Losses: Apples to Apples

Predictably, social-media propaganda bots have been romping and playing over the shootdown and rescue: 

It's a disaster regardless, even if the rescue was mind-bogglingly bold and impressive:
• F-15 destroyed
• A-10 destroyed
• Two Pave Hawks damaged
• Two C-130s destroyed
• Multiple MQ-9s destroyed
• Multiple casualties (injuries on the helicopters and the WSO)

— Amerikanets 📉 (@ripplebrain) April 5, 2026

As usual, the wishcasting among some in the media is becoming...well, desperate? 

Australia’s public broadcaster continues to wishcast US defeat in Iran.

The loss of one 40 year old airframe over the course of TWELVE THOUSAND (12,000) combat sorties is taken as conclusive evidence of US DEFEAT

This type of left wing agitprop disguised as “journalism” is… pic.twitter.com/WzTTqz5jN4

— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) April 4, 2026

I mean, the basic facts are there; after five weeks of operating with near-impunity over Iran, in the past week the US Air Force has lost 2 aircraft - an F15E Strike Eagle and an A10 Warthog - from apparent enemy action, and two MC130 Commando special operations support planes and at least one helicopter destroyed by their crews to prevent their being captured.  There was also an aerial tanker lost to an accident in the first days of the war.  

For now, let's just count the two combat losses and put a pin in the others.  

Estimates vary, and the actual number is likely a secret, but so far in this war, the United States - Air Force, Navy and possibly Marines - have flown close to 12,000 and 15,000 sorties (combat or combat-support) missions over Iran.   It's likely the Israelis have flown about as many.   

Two aircraft shot down over the course of, let's be conservative, 12,000 sorties is a rate of one per 6,000 combat missions.   Zero crew fatalities in all of that - partly a miracle to be sure, and partly a result of decades of training, doctrine, and equipment.  

But for all that - how do the level of losses we've suffered in this month-old war compare with every other contested air war (let's not bother with Afghanistan or Iraq) in American history?

In the first Gulf War, the Air Force flew over 29,000 missions, losing 14 planes in the process, for a loss of .48 planes per 1,000 missions.   In other words, one USAF plane was shot down for every 2,000 combat missions.  

In Vietnam?  The US lost 1,737 planes flying 5.2 million combat missions - a rate of .4 planes per 1,000 missions, or one shot down per 2,500 missions.  

In Korea?  The first air war of the jet age saw about 720,000 missions and about 1,466 planes shot down - roughly 2 per 1,000 missions. 

And in World War 2?  2.3 million missions, just about 23,000 planes shot down, for a rate of almost 10 per 1,000 missions - meaning the odds of being shot down were rougly 1% for every mission (and that was worldwide; if you saw "Masters of the Air", you know those losses were disproportionately higher during the daylight bombing campaign over Germany).  

So, comparing apples to apples, the US Air Force has lost one combat aircraft for every 6,000 sorties if we're being conservative, 1/7,500 if we're not, and about 1/15,000 if we count the Israeli air force's casualty rate (which is apparently still zero). 

Let's keep all this in perspective - especially since so many want you to lose it.