mav@cs.huji.ac.il (Marc Alexandrovich Volovic) (01/10/91)
From: Marc Alexandrovich Volovic <mav@cs.huji.ac.il> Hello, I quite agree that the the Sagger and RPG equipped Egyptian forces caused heavy losses to the Israeli tank forces. The reason is, as you have stated, lack of infantry support. During the years from 67 to 73 the Israeli Army, under the influence of General Tal, developed the "tank-heavy" doctrine. The decided that the ancilary forces of the tank division are less important than the tanks and that tanks "can do it alone." The US has that experience, and its tank divisions have infantry support, with independent and organic AT subunits. I doubt very much that the Iraqis have Blazer or the newer Israeli designed fire attenuation systems incorporated in the Russian tanks, and even if they do, they probably have the subsystems on the better tank divisions (i.e. RepGuard). We are all waiting for the Ides of January. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Marc A. Volovic email: mav@lizardo.huji.ac.il | | Linguistics Dept snail: P.O. Box 23114 | | Hebrew University Jerusalem, 91230 | | Jerusalem, Israel Israel | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Linguists do it cunningly | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
major@uunet.UU.NET (Mike Schmitt) (01/12/91)
From: bcstec!shuksan!major@uunet.UU.NET (Mike Schmitt) > From: Marc Alexandrovich Volovic <mav@cs.huji.ac.il> > I quite agree that the the Sagger and RPG equipped Egyptian forces > caused heavy losses to the Israeli tank forces. The reason is, as you have > stated, lack of infantry support. During the years from 67 to 73 the Israeli > Army, under the influence of General Tal, developed the "tank-heavy" doctrine. > The decided that the ancilary forces of the tank division are less important > than the tanks and that tanks "can do it alone." According to one Israeli Tank Battalion comander, Israeli tank forces were ordered to reach the battle at all speed - to halt the oncoming Egyptian forces. In so doing, their tanks quickly outran the old infantry-carrying half tracks - and met Egyptian anti-tank weaponry without infantry support (a big non-no). First, the Israeli tank forces quickly developed a "Sagger Overwatch" tactic - and secondly, the arrival of M113 APCs allowed the infantry to keep up with the tanks (many of the M113s came from U.S. POMCUS stocks stored in Europe). > The US has that experience, and its tank divisions have infantry > support, with independent and organic AT subunits. I doubt very much that > the Iraqis have Blazer or the newer Israeli designed fire attenuation systems > incorporated in the Russian tanks, and even if they do, they probably have > the subsystems on the better tank divisions (i.e. RepGuard). Traditionally, the Soviet "export" model of their tanks is less sophisticated than their "domestic" model - especially in fire control. So, the question is - what model Soviet tank do the Iraqi's use as their Main Battle Tank? T-64? T-72? T-80? And were these tanks manufactured in the Soviet Union (domestic model) or Czechoslovokia (export models)? Do they have any French AMX-series of tanks (eg AMX-30)? mts