Topic: OCTOBER 1973 WAR (YUM KIPPUR)- AN EGYPTIAN VICTORY 10

AVON

I do not know the total number of Syrian SAM sites nor the number of ZSUs on the Golan Heights but, I do know after the three day air offensive by the IAF against the Syrian mobile air defense, on 10/09/73 they sent two groups of F-4 Phantoms to bomb and destroyed the Syrian General Staff Headquarters in the heart of Damascus. The Syrian Air Force Headquarters was damaged as well. The Syrian Army then withdrew the remaining SAM-6s to protect Damascus, which left the army on the Golan heights vulnerable to the IAF.

One of the greatest surprises of the ground war was the effectiveness of the wire guided Sagger and Snapper anti-tank missiles. The Egyptian Army had hundreds of them with the first waves of infantry that encountered the Israeli armor's first counter-attacks. The Israeli armor had never experienced anything like this. The first Israeli armor counter attacks were made 'piece-meal' without any infantry support!
Later in the war the US airlift gave the Israeli Army their first TOW missiles which were more accurate and devastating against Egyptian armor.

Not just an alert, President Nixon went to DEFCON-3! (During the Cuban Missile Crisis the USA went to DEFCON-2.) This action by President Nixon took the Soviet Union by surprise and the Soviet Union decided not to send the airborne forces which had been placed on alert. The Soviet leaders were surprised the USA would risk nuclear war over the Israeli versus Arab countries.
The Israeli intelligence people knew of the Soviet airborne alert. I wonder "IF" the Soviet Union had sent the airborne forces, would the IAF have shot down the Soviet transports??

So true and, no where was this more clear than on the Golan Heights.