1973 suez crossing

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Pendekar

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Base on account by general Shazly, Chief of Staff of the egyptian army in the 1973 war.

It was a victory, the most outstanding feat of Arab arms in modern times and the most audacious stroke by any army since the American invasion of Inchon in 1950. On October 6, 1972, the Egyptian army boiled across the Suez Canal, took the Israelis by surprise, broke through the seemingly impregnable earthworks on the far bank, overvwhelmed their defenders and marched into Sinai, Bristling with anti-tank weapons and under a protective cover of anti-aircraft missiles, the Egyptian divisions pushed ahead on a broad front, virtually the entire length of the canal, dug in and waited. As expected the Israelis threw their tanks and aircraft into battle and broke them on the Arabs’ ring of steel.



The story of how all this was planned, prepared and carried out is only part of the story General Shazly has to tell. As chief of staff of the Egyptian armed forces during the rebuilding phase after the shattering defeat in 1967 and through the attack itself, he was caught, as many chiefs of staff eventually are, between the demands of his political masters and the needs of his subordinates. Drawing on documents still in his possession which he claims can prove everything he says, General Shazly blasts away at President Sadat.



He details the president’s errors of judgment in convincing detail: throwing the Russians out in 1972, refusing to confide in them even when some of them came back to help in 1973 and, most controversial of all, insisting that the Egyptian army advance on the Giddi and Mitla passes without the protection of the anti-aircraft Sams. In ordering this advance, according to General Shazly, President Sadat countermanded the plan for a limited advance and diluted the reserve that had been hoarded on the west bank to smash the Israeli counter-attack that everyone expected. The Israelis, generously supplied with equipment and provided with vital intelligence by the United States - this is the first account that pinpoints the date that the first high-flying American SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft flew down the canal and explains the importance of its photographs - then broke through at Deversoir, mopped up the Sams and won the war.
source http://www.el-shazly.com/en/ereviews.php

if Arab leaders at that time have half the brain and less of senseless pride, they might score more points against the israel. the same problem with all the dictators, they tend to mess up well laid plans and thinking they can bring down a fighters by their voice.
 

gf0012-aust

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Pendekar said:
Base on account by general Shazly, Chief of Staff of the egyptian army in the 1973 war.



source http://www.el-shazly.com/en/ereviews.php

if Arab leaders at that time have half the brain and less of senseless pride, they might score more points against the israel. the same problem with all the dictators, they tend to mess up well laid plans and thinking they can bring down a fighters by their voice.
The Bar Lev line was a very good example of lateral thinking, however while the general points out the fact that Israel was being supplied by the US (and fundamentally the 6th Fleet, the egyptians and syrians were being just as rapidly supplied by the Russians via the Black Sea Fleet).

The issue of Israel being supplied by the US is more than compensated for by the Russians setting up the Star of David SAM networks, Russian satellite intel and an enormous logistics effort in armour and ammunition.

When it boils down to it:

1) The Israelis learnt not to be so complacent
2) It was an end game of force of arms - not a proxy outcome based on resupply as the Israelis, Syrians and Egyptians were all being resupplied
3) It showed to the Egyptians that they could perform a feat of arms effectively

The end result is that both nations now have a non-aggression treaty between them - the most satisfactory outcome of all.
 
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A

Aussie Digger

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And of course the fact that the Egyptians had the support of Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran didn't help Israel's cause much either. In addition they attacked during the most important religious holiday in Israel when most of Israel's armed forces were stood down.

All the Arabs proved with this IMHO, is that despite the massive advantage of suprise AND despite attacking on multiple fronts they STILL couldn't defeat Israel...
 

kashifshahzad

Banned Member
I think the suez cannel is a good weapon for Egyptians they can block that and the trade od whole the worls will jam at once and i also want to mension that no country should attack that caz there are many historical places present there the other weapon for arabs is their oil.I think they have to think a lot of time before using that weapon.:coffee i think this post is not a bit relavent but i have expressed my feelings
 

gf0012-aust

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kashifshahzad said:
I think the suez cannel is a good weapon for Egyptians they can block that and the trade od whole the worls will jam at once and i also want to mension that no country should attack that caz there are many historical places present there the other weapon for arabs is their oil.I think they have to think a lot of time before using that weapon.:coffee i think this post is not a bit relavent but i have expressed my feelings
matey try to stay within the spirit of the post, ie it's a tactical assessment. The Suez doesn't have the same political leverage that it used to. eg Numerous oil tankers are too big for it and it is better for them to travel around rather than via the Suez. Also ever since some of the more "robust" states acquired AShM's and cruise missiles (eg Iran let loose some Silkworms into the Straits of Hormuz a few years ago) a lot of oil purchasers have route contingencies.

The Suez is not as strategic now - especially for a blue water navy that doesn't need to rapid transit between oceans.
 

doggychow14

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The arabs were very successful up until the point when the isrealis took over. The biggest mistakes in my opionio was the 4 armored divisions from Egypt that moved past its sam umbrilla and Syria engaging Isreal in close tank combat in which the Isreal exelled in. I think Egypt asked Russia for strategic bombers and scuds but were refused due to Russia's concern of relations with the US.
 

Pendekar

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the egyptian SAM network was so formidable, Israel have to to use ground forces to neutralized the network.

During this time the Egypt Israel relations was straining because russian objected to this war. they get resupply alright but not as generous as the USA toward Israel. and that after Anwar Sadat threaten to swith alignments to the USA. egyptian at that point already have a good commanders lead the battles, experiance with the past war and properly trained by russians. if anwar sadat did not insist that the mobile SAM to stay at the west side of the canal instead of joining with the advancing ground forces, the outcome might be different. note that the war of 1973 was not an attempt to destroy Israel, it's just an attempt by the egyptians and syrians to regain back territory lost in previous war.
 

heso10

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truth about what happend in 1973

in this site u can read as much as u want about 1973 war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

and i will also write all i know about 1973 war and my sources are (http://www.el-shazly.com ,my books ,three of the commanders i met in person one of them was the leader of either 2nd or third army i can not remember and many other sites i used in my previous research on 1973 war) i will divide the events of the war into sections so i can talk about a section everytime and i will leave some time before the other section to let anybody wants to discuss or ask me
 

Big-E

Banned Member
Considering Isreal would have given the Golan heights and the Sinai back to Syria and Eygpt in 67' the whole war was a failure in my eyes for the Arab forces. All Isreal wanted for concessions was recognition and she got it from Eygpt and Isreal still held the Golan heights after 73 so Isreal and the IDF were clearly the winners.
 

Ozzy Blizzard

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For sure isreal won, but it showed what the Egyptian army was capable of. The crossong went so well at the start cecause it had limited and achievable objectives. They didnt try to roll into Tell Aviv in two days. They stayed under their SAM umbrella and achieved their original goal. Its only when they got greedy and sent armoured collums into the Siani when the IAF showd what it was capable of.
 

merocaine

New Member
Considering Isreal would have given the Golan heights and the Sinai back to Syria and Eygpt in 67' the whole war was a failure in my eyes for the Arab forces. All Isreal wanted for concessions was recognition and she got it from Eygpt and Isreal still held the Golan heights after 73 so Isreal and the IDF were clearly the winners./QUOTE]

The war was fought to take back the sinai, i dont think the egyphtians gave a dame about the golan hights.
After 67 the isrealies were quite happy keep the land and hang the concessions.

The war forced the Isrealies to the table, between 67 and 72 they could effectively ignore the arabs because in isreals eyes the arabs did'ent pose a military threat anymore. Yom Kipper forced the isrealies to reexamine the occupation of the sinai, did they want a continous state of war with eygypt as the price of the sinai? Military wise the war ended as a defeat for the eygyptians, and a political defeat for the isrealies.
 

gf0012-aust

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Ozzy Blizzard said:
Its only when they got greedy and sent armoured collums into the Siani when the IAF showd what it was capable of.
I'm not sure you could argue that they "got greedy"

The main problem was that the Syrians made an absolute hash of their military positions and screamed to the egyptians to take pressure of their front lines by creating a dual front. The egyptians up to that point intended to take a considered approach to gradual compression. The syrian collapse forced them to fast track their advance.

the forced advance was handled badly:
  • they moved out of the SAM umbrella
  • disconnected their forces
  • modified their secondary battleplan without proper consideration
  • failed to halt their advancing commanders
  • had inadequate force protection on lead units
  • stretched their combat lines
  • failed to have an adequate secondary battleplan in place.
up until the collapse of the syrians, they did some textbook fighting and deserve some credit for what they did.

unfortunately for them, (and fortunately for the Israelis) at a tactical planning level, their secondary approach to relieve the Syrians was a disaster. The Israelis were faster on adapting to the changed battlefield and absolutely dominated the air and land battlespace concurrently.

The end result was that in absolute terms, the Israelis were the better military as they went from a losing position to dismissing and decapitating two much larger militaries who had out flanked them. The Israelis were ultimately far better at manouvre and engaging at the decisive level.
 

Big-E

Banned Member
merocaine said:
The war was fought to take back the sinai, i dont think the egyphtians gave a dame about the golan hights.
After 67 the isrealies were quite happy keep the land and hang the concessions.

The Eygptians certainly cared about how their allies in Syria were doing. The Yom Kippur War was a total Arab war, not just Eygpt.


merocaine said:
The war forced the Isrealies to the table, between 67 and 72 they could effectively ignore the arabs because in isreals eyes the arabs did'ent pose a military threat anymore. Yom Kipper forced the isrealies to reexamine the occupation of the sinai, did they want a continous state of war with eygypt as the price of the sinai? Military wise the war ended as a defeat for the eygyptians, and a political defeat for the isrealies.
You just said that the Isrealies were forced to the table b/c the threat of continous war with Eygpt was not worth holding the Sinai. They knew this in 67' and were willing to negotiate if the Arab states would have recognized her soveriegnty. Isreal had no desire to occupy a worthless stretch of desert but they weren't about to give it up after all the trouble they took beating the Eygptians in 67'. Considering the fact that they crushed the Eygptian forces and emabarrassingly held the 3rd Eygptian Army hostage :eek: to get their demands I think it was a win/win for Isreal. Eygpt is no longer an obstacle to the Middle East Peace process and you can thank the IDF encircling the Egyptian 3rd Army for that one. That's why Isreal won militarily and politically.
 

merocaine

New Member
I may be wrong but the last thing the Arabs would want to do is negotate from a possition of weakness. I agree that the isrealies held out the prospect of negatations but those were completely impossible for the arabs to countnace, the west bank had been lost, the golan hights, gaza and the sinai.

this is from wikipedia so take with a pinch of salt

Nonetheless, according to Chaim Herzog,

On June 19, 1967, the National Unity Government [of Israel] voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements. The Golans would have to be demilitarized and special arrangement would be negotiated for the Straits of Tiran. The government also resolved to open negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan regarding the Eastern border.

The Israeli decision was to be conveyed to the Arab nations by the United States. The US was informed of the decision, but not that it was to transmit it. There is no evidence of receipt from Egypt or Syria, who thus apparently never received the offer. The decision was kept a closely-guarded secret within Israeli government circles and the offer was withdrawn in October, 1967

A very half hearted negotation dont you think?
The reality is after the 6 days war the isrealies realised they dident have to talk, because they were militartaly so far ahead of the arabs. They felt that in the end the arabs would come around and come to except the current situation, just like the palistians would come to except the state of Isreal.
The Isrealies called this the Iron War.
The Yom Kipper War changed this analysis, thats its lasting effect.
 

heso10

New Member
gf0012-aust said:
I'm not sure you could argue that they "got greedy"

The main problem was that the Syrians made an absolute hash of their military positions and screamed to the egyptians to take pressure of their front lines by creating a dual front. The egyptians up to that point intended to take a considered approach to gradual compression. The syrian collapse forced them to fast track their advance.

actually that is right, i do not know if you know that but isreal was not going to cross the canal if usa did not help her as usa used their black bird to take photos for egyptian and syrian fronts then send them to israel and the photos showed a hole between 2nd and 3rd army and then by the leadership of sharoon he rushed into that hole with sort of small army gaurded by thier airforce away from sam sites.

before holding fire their was a plan made by the headquarters to trap the israel army by cutting their way back to the canal and special forces and 3rd army counter the israel's army with help of egyptian fighters to prevent israel's fighters from hitting special forces or 3rd army which was already gaurded by the umbrella of sams

but before applying this plan russia at that time threatend with their nuclear weapons then usa and russia agreed to push both egypt and israel to tables of negotiations and that happened.

if egyptian army had done this plan they would have the way to tal aviv opened but they choose peace as they got what they wanted from the war and it was getting back sinai which was happened.

in my opinion nobody won in this war, we got back sinai but we lost many men and weapons and we are still paying for the debt of war untill this day, for israel they lost too as they lost many men and weapons too especially in fighters and bombers but they also lost sinai and all the money they paid to raise up barliv line, but they won peace with egypt and egypt declared that israel exists but syria i do not think they won anything except a small part of golan

by the way israel knew when was the attack because elsadat told king of jordan at that time if he wants to participate in the war to get his river back but he refused and in 5th octobar he told golda mayar about the war and its time and israel started in morning of 6 october to prepare the reserve for any possible attackes plus an israel's high rank officer doubt the actions of the egyptian soldiers and asked his soldiers to be prepared just in case

for what is said about other arabic countries helped egypt, libya and iraq sent small battalions but they did not do anything but in syria israel destroyed some of iraqi armored vechiles by 2 groups of israeli special forces and 2 helicopters, for israel they got lot of weapons from usa including tanks and fighters but they did not recieve help in the form of soldiers except jewesh pilots came to help in flying american fighters, and egyptian army captured many tanks thier counters showed they only traveled for about 80 kilos only which means they used the tanks they recieved from the war

after all i think both egypt and israel did well in the war but nobody won after all
 
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heso10

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merocaine said:
I may be wrong but the last thing the Arabs would want to do is negotate from a possition of weakness. I agree that the isrealies held out the prospect of negatations but those were completely impossible for the arabs to countnace, the west bank had been lost, the golan hights, gaza and the sinai.
actually that is right as president elsadat refused to make negotiations with israel without a war and the same with gamal abd elnasser

gamal abd elnasser said what is taken by power should get back by power
elsadat wanted to negotiate only from possition of power not weakness bec. israel would not get sinai back to egypt if she negotiates without a war
 
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Big-E

Banned Member
heso10 said:
but before applying this plan russia at that time threatend with their nuclear weapons then usa and russia agreed to push both egypt and israel to tables of negotiations and that happened.
Nuclear threats? :confused: That would have been outrageous, any documentation on this claim?

heso10 said:
if egyptian army had done this plan they would have the way to tal aviv opened but they choose peace as they got what they wanted from the war and it was getting back sinai which was happened.
The Egyptian 3rd Army was at the mercy of the IDF, after being cut off from supply they had to beg for food. If Isreal had decided to launch the attack there would have been an Egyptian holocaust 60 miles outside of Cairo. Egypt NEVER would have made it to Haifa. The Soviet doctrine they operated under was poor to begin with and they could not execute that properly which equals the end result of the war, total defeat by a smaller force.

heso10 said:
but they also lost sinai and all the money they paid to raise up barliv line
Yeah, all that money they spent on those earth works that Eygpt hosed down with water cannons must really have been expensive. :lol2

heso10 said:
by the way israel knew when was the attack because elsadat told king of jordan at that time if he wants to participate in the war to get his river back but he refused and in 5th octobar he told golda mayar about the war and its time and israel started in morning of 6 october to prepare the reserve for any possible attackes plus an israel's high rank officer doubt the actions of the egyptian soldiers and asked his soldiers to be prepared just in case
If this were the case the IAF would have launched pre-emptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields. This was tactical doctrine of the IDF.

heso10 said:
for what is said about other arabic countries helped egypt, libya and iraq sent small battalions but they did not do anything but in syria israel destroyed some of iraqi armored vechiles by 2 groups of israeli special forces and 2 helicopters, for israel they got lot of weapons from usa including tanks and fighters but they did not recieve help in the form of soldiers except jewesh pilots came to help in flying american fighters, and egyptian army captured many tanks thier counters showed they only traveled for about 80 kilos only which means they used the tanks they recieved from the war
Considering Iraq sent two fully mechanized DIVISIONS with 30,000 men 500 tanks and 700 APCs. I don't call that small battalions. Libya sent a a whole wing of Mirages with $1billion. Sudan sent 3,500, Tunisia 1,000... hell even Cuba of all places sent 1,500 men including tank and helo crews. Fighting the full forces of Egypt and Syria along with aid from every Muslim country on earth this was a micro-world war fougt by the sole IDF with US resupply. You bring this fact up but the Soviets were supplying everbody else so don't make it look like it was lop-sided. This war just shows that Western doctrine was superior to Soviet tactics.

heso10 said:
after all i think both egypt and israel did well in the war but nobody won after all
While I agree there are no real winners in war I think you have to admit the IDF kicked some tail.:eek:
 

merocaine

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Quote:
Originally Posted by heso10
by the way israel knew when was the attack because elsadat told king of jordan at that time if he wants to participate in the war to get his river back but he refused and in 5th octobar he told golda mayar about the war and its time and israel started in morning of 6 october to prepare the reserve for any possible attackes plus an israel's high rank officer doubt the actions of the egyptian soldiers and asked his soldiers to be prepared just in case

@Big E If this were the case the IAF would have launched pre-emptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields. This was tactical doctrine of the IDF.
The simple fact is the isrealies did'ent belive Hussian, mybe you shouldent be so sure of tactial doctrine being the deciding factor in war:rolleyes:

Despite refusing to participate, King Hussein of Jordan "had met with Sadat and [Syrian President] Assad in Alexandria two weeks before. Given the mutual suspicions prevailing among the Arab leaders, it was unlikely that he had been told any specific war plans. But it was probable that Sadat and Assad had raised the prospect of war against Israel in more general terms to feel out the likelihood of Jordan joining in" (Rabinovich, 51). On the night of September 25, Hussein secretly flew to Tel Aviv to warn Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir of an impending Syrian attack. "Are they going to war without the Egyptians, asked Mrs. Meir. The king said he didn't think so. 'I think they [Egypt] would cooperate'". (Rabinovich, 50) Surprisingly, this warning fell on deaf ears. Aman concluded that the king had not told it anything it did not already know. "Eleven warnings of war were received by Israel during September from well placed sources. But [Mossad chief] Zvi Zamir continued to insist that war was not an Arab option. Not even Hussein's warnings succeeded in stirring his doubts" (Rabinovich, 56). He would later remark that "We simply didn't feel them capable [of War]" (Rabinovich, 57).
from wikipedia
 
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