Arabs at War

[K-9s BEST]

Well, Coop, you kept it clean but, bereft of any pithiness.After all this, I`m wondering just who you are and what your qualifications are other than your "debriefings" of every combatant, politician, etc. You have the audacity to actually challenge ANY point offered by anyone you take issue with. Apparently, you do know EVERYTHING about the YOM KIPPUR WAR (other than the little interest you`ve expressed about reading something on the internet about the naval Battle of Latakia).
Let me say this as succinctly as I can: I have absolutely NO, repeat, NO interest in the Arab view of the 1973 war. (WTF-how shocking!) I am not Israeli, not a Jew, and my loyalty is solely to the U.S. And I tend to rely on the more credible source of information emanating from the Middle East, and if that doesn`t meet YOUR level of verification ...pfft. You would have me believe you rather than my lying eyes. IMO, the Arabs view the truth as something to hide when it displeases them. You are more than welcome to use their input to shape your view of the war.
BTW, the website I listed does show the IAF losses in the 1973 war as claimed by the IAF. (Yeah right, I`ll post IAF instead of IDF/IAF if I want)
And , your previous post of me being 7000kms away, (even in a figurative sense), is WAAAAAAAY off.
If you have any Israeli IDF sources you use for your historical view, and can ID them on this website, please do. While removed from any MidEast contacts over the last 25 years, I have a friend here in NY whose father was in the Entebbe Raid in 1976 and is a storehouse of knowledge of what happened behind the scenes in 1973. If the sources are still alive in Israel, "Tom" is willing to contact them for me. (I`ll have to pay the phone bill, no matter.)

[Coop]

Oh, pittifull K-9...

You mix into a discussion explaining that - in essence - you're not accepting any other opinions, then you drank with Rabin and worked for US Army intel, which makes you an expert on Middle East par excellence; you don't read posts of the others but interpret excerpts from their sentences and read their minds; you don't answer even a single question pointed at you; do not supply any kind of evidence supporting your babbling, don't even have your own points right... (Nickel Grass should've been the code-name for the whole US air-bridge to Israel, in 1973, eh?)

You actually talk with yourself all the time about something that is not even interesting to you - but are then surprised with my reaction?

If you have "NO, repeat, NO interest in the Arab view of the 1973 war", then what to hell are you doing here?

(Or have you failed to read even the title of this thread?)

Let me conclude that I don't give a damn about you, your experiences, telephone numbers you (might) have or your opinion about Arabs, Chinese, even the USA at all: I doubt you see further than the tip of your nose. Even if you would have been a former President of the USA you're no authority in regards of Middle East because you're completely ignoring one of involved parties. Given you so openly refuse to study one of involved parties, your opinion about this conflict is completely and utterly irrelevant: you're not a schoolar, you're a clueless ignorant (which is what I said about you already several times, but also something you admit now yourself) with an illusion of grandeur - and as such you cannot contribute anything useful to this topic.

[K-9s BEST]

Someone needs a diaper change.

[Coop]

Yep; please, take a look into the nearest mirror.

[Turhapuro]

[alexz]

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

[Coop]

Because there are always people who have "NO, repeat, NO interest..." - in anyhting else but their own opinions.

[Coop]

Coop:

In regards to your comments on litterature on the 1973 war, I was wondering if you had some comments on Chaim Herzogs: the war of atonement?

I've found a copy today in the local bookshop and am reading it in the moment.

On the first look it appears to provide a very detailled account about Israeli political actions shortly before the war - which is no surprise: after all, it is a book by an Israeli military officer, and written only in 1974 or so. The author couldn't go into details about which he did not know.

[Coop]

To complete this "review":
The War of Atonement is - IMHO - a decent work to this topic, roughly equal to "No Victor, No Vanquished" but neither as detailled nor as well ballanced.

What disturbed me are two or three things I've heard about this book even before begining to read it, and which proved right:

- a) Herzog is emphasizing the Israeli perspective only; he describes some events related to Arabs, but in generaly neglects going more in-depth, especially about their combat performance

- b) there appear to be endlessly many heroic Israelis, and only "hundreds" of anonymous Arabs (to a degree it's good he did not use the expression "hordes" for the later)

- c) Herzog actually failed completely to detail the air war: he's not mentioning the heavy losses the IDF/AF survived on 7 October over Golan even with a single word, just for example. This is somewhat estranging given on the other side he's going into such details like mentioning that the SyAAF attempted to bomb Haifa, on 6 October, but that one of two Sukhois crashed underway... (in fact, the SyAAF attempted no such attacks - especially not on 6 October: the Syrians studied carefully the Israeli expectations; their conclusion was that the IDF/AF would in the case of such an surprising attack expect strikes against its own bases; consequently, the SyAAF flew no such strikes; as a result, for the first one hour the IDF/AF hardly flew a single mission over Golan, instead flying CAPs over central Israel, waiting for Syrian attacks that never came...).

- d) Herzog also neglects the SAM-impact and goes on to exaggerate the number of Arab SAM-sites supposedly destroyed in IDF/AF air strikes..

Also, his explanation that the IDF/AF lost "only five aircraft in air combats with Egyptians" appears to have been developed into a general acceptation as "five" being the figure for IDF/AF fighters lost in all air combats of this war. In fact, several other books about the Yom Kippour War I read cite this statement of Herzog in the sence that these "five" were all the losses the Israelis suffered in air combats, in 1973. Hard to believe the IDF/AF suffered no losses in air combats with Syrians or Iraqis, when the former have meanwhile published a number of gun-camera films.

Finally, he mentions plenty of sources, but credits none: there are no footnotes and no bibliography, leaving the reader wondering what are no few "Western published sources" Herzog mentions repeatedly.

In total, down to few details that are in an obvious need of more in-depth research, I don't think this book helped me understand this war better, or learn anything really interesting about it. This conclusion should be taken carefully, however: bear in mind I read a number of publications that came out much later, and were based on a much better and more detailled information. Plus, there are always first-hand sources...

[Mr. Nielsen]

To complete this "review":
The War of Atonement is - IMHO - a decent work to this topic, roughly equal to "No Victor, No Vanquished" but neither as detailled nor as well ballanced.

Thanks for the review. Read the "war of atonement" and to balance it, "No Victor, No Vanquished" some 10 years ago. Now was interesting to hear a review of them, from someone that put them in perspective with other and newer materials.

[Kaplanr]

Given who Herzog was and when he wrote the book, he didn't pen it to be balanced. In retrospect I think his goal was to write a military history that would be largely legitimate and take some of the sting out of Israel's failures during and preceding the war. He certainly had the credibility to do that. He didn't have any Arab sources available to him, save what the Israelis may have captured, and even the "official" Israeli records weren't open to him. O'Ballance had the advantage of 3-4 years on Herzog when his work was published.

As an aside. The "Official" IDF history of the Yom Kippur has yet to be released in English. What has been produced is still missing important elements, especially concerning the conduct of Israel's MI and of General Arik Sharon.

[Coop]

Nielsen,
bear in mind that there are people who consider "The War of Atonement" as "better" than "No Victor, No Vanquished". I found the later "better" for reasons I mentioned above, plus because I find it highly interesting - given that the author took great care to find Syrian, Iraqi and Egyptian commanders, eyewitnesses etc.


Kaplan,
we're in an agreement here - both, regarding Herzog, and re. Israelis not releasing their official history of that war.

In fact, most of the documents produced by their Agranat commission after the war are still held closed.

[Vorster]

I've been watching this thread for a while and here is my insight into a few points.

First tactics. The russian tactic of micro managing a battle is what cost the arabs. The russians are to rigid in their planning with lower echolon commanders having to follow the plan to the letter and not being allowed any iniative. If the plan fails he has to wait for the guy above to contact the guy above until they reach a high up enough guy which can make the decision. This was what NATO was barging on. That they can throw a sercious monkey wrench into the russians plans and then go onto the offensive when they are off balance.

Second Monkey Models. Jup the arabs got monkey models in large quantities and where well trained in their use. Take the sagger or RPG as example. Where they lacked was the application of these weapons.

Third Isreali Aerial Losses. Lets face it guys during the intial stages of the Yom Kippur war the ADS handed the IAF it's planes back in pieces. I believe they lost 80 planes in the first few days. These were mostly due to the ADS. But where the IAF met the arabs in the sky they sent them reeling down in flames. And this would be true for any airforce on the world - the IAF will beat them pants down. The US used them in the agressor role in the 80s but had to send them back because they were just to good and kept on winning. The SAAF sent some of our best fighter jocks there for training in the 80s and the results where the same.

Forthly IDF battle prowess. No one doubts the training and ability of the IDF. But they can sometimes be a bit cocky. Point in case was when they got their asses handed to them during the initial stages of the Yom Kippur war during the ill fated counterattack on day two of the war. Still the deciding factors which places the IDF above all other armies is motivation, training, tactics and expierence. Their motivation cannot be stronger: Fail and my country is destroyed. Training is some of the toughest and realistic in the world based on expierence gained during numerous wars. Tactics, even old Fast Heinz and Liddle-Hart would be impressed with what the IDF did with their baby. Their tactics for LIC and armored warfare is unparalleled in the world. But here is the kicker it is only applicable to their terrain and would fail misserably in the african bush down here. And lastly expierence. They have it in truck loads having fought, by the account of some, 7 wars.

My honest opinion was that the arabs were out generaled and out fought. Equipment isn't a major factor. It is the application of that equipment.

Before you start saying I am talking out of a twisted sense of patriotism here is two facts. I live in South Africa and I am a protestant. So no dice on that argument

[Lokos]

The russians are to rigid in their planning with lower echolon commanders having to follow the plan to the letter and not being allowed any iniative.

This is only a given as a Western stereotype. The Soviets, historically, were famously introspective and retrospective doctrinally (tactically, operationally and strategically). Whilst there was an emphasis on following orders 'to the letter', these orders were objective-driven - lower echelon commanders had plenty of leeway in how to go about achieving a given objective.

Lokos

[Vorster]

I might be wrong but this was the impresions whe got from fighting the Russian trained Angolans. Despite this it might not be the battalion level tactics which fail but the platoon level where the "The metal meets the meat", and the weapons have to be used.