airmarshal
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War in October - Aljazeera documentary about October 73 war
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Gomig-21
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One of the better documentaries out there of this great war that has gone down in the annals of history as one of the greatest and most studied wars of all time. But it did leave out a few critical parts here and there but ultimately pretty well described overall.
A couple of personal observations:
Using Sadat's son-in law Ashraf Marwan as a double agent to deceive the Israelis while the Egyptian army mobilized right on the edge of the canal was nothing short of brilliant. Egyptians knew there was no way to hide what was about to happen and knowing the Israeli Duvcote plan, the best thing to do was to give the wrong time of the attack and not to deny it, or even give a different date. Perfect deception.
One of the things left out was the flammable pipes the Israelis installed in the water along the canal to ignite in case of an Egyptian infantry crossing. Those were cemented and blocked up by Egyptian frogmen prior to the attack.
Israelis had a dilemma with not implementing Duvcote early in the day instead of 2 hours prior to 6pm on October 6th. The consequence might have been actually worst as their tanks would've reached the Bar Lev line prior to the Egyptian attack and they would've most likely been in range of and decimated by the early Egyptian artillery strikes. So that might've actually worked out better for the Israelis to lose the Bar Lev line and all command posts and not all their forward tanks as well. Despite losing a large margin of them to Egyptian infantry and their saggers in the later counter-attack, they might have suffered greater losses had they moved the tanks closer before to the shelling.
There should've been more emphasis on the fact that both Egyptian armies held their ground and remained there until the disengagement and Israeli withdrawal. Basically the main indication of winning the war.
Israeli tank units were better trained and performed better than the Egyptian ones, but the Egyptians fought very well, considering, especially at the Chinese Farm. The 25th Armored Brigade had zero chance and were basically put out as bait. Shame on Sadat for ordering such a suicidal attack.
The Israeli western bank was hardly consolidated, even weeks after the ceasefire as many elements of the Egyptian engineering corps and logistical support units were scattered within the west bank lines and still fighting.
The Israelis using the media to show their penetration to the west was brilliant, since it shifted the focus of their failures of the early part of the war and also away from the Egyptian success which was still in full force, hence why the Egyptians called it "The TV war." The powerful media focus was turned to what the Israelis were doing and not what the Egyptians had achieved and continued to do so till the final withdrawal.
The initial mistake by Egyptian command was to think that the entire run of the Bitter Lakes would act as a defensive line, negating the need to connect both the 2nd and 3rd armies. This was a critical mistake from the beginning. Both armies should have been connected to form a single unit which would've never allowed a gap between the two, eventually being discovered by the US' SR-71 recon flight and given to the Israelis.
Without the US' supply of Hawk missiles, the Israelis might not have even considered the crossing to the west. I think that specific weapon was the only thing that allowed them any protection from the EAF and without it, not sure how they would've been able to adequately protect their armored units.
On the other hand, the Egyptian plan not to include a large amount of mobile SA-6 units to accompany all 5 divisions on the east was detrimental and handicapped them, especially the 3rd army. They relied too much on the SA-2.
Many more things about this great war but bottom line, God bless those who fought and died for their land and country.
A couple of personal observations:
Using Sadat's son-in law Ashraf Marwan as a double agent to deceive the Israelis while the Egyptian army mobilized right on the edge of the canal was nothing short of brilliant. Egyptians knew there was no way to hide what was about to happen and knowing the Israeli Duvcote plan, the best thing to do was to give the wrong time of the attack and not to deny it, or even give a different date. Perfect deception.
One of the things left out was the flammable pipes the Israelis installed in the water along the canal to ignite in case of an Egyptian infantry crossing. Those were cemented and blocked up by Egyptian frogmen prior to the attack.
Israelis had a dilemma with not implementing Duvcote early in the day instead of 2 hours prior to 6pm on October 6th. The consequence might have been actually worst as their tanks would've reached the Bar Lev line prior to the Egyptian attack and they would've most likely been in range of and decimated by the early Egyptian artillery strikes. So that might've actually worked out better for the Israelis to lose the Bar Lev line and all command posts and not all their forward tanks as well. Despite losing a large margin of them to Egyptian infantry and their saggers in the later counter-attack, they might have suffered greater losses had they moved the tanks closer before to the shelling.
There should've been more emphasis on the fact that both Egyptian armies held their ground and remained there until the disengagement and Israeli withdrawal. Basically the main indication of winning the war.
Israeli tank units were better trained and performed better than the Egyptian ones, but the Egyptians fought very well, considering, especially at the Chinese Farm. The 25th Armored Brigade had zero chance and were basically put out as bait. Shame on Sadat for ordering such a suicidal attack.
The Israeli western bank was hardly consolidated, even weeks after the ceasefire as many elements of the Egyptian engineering corps and logistical support units were scattered within the west bank lines and still fighting.
The Israelis using the media to show their penetration to the west was brilliant, since it shifted the focus of their failures of the early part of the war and also away from the Egyptian success which was still in full force, hence why the Egyptians called it "The TV war." The powerful media focus was turned to what the Israelis were doing and not what the Egyptians had achieved and continued to do so till the final withdrawal.
The initial mistake by Egyptian command was to think that the entire run of the Bitter Lakes would act as a defensive line, negating the need to connect both the 2nd and 3rd armies. This was a critical mistake from the beginning. Both armies should have been connected to form a single unit which would've never allowed a gap between the two, eventually being discovered by the US' SR-71 recon flight and given to the Israelis.
Without the US' supply of Hawk missiles, the Israelis might not have even considered the crossing to the west. I think that specific weapon was the only thing that allowed them any protection from the EAF and without it, not sure how they would've been able to adequately protect their armored units.
On the other hand, the Egyptian plan not to include a large amount of mobile SA-6 units to accompany all 5 divisions on the east was detrimental and handicapped them, especially the 3rd army. They relied too much on the SA-2.
Many more things about this great war but bottom line, God bless those who fought and died for their land and country.
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airmarshal
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I had very little idea of how well Egypt Army fought. Against odds and scorn heaped on them, Egypt found ways to fight and occupy territory illegally under Israeli control.
Although the documentary was very good, it did not elaborate much upon Egypt keeping its presence in the Sinai at the end of hostilities and getting Israeli occupied area of Egypt vacated from Israel. This is a definition of victory that you gain at negotiation what you lost while not giving away what you gained.
Israel could not have survived, if USA, the main benefactor and patronizer of Israeli evil and terror, had not supplied weapons. There is also a piece of important history in the documentary when Kissinger in Tel Aviv gave his blessings to violation of ceasefire. It show how duplicitous USA when dealing with international conflicts. A country that cant be trusted.
Although the documentary was very good, it did not elaborate much upon Egypt keeping its presence in the Sinai at the end of hostilities and getting Israeli occupied area of Egypt vacated from Israel. This is a definition of victory that you gain at negotiation what you lost while not giving away what you gained.
Israel could not have survived, if USA, the main benefactor and patronizer of Israeli evil and terror, had not supplied weapons. There is also a piece of important history in the documentary when Kissinger in Tel Aviv gave his blessings to violation of ceasefire. It show how duplicitous USA when dealing with international conflicts. A country that cant be trusted.
Gomig-21
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Yep, they fought very well. It was the brass' decision that made it much harder for them. Sadat was too powerful and didn't like Shazly's most critical decision in the war. Even though Sadat was a military man, he didn't have field experience like Shazly, while Ismail and Gamassy were both very subservient to Sadat. If either of those backed up Shazly, Sadat might have conceded and the Israeli crossing quite possibly could've been averted.
Indeed. Although the Israelis had a lot more Egyptian POW's from all the lightly armed logistical support units on the west, Egypt still held a good amount of Israeli POWs and dead soldiers which Golda Meir had a lot of pressure on her to bring them back.
They did fight on 2 fronts, so I give them credit and they did repel the Syrians who really blundered after such great, early success. But the Israelis had the advantage from a defensive standpoint. And not only that, but the terrain favored them immensely. People who criticize the small objective for Egypt don't realize that there was a canal and a 30 meter high sand barrier to get across, whereas in 1967, the Israelis just drove across the border into Sinai and took it. Logistically, it's much more difficult to cross the canal, take out 16 heavily dug-in command posts and cross over with 90,000 men comprising of 5 infantry and armored divisions, and with an inferior air force. Really an amazing feat.
You saw that, yes, that's very well know. Much of the transcripts of Kissinger's conversation about that sneaky plan with Golda Meir was released many years later. So the Americans became very involved with the situation for Israel whereas Brezhnev and the Russians, yes up to a certain point but not as much as the US. But they did supply Egypt with a lot of weapons. The MiG-21 was sold to Egypt at that time for $250,000 a piece. You couldn't buy a front landing gear on an F-16 for that kind of money today lol.
It is good that the docu does outline Kissinger sneakiness and the bickering he and Sadat were having about the disengagement plan, and what Kissinger told Sadat that they can sit and argue about this and that for months and the situation would still be the same, but what it doesn't mention is that prior to the final straw, Sadat had positioned a massive army around the Israelis (Operation Shamel) and that's when Kissinger started taking the situation a bit more seriously and not so lackadaisically. It lit a fire under all their rear ends. Then he went back to Golda and basically told her "you guys better get the bleep out of there" and that was it. They did miss that part which was pretty important as it had a big impact on the Israelis withdrawing way back to the passes in Sinai, while Egypt kept all its gained territory.
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Against odds? Egypt had 41 brigades while Israel had 3 brigades in Sinai in the beginning of the war and 12 brigades by the end of the war. Thus even in the end ratio was 3.4 to 1 in favor of Egypt.
1) USSR aid to Arabs during the war was much higher than US aid to Israel.
2) US aid started after Israel pushed back Syrians and stopped Egyptian offensive in Sinai so it played no role in Israel's survival.
Bubblegum Crisis
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Gomig-21
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What's a joke, the documentary? Or what that one-eyed bandit "allegedly" claimed about some phantom "Samson Option that's in movies like The Sum of all Fears and silly things like that? Please.
That's the same guy who was bragging after their success in 1967 that he said if he was to chose between returning the Sinai and having peace or fighting the Egyptians, he smirked and said he'd take fighting the Egyptians and Arabs any day lol. Well, he got what he asked for and it wasn't what he had hoped lol. As a matter of fact, not only Sharon was almost killed but so wasn't that one-eyed bandit as and Egyptian Mi-8 flew right over him and his band of thugs and dropped a napalm bomb 100 feet away. They missed him, shame. How ironic would it have been had that fallen right on his arrogant head?
Oh, yeah, and IIRC, I think he lucked out that the Agranat Commission absolved him of any responsibility for the failures of not only realizing war was eminent (he essentially got a taste of his own medicine), but most Israelis of that time blamed him and Golda for their failures.
And BTW, given those "alleged" nukes came from the US, the CIA released documents that showed intelligence surveillance picking up Russian ships unloading nukes in Alexandria. Not even putting Egypt's own chemical and biological weapons stockpiles into the conversation.
Bubblegum Crisis
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Than Egypt ‘has really threatened Israel’ ?
It is a fact that not, the reality. And not wonderful dreams.
The documentary obviously swept this truth so unbearable on the part of our fake leaders – uncultivated - all incapable:
“The knowledge, it is only in knowledge that true power lies : Iqraʾ (read !)”
Vela Incident
Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons (The Guardian - Monday 24 May 2010)
These are not our weapons ‘great genius’. Unlike them - Israel - who decide their destiny on their own.
...
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Gomig-21
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Of course not. This wasn't about threatening Israel. It was about redeeming Egypt's fighting abilities while giving the Israelis no choice but to sit at the table and agree to return the rest of the land that belongs to Egypt. This wasn't about any destruction of Israel or anything of that sort.
That concept of throwing all the Jews into the sea was never a realistic perception from the Arabs, even Nasser. The problem was they said stupid things like that and that's what got them in trouble.
But that same, non-existent, existential threat is what the Israelis always use, even till this day. When the sirens waled in Tel Aviv that day, they thought the Egyptian army was in the Negev desert knocking on Jerusalem when 5 years before that, this Moshe Dayan was arrogantly ridiculing the Egyptian army.
Despite the limited objective and even the failures of the war by the Egyptian command, this was still a huge blow for the Israelis, particularly that perceived image of both sides.
It didn't mention it because it's only speculation. I don't think it means the documentary is a joke.
Not sure why you're bringing that up. No relevance to the discussion.
Thank you. I was pointing out that there was a counter to your point about the "alleged" Samson option. The chems are most certainly Egyptian weapons and God forbid they ever use them.
If they used a nuke during a conventional war that was fought on Egyptian soil, then they would almost guarantee their destruction. That would've been the worst decision ever made.
Bubblegum Crisis
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They don't make the weight against only the ‘True Deterrence - Nuclear Deterrence -‘. It is the weapon of the poor of the Third World.
It's very very very funny. Thank you for my day ! ^^
“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
...
Gomig-21
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For Gomig 21, Egypt has won
Egypt is the only country in the world that celebrate the end of the war before it ends..and celebrate defeat after she capitulated!
The end results speak for themselves, habibi.
The Israelis withdrew back into the Sinai almost all the way to the passes and lost the Bar Lev line, all 16 command posts along the entire stretch of the Canal and 20 kilometers into the Sinai.
Their losses in 3 weeks of fighting was equal to the US losing 5 times more than what they lost in 10 years of fighting in Vietnam. Let's see if everyone can absorb that for a minute...
Egypt retained all its gained territory.
Nothing is clearer, no matter what anyone says. I know it burns a lot of people who simply can't accept that reality. Especially after 1967 oh my gosh how dare anyone say the Egyptians actually won!? lol
People can come here and bring up the 3rd Army, the Soviets, Sadat's mistakes whatever they like. Look at the end result and that is ALL that matters.
Ceylal
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rightly so..you have a swath of territory not under your control...the only thing that agree with you is just a map..A country that is Egyptian, in name only, but administered by Israel..
When you talk about losses, nobody walk a winner in any war..But a the end, they managed neuter all the Egyptian cross the canal and established a beach head west of the Canal..km101 where they pitched the negotiation tent, was in Egypt not in Sinai..It doesn't matter if they lost half their population, the end justifies the means..THEY WON, AND WON BIG...they imposed the conditions of the winner..
really? ask the Egyptian lambda, they will tell you different..
It doesn't matter how you color it, how you read it, Egypt LOST..point barre!
Ceylal
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When the Egyptian can't hide facts ANYMORE...that the ALGERIANS saved their behind and forced Israel to sit and sign the truce in 101 kms
More to come, unless I am banned...
And the Egyptian win, was confirmed by Sissi
More to come, unless I am banned...
More to come, unless I am banned...
And the Egyptian win, was confirmed by Sissi
More to come, unless I am banned...
The SC
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You lost the war in the first hour.. all the rest were attempts by the US to save you..we won the war
but they built museum for their "win"
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