Don Sull's blog

Entering the Korean War, experts predicted the Communist alliance supporting the North Koreans would dominate the skies. The alliance of Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean pilots flew the MiG 15, a plane considered superior on most dimensions to the F-86 Sabre flown by the United Nations forces. Not only did the Communist forces have better planes, they could deploy more of them, at least in the early stages of the war. They also enjoyed superior position. The Communists massed large formations of MiGs on the Chinese side of the border with Korea, where they waited to attack the UN fighters.  When the MiG pilots were losing, they could retreat to their base behind the Chinese border, which UN pilots were forbidden to cross.

Despite their disadvantages, the UN pilots won ten aerial battles for every one they lost during the Korean War. Prevailing military doctrine could not easily account for the Sabres’ unexpected success. Success, according to existing theory, came from either superior resources or better position. The UN forces enjoyed neither. The lopsided victory in dogfights over the Korean peninsula inspired more pride than understanding for decades, until Colonel John Boyd analyzed these battles while trying to design a new fighter plane.

Boyd discovered that early comparisons with the MiGs overlooked two structural attributes of the Sabre that proved decisive. The Sabre featured a bubble canopy made of see-through plastic, which provided the pilot with complete 360º visibility of the situation, while the MiG pilot peered through a smaller window that limited their peripheral vision. Pilots compared looking out the MiG’s smaller window to peering through the bottom of a soda bottle. Greater visibility allowed the UN pilots to maintain a superior awareness of the unfolding battle.

The Sabre enjoyed a second advantage that allowed pilots to exploit opportunities. The American-made fighter included full hydraulic controls, which enabled pilots to quickly switch from one action to another. The MiG-15, in contrast, had only partial hydraulics and demanded great upper body strength from pilots, many of whom lifted weights between sorties to better manhandle the plane in combat. The MiG pilots also enjoyed less autonomy in choosing maneuvers than their adversaries, which further limited their flexibility in combat.

The UN pilots exploited the Sabre’s superior maneuverability by repeatedly shifting from one tactic to another in the course of an engagement, thereby neutralizing the MiGs’ advantage in any specific operations. The MiG’s ability to climb more quickly than the Sabre conferred no advantage if the ascent lasted only a second or so before the Sabre pilot shifted maneuvers. With each successive change in operation, the UN pilot gained a slight advantage, no more than a fraction of a second. As the number of shifts mounted, the cumulative advantage grew. The MiG pilot found himself on the back foot, responding to the Sabre’s initiatives, and watched as his situation deteriorated with every twist and turn.

In contrast to prevailing military doctrine, Boyd emphasized the role of agility (often referred to as maneuver in military circles).  Most US military thinkers at the time argued for eliminating uncertainty by deploying vastly superior resources and capturing and holding the strategic high ground.  Boyd, in contrast, argued that combatants should not avoid the disorder of war, but seek chaos out and even create it. Turbulence created opportunities, Boyd argued, that the more agile adversary could exploit.

Boyd’s analysis of aerial combat during the Korean War illustrated the benefits of agility. While any individual benefit won by an agile combatant might be modest, the cumulative effect of successive small wins can prove decisive. No single maneuver brought the Sabres victory, but rather their ability to shift from one maneuver to another more quickly than their adversaries allowed them to build a growing lead. A more agile competitor can also shape the circumstances to which their rival must react. As the dogfights advanced, North Korean pilots found themselves responding to the UN pilots’ initiative, rather than dictating the flow of the battle themselves.

Boyd did not stop here, but generalized his analysis of the Korean dogfights into a more general model of agility–the OODA loop. This is the topic of my next post.