the increased attack speed (especially in the case of
the F-84) versus the P-51? Being a more difficult target to hit may have
been as much a factor in the jets' better survivability rateas the issue of
"damage tolerance" was. I doubt that your claim is errant in terms of the
water-cooled engine being likely more susceptable to damage from ground
fire, but the numbers you present are not solely dependent upon the factor
of "damage tolerance".

Brooks



It should be possible to compare the loss rate of the A36 (ground
attack version of the P51 in WW2) with the loss rate of the P47 in WW2
to extrapolate the possible loss rate of a hypothetical F47 of the
Korean war. In this way we could compare this hypothetical F47
radial with the above Jets.