Re: Gabreski vs Shchukin? twice?

["Diego Zampini" <dzampini@hotmail.com>]

Hi, Dan:

>You have fallen on to something.The US Pros against
>the Russian Pros. Seems to appear somewhat of a draw.
>Maybe the US F86 pilots having a slight advantage.

Hmm... Statistically the MiG-15 pilots seem to have an slight advantage. In 
the few cases I know of MiG aces vs Sabre aces -Jabara/Alfeyev (May 20 
1951), probably Eaglestone/Sutyagin (June 25 1951), probably 
Shchukin/Gabreski (Oct 2 1951-Jan 11 1952), Berelidze/Fischer (Apr 7 1953) 
and finally McConnell/Fedorets (Apr 12 1953)- in 4 out of those 6 cases the 
American aces ended shot-up or shot down by the Soviet ´Honchos´, in one the 
Soviet one was who was forced to bail out, and in the remaining one both 
shot down each other (McConnell/Fedorets).
Of course perhaps there were a lot of similar battles which results I do not 
know, and that could change my statistics. If we include in this list 
clashes between skillful pilots, one one ace and and the other a pilot who 
did not become ace but who was credited with 2 or more kills (Col. Harrison 
Thyng vs Georgii Dyachenko on October 24 1951, Claude Mitson vs Fiodor 
Shebanov only 2 days later, Capt. Nikolai Ivanov vs Maj. Felix Asla on 
August 1 1952) the list increased significantly and perhaps then the Sabre 
pilots had an slight advantage.

>All these pilots were aggressive and got the most
>out of their planes. Is there a book forming or being
>written on the Clash of these Titans.

I guess that there is not any yet.

>It would be interesting to read about how they maneuvered
>to shootdown or evade and recover.  The development of tactics.
>Who were in the battles won and lost.

In some cases I know the maneuvers, but in other cases I do not. It seems 
that in many cases one of the pilots just perform a fast surprise attack 
when the opponent was unaware of his presence (Alfeyev/Jabara and 
Sutyagin/Eaglestone), in other there were twisted maneuvers (Asla/Ivanov), 
and in the case of McConnell vs Fedorets there were the best of both worlds 
(Fedorets took McConnell by surprise attacking by the rear and below, 
smashing him with a lethal burst, but McConnell could perform a high-g 
barrel roll and forced Fedorets to overshoot, then reversed and shot 
Fedorets down. Both McConnell and Fedorets bailed out).
Diego.

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