Part1
Perhaps no other
conflicts of the period captured the world’s imagination as did the
numerous wars in the Middle East. With the notable exception of the
1948–1949 War for Independence, the wars saw the employment of
considerable numbers of AFVs and some of the largest tank battles in
history. They also proved to be useful laboratories for the Western
allies and the Soviet Union concerning the design and employment of AFVs
(for the most part, the Soviet Union was the chief supporter and arms
supplier to the Arab states; the Western powers, particularly the United
States and France, at least until after the 1967 Six Day War, supported
Israel).
The fighting in the Middle East also saw the
beginning of a new age, with the first use in warfare of antitank and
antiship missiles.
In its war to gain independence, Israel initially had only a small
armored force, the 8th Armored Brigade, equipped with a hodgepodge of
pre–World War II French Hotchkiss light tanks, World War II–era British
Cromwells, and U.S. Shermans, the latter purchased from Italy and the
Philippines. These faced the far more numerous tanks of Lebanon, Syria,
Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. During the fighting, Israel managed to form a
second armored brigade, the 7th.
In the war the Israelis utilized their advantages of interior lines,
higher morale, better leadership, and more effective command and control
to defeat the larger and better-equipped Arab armies. The major Arab
problems were in logistics and organization. The Arab armies were spread
out (it was 700 miles from Baghdad to Haifa, and Egyptian forces relied
on a 250-mile-long supply line across the Sinai Desert), and there was
no unity of command or common military strategy.
After 1949 the Israeli Defense Forces invested heavily
in tanks, and the Jewish state became one of the most skillful
practitioners of armored warfare in history. Working in collusion with
France and Britain against Egypt in 1956, Israel Super Shermans and
French tanks rolled across the Sinai Peninsula (covering more than 150
miles in only four days) to take that vast desert area from Egypt. In
the process Israeli armor defeated a far larger Egyptian force of
Shermans, British Centurions, and some JS-3s, in addition to 230 Soviet
T-34/85s, as well as a number of armored personnel carriers and
self-propelled guns.
As in the War for Independence, in 1956 it was not superior equipment
but rather better training, leadership, and motivation, as well as
tactical doctrine and domination of the air, that were vital in the
subsequent crushing Israeli victory. Although international pressure,
largely from the United States, forced Israel (and Britain and France)
to quit Egypt, the war led Israel to go over to a wholly mechanized
ground force centered on tanks. The war also brought improved tanks into
the Israeli inventory as well as better training.
In
June 1967 Israel used its highly mechanized forces to launch a
devastating preemptive strike against Egypt and Syria, and then engage
Jordan, in the Six Day War. Israeli tactics were similar to those
employed by the Germans in their blitzkrieg of World War II. Tanks would
break through the enemy front and then push forward, closely followed
by mechanized infantry that would engage enemy forces. This armored
thrust was followed by motorized infantry to mop up enemy resistance in
order to allow the vital supply column to proceed forward. Rapid Israeli
envelopments allowed the numerically inferior Israeli armored forces to
take the heavier Arab tanks from the rear and make short work of the
Arab armies. Israel had some 264,000 troops, 800 tanks, and 300 combat
aircraft; Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq
had a combined strength of some 541,000 men, 2,504 tanks, and 957 combat
aircraft. Of 1,200 Egyptian tanks before the war, 820 were lost.
Israeli armor losses amounted to 122 tanks, many of which were repaired
and returned to battle. There was also heavy fighting involving Israeli
and Syrian tanks in Israel’s conquest of the Golan Heights, although the
fighting there did not see the large-scale armor engagements that had
marked combat on the Sinai front.
In the 1973 Yom
Kippur War, the tables were almost turned, thanks to Israeli complacency
and new Egyptian tactics. Israel had invested heavily in the Bar Lev
Line, a static defensive front along the east bank of the Suez Canal, in
effect rejecting maneuver tank warfare in which the bulk of armored
forces are held back in mobile reserve. The Egyptians also subjected the
canal defenses to nearly constant artillery fire, to which the Israelis
grew accustomed. On 6 October 1973 (Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement)
Egyptian forces struck in force across the Suez Canal while Syrian
forces simultaneously invaded the Golan Heights. These offensives caught
the Israeli defenders completely off-guard.
On the Golan Heights, Syria deployed five divisions and three armored/
mechanized brigades. Their 1,600 tanks included T-34s, T- 54s, and the
latest T-62 Soviet tanks. To break through the thick Israeli minefields
and defenses, the Syrians also utilized specialized armor vehicles such
as flail tanks, bridge-layers, and engineer tanks. Antiaircraft missiles
protected the attackers against Israeli aerial intervention. The
Israelis initially had only some 50 Israeli Centurion tanks of the 7th
Armored Brigade to oppose the Syrian juggernaut. Following the British
practice of using secondary armament for ranging purposes, the
Centurions scored a high number of long-range, first-round kills.
Ordered to prevent the Syrians from breaking through, the few Israeli
defenders did just that. At the end of four days of savage fighting, an
Israeli force totaling only 177 tanks supported by infantry and
artillery defeated a far larger attacking Syrian force centered on 1,400
tanks.
Part 2
With 1,700 tanks and another 2,500 armored vehicles,
the Egyptian force on the Suez front was even larger. On the night of
5–6 October, by employing high-pressure water hoses and bulldozers and
using bridging equipment, the Egyptians got across the canal and blasted
through the sand embankment the Israelis had erected there. By 8
October, protected by a blanket of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and
Soviet-supplied mobile antiaircraft artillery, the Egyptians had two
armies of 100,000 men and more than 1,000 tanks east of the canal. After
taking the Israeli positions, the Egyptians were content to set up
their own defenses and put into effect their “sword and shield” tactics.
The “shield” consisted of a belt of minefields, behind which infantry
waited with Soviet-supplied Sagger and Snapper wire-guided antitank
missiles. Beyond these, artillery, SAMs, and antiaircraft guns provided
security for the defensive belt against the vaunted Israeli Air Force.
The “sword” consisted of large tank formations ready to engage and
destroy Israeli armored counterattacks.
On 8 October
the Israelis unwisely committed two armored divisions in the Sinai to
drive the Egyptians back across the canal. The Egyptian chief of staff,
General Saad el Shazy, noted that the resulting confrontation saw “the
first combat between the essentially World War II concept of armour and
infantry weapons of the next generation.”
The Egyptians promptly inflicted heavy losses on the attacking Israeli
forces. The Israelis at first did not understand why infantry would be
standing out in the open—until they released a barrage of shoulder-fired
missiles at the tanks. Although in time the Israelis were able to
develop means to counter the antitank missiles and SAMs, early in the
fighting these new weapons gave the Arab forces the edge, and in two
days the Israelis lost some 260 tanks.
The Egyptians won the first part of the war, but their success now
emboldened President Anwar Sadat, who decided on a deeper penetration of
the Sinai. In taking this step, Sadat overruled General Shazy’s
arguments that such a step would take his forces beyond the range of SAM
cover. The Egyptian offensive began on 14 October and involved more
than 2,000 tanks on both sides, making it second in history only to the
World War II Battle of Kursk in numbers of tanks engaged. The Israelis
brought up reinforcements but were still outnumbered 2:1 in numbers of
tanks, a disadvantage that was offset by superior hardware and training
and the involvement of the Israeli Air Force. The Israelis not only
stopped the Egyptian advance but also destroyed some 500 tanks.
Israeli forces now moved toward the canal in an effort to cross over it
and take the Egyptian forces from behind and to destroy the SAM sites.
In
the process, a large tank battle took place in the area known to the
Israelis as the Chinese Farm. The Israelis managed to get some troops
and a brigade of paratroopers across the canal, and once a bridge had
been thrown across there numbers of tanks followed. The Israelis
excelled at rapid maneuver warfare, and they now came up against
second-echelon Egyptian troops. The advancing Israeli tanks cut off the
Egyptian Third Army at Suez City and were moving north to cut off the
Egyptian Second Army when Sadat managed to secure a cease-fire.
Israel won the Yom Kippur War but at a high cost,
including the loss of 830 tanks. Sadat had, however, restored Arab pride
and went on to visit Israel and conclude a peace settlement with the
Jewish state. Many analysts concluded that the Yom Kippur War spelled
the end of the tank era: small wire-guided missiles and RPGs had
inflicted about a third of Israel’s tank losses. Such a conclusion,
however, proved to be premature.
The Israelis incorporated the lessons learned in 1973 in their new
battle tank, the Merkava. As noted above, crew protection became the
priority.
Merkavas spearheaded the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982
and destroyed the Syrian 1st Armored Division. Although Merkavas took
numerous hits from enemy fire, they were not penetrated. Of 50 or so
Israeli tankers wounded in the fighting in Lebanon, not one was the
result of burns.
Although there have been no interstate wars involving Israel since 1982,
tanks and other AFVs continue to play a key role in intrastate operations. Tanks are perhaps the most visible component of
Israeli security operations against the second Palestinian intifada
(uprising). Despite the proliferation of new antitank weapons and
predictions that the day of the tank was over, when the Cold War came to
a close with the collapse of the Soviet Union, AFVs were still very
much a part of the world’s military establishments.
This post was published in "War and game" site 9/ 2020
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