Israel ?

Sherman,
Thanks for that update. My knowledge of Isreal and its birth was gained by reading the 2 volumes of Gen. Moshe Dayans, biography.
It is amazing that in 1948 the combined arab armies strength was close to 1 million, while the total Jewish population was about 600,000 including men, women and children, and still they managed to defeat the arab armies.
 
Well, it's true that the combined forces were up to a million, but they only used a few tens of thousends. This was one of their mistakes, they underestimated Israel.


So,

We left the IDF in the early 50's. A small force based on infantry. Like I wrote, the Airborn Infantry made a name for itself, in a few retribution raids, for being the most fearsom element of the IDF. The Airforce was also growing a good reputation, after a few sucsesfull ncounters with Arab and British aircraft.

In 1956, Camal AbdelNasser, President of Egypt, nationalized the suez cannal. He also closed the Straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping, choking of Red Sea merchent shipping and thus posing a startigic threat to Israel. Israel openly stated that this action meant war. Nasser was not intimidated, as his army has just been rebuilt with Soviet weapons(the famous "Czech Weapons Deal"). So, come late 1956, Israel saw two reasons for war with Egypt: firstly, it had to restore it's Red Sea shipping, secondly, the Egytian Army was preparing for war and about to strike at any moment. Also, since the Naionalization of the Suez cannal was an attack on British and French intrests, Israel new it would not fight alone. On October 29th Israel launched its assault. 16 DC47 cargo planes carried 400 Paratroopers to the Mitle passage in Sinai. 3 houres before hand, 4 Mustnag fighters of the IAF flew into egypt and used their wings and propellors to cut down phone lines running from Sinai to to Cairo. This meant that when the Partroopers reached the ground in Sinai, the Egyptians were not sure if a full out war has been opened, or if this is simply a raid. The Paratroopers basically sliced the Sinai penisula in two, cutting Egyptian forces from each other. The next morning, Israeli Mech Inf and Airborn units, assisted by small armored units, broke into Sinai. The Israelis crushed the Egyptian forces, and were soon deep into Sinai. On the 31st British and French aircraft started the destruction of the Egyptian airforce. By the 5th of November it was all over. Israel took all of Sinai, the Egyptian Army and Airforces were destroyed, and British and French Forces were landed in Port Said. It was at that point that the UN interfered, and Israel, Britain and France were forced to draw their forces of Egytian territory. This was completed in a few weeks.

It would seem than, that no major profit came to Israel from this. This is not the case. The IDF gained many positive results:
* The Egyptian Army would no become a threat for a good fewyears. It simply lost most of it's heavy weapons.
*The IDF finnaly realized and believed it can operate in large formations. *Israels leaders now knew the value of the IDF, and trusted that if developed well it could protect Israel from any agression by the Arabs.

But somthing else changed about the IDF. Though the Paratroopers got the glory for their landing behind enemy lines, it was the armor corps that really proved them selves. Wherever the IDF fielded its tanks it got deep, fast penetration and fast destruction of the Enemy. It was slowly being realised that in desert warfare the tank is un-matched. The Armor Corps would never feel like a step child in the IDF again.

The Israeli Air Force also did well, inflicting some casualties to the Egyptians in the air. But it was not allowed to crush them on the ground like it had planned. This was left to the Brits and French.

Only in the next did the IDF and IAF reach total maturity. Only in the next war did Israel truely adopt the fast pased heavily armored doctorin that it became famous for. And that war will be the subject of my next post. :D
 
SHERMAN said:
3 houres before hand, 4 Mustnag fighters of the IAF flew into egypt and used their wings and propellors to cut down phone lines running from Sinai to to Cairo.

WHAT!!! that's incredible!
 
kotakk said:
How did such a small country develop such neat firepower,and that
to under what circumstances?Just curious to know how did israel become a major military power?

Same way SA did it during the 70's and 80's....triel, error, beg. borrow, steal, deal.

As mentioned, necessity if the mother and possibly the father of all inventions...
 
After WWII most of the Jewish defense used k98's and other German arms...it is very ironic, but it shows what lengths they were willing to got to defend themselves. I have an article in Shotgun News. I'll see if I can scan it and post it here.
The story about using mustang wings and props to cut phone lines are correct.
On a side not, during the mid 80's, CIA surveillance picked up a large flash in the South Atlantic....any uesses as to what happened?
 
bushpig1998 said:
After WWII most of the Jewish defense used k98's and other German arms...it is very ironic, but it shows what lengths they were willing to got to defend themselves. I have an article in Shotgun News. I'll see if I can scan it and post it here.
The story about using mustang wings and props to cut phone lines are correct.
On a side not, during the mid 80's, CIA surveillance picked up a large flash in the South Atlantic....any uesses as to what happened?

a nuke was detonated....it was always speculated that SA and Isreal had jointly developed Nuke weapons
 
he he he thought I was the only one here that would know about it....it is true. SA helped Israel by providing a testing ground and some technical assistance, and Israel helped SA with procurement of certain materials and eqipement - SA went on to develop 7 tactical nukes...fired from a G5 or G6 arty piece. 6 of them were dismanteled, but there are some speculations at the 7th device, and whether it ever existed. Israel, on the other hand, hide nothing.
Of note is that it is one of these nukes that stopped the Cubans from overrunning SA - never detonated it, but the USA saw our plans and stepped in.
 
if we look at the odds in all those wars between isreal and arabian nations, i guess not lots of ppl would think Isreal can survive..

but magically, they win everytime, although not without some terrible costs..
 
sherman said:
The Israeli Air Force also did well, inflicting some casualties to the Egyptians in the air. But it was not allowed to crush them on the ground like it had planned. This was left to the Brits and French. [/quote}]i didn't think the british intervened at any stage during the six day war. non of the books i have read have said anything about them fighting. also, i was under the impression that the IAF was pretty responsible for the almost complete distruction of the egyptian AF, or are we talking about a different war?

Six day of war by Michael Oren said:
The IAF carried out 164 sorties in just over 100 minutes and destroyed another 107 planes while suffering only 9 losses. Of Egypts 420 combat aircraft 286 were destroyed. thirteen air bases were rendered inoperable; along with 23 radar stations and anti aircraft sites
 
Who was saying anything about the 6 days war? Read the whole post, it's about the Sinai Camaighn in 56... :D

But, now it is time to get to the 6 Days War...:

From 1956 untill the mid 1960s, both Israel and the Arabs built their forcesup. Syria and Egypt were given a lot of soviet tanks,planes and artillary. Israel was still not allowed to buy USA made weapons, and so it armed itself with British and French ones. During the early and mid 60s Israel recieved the French Mirage III and Vautour. The first was a Mach 2 capable fighter, with great agilety and preformence. The second was a light bomber meant for long range strikes. The IAF was building u to preform what it was not allowed to do in the 56 war- destroy arab airforces on the ground. The Israeli infantry recieved automatic and semi automatic weapons to replace the K98k. The FN-FAL was now the most common rifle. The Uzi SMG was mass produced and carried by a lot of units.
But, like I said before, after 56, the IDF started to rely more on its tanks. This meant that finally new tanks arrived. The old Shermans were updated with 105mm guns and new FCS. And more importantly, Centurion tanks and M48s arrived in Israel. The M48s were the first sighn of US willingness to sell Israel weapons. This was a result of the Soviets arms deal with the Arabs. The armor force grew much in both noumbers and experience. It now had divisions and was learning how to fight in large formations.

In the late 50s and through the 60s, Israel fought many border skermishes with Syria. Mostly over the water sources. The Syrians attempted to divert streams from reaching lake Kineret, Israel only lake and main water source. During this engagemnt the Israeli tank crews destroyed enemy targets at ranges of up to 5km. If you take in to consideration the crude Fire Control Systems on the Shermans and the fact that some shermans still had the 75mm gun, that is an incredible distance. The IDF saw the advatage in being able to shoot to these ranges and began training its tank crews to start shooting even at 4-5km.

All of this force building was meant for one purpose- If the Arab countrys unite to destroy Israel, the IDF was going to give them a heck of a fight.

And, in fact, by early 1967, the Arabs were preapared for war. The Syrian, Jordanian, and most important Egyptian army, were ready to attack. It is not so important why the Arabs decided o attack. Enough to say that the Syrians were eager to destroy Israel, the Soviets were eager to try their new weaponry and also to get rid o Israel that allined itself with the west, and both of these countrys put heavy pressure on Egypt to attack Israel. By late May of 67 it was clear war will break soon. Israel was going to face the entire Arab might, not only parts of it. All of the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces will go on attack. alot of Israelis feared that the end is near. On the 28th of may,Levi Eshkol- the Israeli Prime Minister made a speach to reassure the nation. Eshkol was an elderly man, and was under much tension. During the speach he mixed up the lines and got slightly confused. Israelis were sure that their Prime Minister is insecure and affraid. Panic seemed imminent. To counter this, Levi resighned from his second position(as minister of security), and appointed General Moshe Dayan, a heroe of the 48 and 56 wars, as a Minister of Secuirty. That change alone drove spirit into many Israeli troops and civilians. The following day Dayan made a brilliant deception by publicly stating that there is no imminent threat of war. To prove this thousnds of troops were given vacations(Israel was mobilized for almos amonth now). On the 4th of June the decision to go to war was taken by the Israeli Government. There was simply no choise. The Egyptians drove the UN force out of Siani and war preaparing to invade. The Syrians and Jordanians were fully mobilized. Israel could not stay mobilized for long, as most of its troops wee reservists and keeping them away from their jobs caused ecomonical damage.

On June 5th, 1967, at arround 7:15am, 183 Israeli aircraft took off and started their way to targets in Egypt. They flew low, avoiding Radar detection. They maintained radio silence. Their targets were 11 Egyptian airports. By 7:45am they were at their destinations. The Egyptians pilots were just returning from morning patrols and sitting down for breakfast. 189 planes, 45% of Egyptian air power, were destroyed by the first wave. In addition, the runways were bombed with special bombs that disabled them temporarily. 8 Radar stations were also knocked out. The second wave of attacks began round 9:30am, and destroyed another 94 Egyptian aircraft, as well as airport buildings and Readar stations. in 12:45pm the third wave launched, mostly at Syria and Jordan. Later that day airports in western Iraq were attacked, to destroy Iraqi long range bombers. All of the Jordanian airforce was destroyd, as well as more than half of the Syrian airforce, and most of the Iraqi Long Range bombers. All togather 376 Arab aircraft were destroyed on the ground that day, leaving the IDF to wage war with total air superiority.

What followed was a series of intens break through battles, where the IDF launched its tanks right at the Egyptian formations. These attacks caused Israel to have numerical supriority at the point of attack, while being numericaly infrior on the whole. Also, the IDF tank menn were un believeable. They were truely the best trained, best led, and most motivated armored force since WWII. Even when taking casualties in closed range fights, they fought on. Crews that lost their tanks to enemy fire simply fought on as infantry. Tank commanders who lost their tank would hop into tanks that lost their commander and fight on. The Egyptians could do nothing but run away, surrender or die. Even those Egyptian tanks that got awat did not survive usually, because the IAF, having cleared the sky, was raining down death and destruction at any vehicle that dared try to flee southwards. By the fourth day of the war, Israeli troops were sitting on the Suez Cannal, their storm of armor and fire completed.
In the Jodanian front, things went just as well. On 11:00am on the first day of the war, before a single attack was made at them, the Jordanians opened fire along the entire front, including the devided city of Jerusalem. This was to prove a deadly mistake. Israel diverted the some of the third wave of its airstrikes at the jordanian airforce, leaving Jordan with no air support. In the next 48 houres IDF tanks and Paratroopes(fielded as mech infantry), swooped through the West Bank of the Jordan River. The Israelis had some trouble with the Jordanians, who were more trained and disciplined then the Egyptians. Non the less, by hard fighting they took the whole West Bank and Jerusalem by the 7th of June. Jerusalem was united for the first time in 19 years. The Wailing Wall, most sacred place to the Jewish people, was in Israeli hands again.
Like the Jordanians, the Syrians also opened fire before Israel attacked them. Before noon of June 5th, a few air attacks were made by Srian fighter into Israeli territory. A few Syrian aircraft were shot down. The rest made it to their bases, only to be destroyed by the ISraeli third wave of air attacks. that evening Syrian artillary fired at Israeli towns and was silenced by Israeli artillary. Early in the morning of June 6th the fire stated again, as Israeli aircraft attacked Syrian positions and Syrian artillary attacked israeli towns again. At 6:00am the Syrians made an attempt to take an Israel position. They were easily thwarted and as a result of this, and the destruction of their airforce, changed their deployment from offensive to defensive.
The following day saw heavy bombardments of Israeli towns by Syrian artillary. Israel was hassitent to open another front, but the constant shelling of civilian targets could not be overlooked. It was decided to attack and capture the Golan Heights during the 9th of June. This was to be made by two break through battles, since their was not enough area to manuver around anyways. This caused preetey heavy casualties in some units, as the Syrians were well dug in. But still, by the 19th of June the Syrians simply ran away, and when the cease fire started the IDF drove far enough into Syria to keep the Israli town out of artillary range, and also to be able to defend this achivment.

In conclusion, Israel tripled its size. The Arab armies were almost copletely destroyed, and would take a few years to recover. The IDF took about 1500 casualties. The Arabs took around 20000. Israel now stood all over it's enemys, assued that it can never be defeated. It dident take long fo it to find out the price of this arrogance.

To be continued.
 
rocco said:
keep in mind, those connections only helped israel a bit... after ww2, most of israels weapons were bought from salvage dumps...

What part of
rOk said:
though granted at the beginning (1948) they relied on their own and performed admirably.
was so hard to understand?[/quote]

the part before where you said connections helped... its not like 1948 was much different to the other wars... help was given, but often after israels nieghbours got weapons first...
 
i must agree with rocco. Israel was using old or second hand weapons up to the 1970s. And even after that. The IDF was still using halftracks in the early 1990s...
 
SHERMAN said:
i must agree with rocco. Israel was using old or second hand weapons up to the 1970s. And even after that. The IDF was still using halftracks in the early 1990s...

check out israeliweapons page to see when centurions and shermans were phased out
 
Back
Top