I referenced this in the greenline thread but…
Had the US not shipped the new and improved ECM pods, how much longer would have Israel lasted, or was the war’s tipping point already reached and an Israeli victory inevitible .
Declan
I referenced this in the greenline thread but…
Had the US not shipped the new and improved ECM pods, how much longer would have Israel lasted, or was the war’s tipping point already reached and an Israeli victory inevitible .
Declan
I don’t know to answer this, really, because I can’t imagine the U.S. not supporting Israel in that war. It was a near nuclear conflict.
What I know of this conflict mostly comes from Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears and stuff I’ve read on Wiki but as I understand it… Israel was nearly overwhelmed initially by the attack. It was on a holiday and reserves took a while to mobilize. But once they did Israel kicked ass for the rest of the conflict, albeit at a high price in casualties. But when you’ve got guys like this destroying 20-40 tanks by himself, who needs ECM pods?
I think the impact of any single piece of equipment is marginal compared to the Israeli fighting spirit. This was a battle for the literal existence of the country and I think they would have fought with sticks and stones if they had to.
You might want to consult with the French in WW1 and the Japanese in WW2 to see how far such blind faith in fighting spirit worked out. The invincibility of the offensive fighting spirit over material issues sounds all fine and patriotic, but artillery and machine guns don’t care how much one might imagine fighting spirit and fixed bayonets are supposed to overcome them.
Israel would have survived without ECM pods from the US. The war would have cost them more, but they would have survived just fine in the end. It’s important to note that the '73 war wasn’t fought with any blinders on about destroying Israel or driving the Jews into the sea. Egypt’s goal for the war was the recovery of the Sinai, not the destruction of Israel. They had no illusions about their capabilities compared to Israel in fluid, mobile warfare. After crossing the Suez, they advanced only a few kilometers, stopped and dug in for two reasons: advancing further into the Sinai would put them outside the umbrella of their fixed SAM sites (which were SA-2s and SA-3s, not the mobile SA-6s and man portable SA-7s), and it would result in mobile warfare which Israel enjoyed a decided advantage at. They didn’t try advancing from this position until Israel had Syria on the ropes and was moving on Damascus; for Egypt to be seen sitting on its hands while its brothers in arms were being crushed was politically impossible, so they launched an offensive, which proved disastrous.