Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
In the case of Sinai, Sadat and his generals figured out that if they gave the Egyptian soldier a chance to defend a position with protected flanks and some form of air cover, he would do a pretty good job of it.
Leaving aside Egypt's (and Syria's) very successful deception operations and strategic surprise, what also stood out to me was some relatively innovative tactics, ranging from breaching techniques at the Bar Lev Line through to the first ever deployment of ATGMs to substantial operational (and even strategic) effect.

An interesting question is how and why Egypt managed this in 1973, given the many other weaknesses in the Egyptian Army in this era. (Ken Pollock's Arabs At War is good on these issues, although it focuses too much on doctrine, training, decisions, and execution and less on cultural-social-political factors than would be my preference)