What was the kill to kill ratio in Vietnam War?

Answer 1

Of the U.S. units it was probably the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta. Of course it is hard to say for sure. The Communists made concerted efforts to bury their dead quickly before they could be counted. Many were also obliterated by bombs and artillery fire which left few remains to be counted.

As the old gunfighter saying in the old west used to go: "There's always somebody faster..." So it was back in the 1980's when US Marine Corp's Sniper, Sergeant Carlos Hathcock was officially credited with the "highest" communist body count during the Viet War, with 93 confirmed kills. In keeping with the famous old saying, "...theres always somebody faster...", during this 21st century, new Vietnam War sniper kills have surfaced, claiming even higher kills.

For aerial combat, the highest air to air combat kills were made by US Naval Pilot Cunningham with 5 aerial victories over North Vietnamese Air Force MIGs; and US Air Force Pilot Ritchie with 5 aerial victories over North Vietnamese Air Force MIGs. A minimum of Five aerial kills of enemy planes is required to obtain ACE status. Both US fighter pilots flew the F-4 Phantom II aircraft. Cunningham and Ritchie were the LAST US ACE's of the 20th Century.

If US Air Force Colonel Robin Olds felt like admitting it, he may have been the top ACE of the Vietnam War; Olds shot down over 5 German aircraft during WW2, and shot down 4 North Vietnamese Air Force MIG jet fighters over North Vietnam. It is rumored that he shot down a "5th MIG" which would have made him the war's 3rd and highest ranking ACE (the WW2 kills would have been combined with his Vietnam War kills). But Colonel Olds loved fighting and knew the SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) of military ACE's; they were often pulled OUT of combat after receiving ACE status, to avoid being shot down and captured, thus giving the enemy a Propaganda victory. So when confronted with the question of "...did he get a fifth MIG?' He would just wink. Robin Olds also flew the F-4 Phantom.

The US Army's 1st Air Cavalry Division had the highest casualty rates of any division during the war with over 5,000 men killed, and most likely will have the more arguable highest enemy kill ratio to go with it.

The only contestant with those statistics will be the US Marines who fought some of the bloodiest battles of the war at Khe Sanh and Hue during the 1968 TET offensive.

Answer 2

What a charming phrase.

North Vietnamese and NLF military deaths were reported in 1995 as 1.1 million, against 58,200 US fatalities, a crude ratio of 18.9:1 between the major adversaries. But it's unclear what period is covered in the Vietnamese figure, or how many of the deaths were inflicted by non-US forces.