Yom Kippur War

Having resisted in their war of independence, gone on the attack during the Suez Canal crisis, and having razed their Arab enemies in 1967 during the so-called War of the six daysIsrael was living, in the early 1970s, a time of apparent tranquility. Only apparent, since his enemies did not forgive the defeats inflicted, and preparing a new attack that would redeem them.

The Yom Kippur War was an armed confrontation that occurred in 1973 between Israel on one side and a coalition of Arab states on the other.

This coalition was made up of Egypt and Syria mainly, with support that came, at one time or another, from Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Pakistan, and took advantage of the Yom Kippur holiday to launch a surprise attack on Israel.

The Yom Kippur holiday is celebrated over ten days, and is one of the most prominent holidays on the Jewish calendar. That is why a good part of the troops received that year a permit to celebrate it again at home with their

family. Israeli defenses, with a country surrounded by enemies, were at a minimum, but the movement The Arab had been calculated precisely to take advantage of that factor.

The intelligence The Israeli government also failed to correctly interpret the excellent information available to it, and this contributed to the surprise effect of the attack.

The Egyptians took advantage of the cover of a military exercise to mobilize their troops.

Israel can only mobilize its entire army (including the reservists) at a very high cost to its economy, so that although he had already mobilized his troops for a previous exercise, this time he dismissed (in accordance with the intelligence conclusions mentioned above) the possibility of a threat real.

In the early morning of October 6, 1973, the forces of the Arab coalition launched their combined attack.

The main theaters of operations were two: the Sinai Peninsula, conquered by Israel in Egypt in the Six Day War in 1967, and the Golan Heights, conquered from Syria in the same conflict, and which were the priority objectives to be recovered for both countries.

The threat in the Golan was high, as the Syrians had armed themselves with new T-62 tanks from Soviet manufacturing, while the IDF had the old Centurions of manufacture British.

However, a curious but ultimately relevant technical detail ended up deciding the battle on the Israeli side: the T-62s had been designed to fight in the Central European plains, so it was not foreseen that they could raise their cannon more than a certain angle.

But the Syrians fought from lower positions against the Israelis sheltered in higher positions, and the centurion tanks could lower their cannon at will.

The result of this small but fundamental design flaw was devastating: while the Syrian tankers had serious difficulties to touching the Israeli tanks, they were exposed to their enemies, which ended up throwing a proportion of tanks destroyed favorable to the IDF.

How did the Syrians solve this problem? Resorting to personal anti-tank weapons, which allowed them to penetrate Israeli defenses and take over some command posts.

Meanwhile, in the Sinai, Egyptian forces managed to cross the Suez Canal, but did not progress much further.

The great fear of the Arab coalition commanders was the powerful force Israeli air force, which they could nullify thanks to Soviet-made SAM missile batteries, but which did not provide protection beyond a small area.

During the war, neither side achieved air supremacy, although neither did the respective air forces pose a threat to the enemy.

On this front, Egyptian forces had also armed themselves with personal anti-tank missiles, which proved terribly effective against Israeli armored forces.

Despite the good work of the Egyptian soldiers, his army did not advance decisively due to strategic hesitations from his command, which gave wings to the Israeli counterattack.

A division of the IDF, commanded by the future Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, managed to break the Egyptian lines and march to Cairo, although the ceasefire came before it managed to reach the town.

On the other side of the map, the worrying initial situation had been countered by considering the Israeli high command the Golan front as a priority, since this territory it constitutes a plateau from which Israeli territory is dominated in a high position, which allows it to be beaten with artillery or missiles.

The reservists were primarily assigned to this front, and Israel managed to deploy them more quickly than the Syrians had calculated.

In the Golan, the situation was redirected in favor of Israel by appealing to reinforcements and aviation to cover its ground troops.

This meant that the Israeli military aviation did not have much influence on the Sinai front, although there was a surprise incursion to neutralize the enemy's air superiority, which resulted in several Egyptian bases damaged.

Little by little, the situation went from the initial Israeli surprise to the recovery of its troops, to which two factors: in the first place, that the Israeli mobilization began to take effect, bringing fresh troops to the combat that allowed to carry out counterattack actions, and secondly Instead, weapons and ammunition began to flow from the United States to Israel, the great protector of the Jewish state, countering the Russian weaponry supplied to the Arabs.

The Israeli counterattack led the IDF to cross the Suez Canal and stabilize the situation in the Golan.

The Israeli counterattack allowed its troops to pocket the Egyptian Third Army and threaten the strategic city of Suez, which it was able to resist at the cost of a large number of casualties on both sides.

Meanwhile, in the Golan, Israeli tankers were making an incredible effort to keep the Syrian armored attack at bay, eventually forcing it to retreat.

And not only that, but the IDF entered Syria in the direction of Damascus, and although Syria received reinforcements from Iraq and an expeditionary force from Jordan, Israeli soldiers reached 40 km from the capital, being able to bombard it in a effective.

However, Prime Minister Golda Meir and her government were aware of the impossibility of effectively occupying and holding Damascus.

With the territorial gain on both fronts, the war gave way to diplomacy, sponsored by the United States and the USSR.

Thus, and despite the fact that the military operations began to de-escalate from October 26, 1973, the cease-fire was not signed until November 11 of the same year.

The Arab armies, fearful of Israeli air superiority, wasted the initial superiority that gave them the surprise effect not penetrating deeper into the space defended by the IDF, especially in the case Egyptian.

For their part, the Israeli forces proved to be superiorly prepared and mentalized than those of their enemies, not only resisting in difficult positions (especially on the Golan Heights), but being able to rally and counterattack, putting the Arab armies in both fronts.

Israel also drew valuable intelligence lessons from the conflict.

Photos: Fotolia - Robert Hoetink

Yom Kippur War Issues