(Sorry, I do not have the English version of the Krusader, so I can have inaccuracies in the translation of options) I set the settings of Krusader: Panel - View - Permissions (numeric view) and I continue to see the letters in permissions. -- Debian 8.4 (Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64) KDE 4.14.2 Reproducible: Always
Created attachment 98469 [details] Panel, window of Settings, file .kde/share/config/krusaderrc
Looking at the screenshot, you're using the wrong column; there are two permissions columns: "Perms" and "rwx", which, by default, is a shorter version of Perms. Right-click on columns header to show/hide them.
Davide's right, I made same mistake :)