Thanks Tom,
As always, this is excellent.
JD
Thanks Tom,
As always, this is excellent.
JD
Cold War was a secondary cause or an enabler?
"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way?"
"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't I?"
Enabler which almost became a direct extension. Sadat threw the Soviet advisors out as he readied for war. They did not believe the Egyptians could cross the canal.Originally Posted by Culpeper
Best
Tom
First post, but I've been a longtime reader of all these threads.
I think there was a rather fundamental difference between the way Syria and Egypt went about achieving their respective war aims.
Egypt crossed the canal, dug in, and waited for the counter-attack. I think it would be very difficult to credibly suggest that Egypt ever planned to threaten Israeli population centers. The Egyptian goal was to demonstrate to the Israelis that continued occupation of the Sinai would not be possible in the long-term; that it was contestable and that the Egyptian government had the political will and military ability to contest it.
The Syrians showed themselves to be much more ambitious from the get-go. The original Syrian war plan called for commando drops to the rear of the Golan, these were scrapped for political reasons, but the political implications are clear -- Syria wanted the ability to threaten Israel proper. While the Syrian political objective may have been to get the Golan back, the Syrian advance was nothing like the Egyptian one -- it looked much more like a conventional invasion rather than the lure into attritional combat that the Egyptian advance was.
I would tend to agree on the diifferent aims but I would also say that terrain as much as politics dictated what happened on the two fronts. The Golan's great value to either side has always been it's absolute dominance over coastal Israel. If the Syrians had taken it, I would say that shear momentum would have made stopping impossible, regardless of strategic objectives. All of that aside, the Golan also serves as a funnel, wllowing very little maneuver room. Heights of Courage on the IDF 7th Armored Brigade protrays that pretty well.
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. The terrain allowed for that once the Bar Lev line was penetrated; IDF and IAF assumtions that the Egyptians would fold in front of them proved disastrous. the classic was in the initial counterattacks by Israeli armor, They rushed forward and then turned into what they thought was the Egyptian flank; instead they paraded across the Egyptian front like ducks in a shooting gallery. I used to take visitors out to Sinai for staff rides. There was an IDF Centurion company strung out north to south along where this turning movement failed. The T34 below was part of the Egyptian unit that destroyed them.
Best
Tom
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)
I give three reasons:An interesting question is how and why Egypt managed this in 1973, given the many other weaknesses in the Egyptian Army in this era.
A. Leadership: For the first time in its modern history, the Egyptian military from Sadat on down turned on the leadership. They trained. They held folks accountable. And when the fight started, they--those same leaders--were in the fray, rather than beating feet back to Cairo.
B. Motivation. The same leadership used a combination of history, religion, and pride to instill a sense of purpose in the ranks. The Egyptian soldier had on occasion done well against the IDF--first battle of Abu Agheila (George Gawrych wrote a great study on Abu Agheila in 56 and 67, I did the terrain study and took the pics)--when he had a good position, was not getting the crap pounded out of him from the air, and his officers fought with him.
C. Understanding of the enemy. The Egyptians really studied the IDF, doing especially well in identifying the key assumptions on the Israeli side. The first assumption was of course that the Egyptians could not cross Suez and penetrate the Bar Lev before they were destroyed. Second was that the initial IDF reactions would involve flinging armor and air against the Egypotian salient in the belief their enemy would run. Wired guided missiles, RPGs, and tanks--even those old T34s--stopped the armor formations. IDF tanks had almost pure AT munitions so suppressing Saggers and RPGs was made even tougher; we would call for artillery. The IDF called for air--their flying artillery--and the SA6s did a number on them. A friend of mine--Ron Goren who retired as Dep Commander of the IAF--lost two A/C in the first 24 hours. The IDF meanwhile lacked tube artillery to suppress the air defenses the same way they could not suppress the AT defenses (Saggers, RPGs, and armor).
Finally if you take those three factors: A. Leadership; B. Motivation; and C. Understanding the enemy, the IDF failed. Correcting those failures was possbile because the Egyptians did mount a limited offense, which allowed the IDF to get its act together. Golan, however, was different. One measley tank platoon of the 7th Armor Brigade was still in the fight when the Syrians gave up their onslaught. It was a very near thing.
Best
Tom
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