Arabs at War

[Lokos]

Actually, forget it. I'm not arguing with a person whose initial position is: 'the Soviets were drunkards'.

Lokos

[Coop]

Actually, forget it. I'm not arguing with a person whose initial position is: 'the Soviets were drunkards'.

Right thing to do, as we're not talking about me.

This thread is about Arabs and their military history, and it is completely irrelevant what you see as my "initial position".

I said what quite a number of Arab military officers said to me. In their opinions, their Soviet instructors were anything else but "military professionals from one of the most prestigious military institutions on the planet". As mentioned above, most were wannabes, many were drunkards, and plenty of others greenhorns. Yet others were zampolits of no military knowledge or value, searching for glory. If this was the best the Soviets could offer, then I'm affraid we've all been feed an entirely wrong picture about the Soviet Army.

There is surely as hell plenty of evidence for this (and not only from Arabs), just like it is more than obvious that not a single Soviet instructor in any Arabic country ever has had anything like combat experience of the people they were supposed to "instruct".

[murahochris]

I think that part of the problem was that the Israelis cannot afford to loose. They are usually fighting for their survival and therefore fight much harder than their enemies.

Add to this better training, leadership, tactics and (sometimes) better weapons and you can see why the IDF always win.

[Coop]

I think that part of the problem was that the Israelis cannot afford to loose. They are usually fighting for their survival and therefore fight much harder than their enemies.

This is a (quite popular) myth. Except in the first phase of the 1948 War, the Israelis never fought for "survival". Available intelligence materials confirm that during all the subsequent armed confrontations (starting with the second phase of 1948 War), the Israelis enjoyed military supremacy, and there was in general very little to absolutely no, doubt about eventual outcome.

I can only repeat (I recommended this book already several times on this thread, a year or more ago), that reading Stephen Green's "Taking Sides" is obligatory for anybody with serious interest in this topic. Even for people who want to be in position to say a word or two.

Add to this better training, leadership, tactics and (sometimes) better weapons and you can see why the IDF always win.

Better weapons and better leadership yes. But, this is conditioned on the way Arab armies are built (this is also a repeat from earlier in this thread). Their primary purpose was always protection of the regime, i.e. denying them the ability to stage coup attempts. The less dangerous they can get for the "great leader" at the top - whoever this might be - that better.

Because of this, one can - when reading himself through Arab military-history literature - find literal thousands of examples of excellent fighters, deploying sound tactics, using all kinds of weapons to their full, also achieving not few successes etc. Where they usually fail when it comes to ground fighting, are command structures above company- and level of lieutenants (no surprise, then larger exercises are very seldom conducted).

In other disciplines, foremost such that depend on operator's ability to act independently from his superiors, the situation was actually completely different. This can be seen foremost in regards of air- and naval warfare. In the 1960s, the Arabs suffered terribly from listening to the Soviets too much. This opened a gap of 15-20 years that remains open until today. Once they began to develop own doctrines and methods, in the late 1960s and early 1970, the gap began to close. The trouble remained their equipment, then the Soviets flatly refused to deliver their best. Today it doesn't matter any more, then they do not want to contest any more.

In naval matters, Arabs were even ahead of Israel - whenever it was the Soviet wish to make some kind of a point in its relations to Israel or the USA.
Otherwise, it was again the equipment that counted - and this later factor is a very important one. The history of conventional wars between Arabs and Israelis (foremost those in 1967, 1973 and 1982) developed in the shade of the Cold War.

Correspondingly, relations between the Soviets and the West were throwing a thick shade on Arab armament. When one reads about Arab-Soviet relations, especially works by former leading Soviet dignitaries, they were always looking for what kind of gains or opportunities were there for them, especially in regards of what kind of damage they could cause to the USA, or how much could they influence the host country politically. They saw Arab actions in the contect of this conflict, acting accordingly. Without interest to provide Arabs with technological edge over the Israelis, on the other side, they were more than happy every time they could blame them for failure of second class weapons supplied. Therefore, they never stopped wondering why were Arabs asking them for so many - and then also so advanced weapons. And, they never delivered any that could provide a true advantage (arguably, often enough, there was nothing of that kind to deliver).

[9mmRifle]

That thing there, is an embarrasment to Ka 50/52 series
You like it only because it was a joint Russian/Israeli venture designed to screw Turkey into buying this monstrosity.

Turkish is not Arab