We've just started working on Arab MiGs 5, are are still discussing the precise way to take. Thus, the best I can offer are some 'preliminary thoughts', i.e. a - rather rough - outline. (From that aspect, it would be actually interesting to hear any possible suggestions from readers.)
Yes, it's obvious that Volume 5 is heading for October 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Most likely, the same will be the case with Volume 6 too. But, what exactly is it (or are they) going to contain...?
Primary issue remains the coverage of Arab air forces, that's clear.
Secondary issue will be to provide the first ever - balanced - coverage of this air war at all. There are plenty of books about this war in general, all of them covering politics, intelligence (especially how Arabs managed to achieve a 'strategic surprise' on Israel), and - especially - on ground warfare. There are few 'general' books covering air warfare, but actually only in outline. Some book-authors went even so far as to say 'air warfare was not important for this conflict' (ho-hum...guess they never wondered 'how comes?'). There is a plethora of books about various IDF/AF units, with extensive chapters on their participation (characterised by getting 'particularly obscure' in regards of description of their losses or even operations that went wrong). There are some more recent Israeli books covering specific processes of decision-making related to the IDF/AF etc (like Peled's 30 Hours in October). But, there is not a single book so far concentrating solely on the issue of air warfare in 1973, and going in all relevant directions, i.e. providing a combination of strategic, tactical, and technological coverage, blow-by-blow descriptions, and summaries.
Third issue will be the following matter: careful readers of Volume 4 might have already observed that 'something is missing' between Chapters 5 and 6. That's right: we've had to remove the original Chapter 6, which was covering the 'No War, No Peace' phase of sporadic skirmishes between Egypt, Israel and Syria, in period 1970-1973. There was simply no place left in that volume for that chapter. So, this Chapter will be the starting point of Volume 5.
For all these reasons, we'll have to 'cover the IDF/AF too', at least a 'lil bit' more, in Volumes 5 and 6. Guess, this will be primarily related to dedicating more attention to cross-examination of Arab and Israeli claims. I guess we might decide to add boxes on Israeli nukes (i.e. Meir's 'nuclear alert & nuclear blackmail', which I find a particularly interesting, yet terribly underreported affair, especially because it stands in very close relation to the IDF/AF, of course, but also because it's entirely unlikely anybody in the West might come to the idea to publish some of the stuff that is meanwhile well-known); there might also be boxes on Combat Tree (hehe, I really doubt the IDF/AF F-4 crews were all the time detecting MiGs 'visually', as legends explain; alone considering how dependable Israel became on high-tech by that time in all other aspects related to defence, makes this entirely unlikely), on not only the US-, but also the Israeli (El Al) air-bridge from the USA (which began nearly a week earlier than the US air bridge); on Soviet air bridge etc. And also, I would like to add more artworks to either volume: this was the last major war of Egyptian, Iraqi and Syrian MiG-17s, and I think it would be 'nice' to offer them a sort of 'farewell' in this fashion.
But most of all, I hope there will be enough space for all the stuff we would like to squeeze in these two volumes.
Regarding their publishing dates: Vol. 5 should follow next year in September or October, not sure right now, but it's not going to be earlier or later. However, presently it looks like we'll do the Volume 6 'only' in 2016. At least it is so that Harpia has something else in plan for 2015. We'll see what happens (relevant decisions are unlikely to be brought before sometimes in spring or summer the next year, more likely only in September-October 2014).
We do have enough materials of necessary depth for one more volume, i.e. something covering the post-1973 times. But with that we're already talking about some long-term future (say, 'more than 3-4 years from now'). We'll see what comes out of that.
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