So modern Israel owes its continued existance to Nazi scientist Dr. Hans von Ohain , developer of the modern jet engine for Heinkel Aircraft in WWII. Irony!
Aren’t you forgetting Sir Frank Whittle, developer of the modern jet engine for the Allies in WW2?
The Germans got a working jet plane first, despite Whipple having discovered/patented it years before.
Having the idea doesn’t amount to much if you don’t manage to make something of it.
Edison was far from the first to develop a light bulb – he just made a commercially viable one. Columbus wasn’t the first European to discover North America, but he/his sponsors followed up on that. Lots more examples.
But as far as the Israelis are concerned, all they got from von Ohain was an idea, too. It’s not like they were using his same designs.
Some mix of “technology, training, tactics, terrain, leadership, morale” applies to nearly all military victories. It’s nice to have an answer which less generic than that.
It’s noteworthy that in Operation Drugstore (Operation Mole Cricket 19 - Wikipedia ) the Israelis still had a stunning victory which presaged the suppression of Iraq’s IADS in Gulf War I. The Syrians did a worse job against Israel than the Vietnamese did against the US.
True, the Israeli AF in 1967 had no US designed combat a/c, virtually all French but a few left over British Meteors and some US non-combat types. The tank force relied significantly on US M48’s but also British Centurions, light French AMX-13’s and heavily modified US WWII M4’s. So it wasn’t specifically the characteristics of US equipment. Perhaps it could be argued to some degree the characteristics of Western equipment.
But basically the Israeli military was simply a lot more effective man for man. In “Numbers Predictions and War” Trevor Dupuy published the results of his quantitative modelling of force efficiency in modern warfare. He found for example the German Army was around 1.2 times as effective on average for a given combat power (number of men and equipment capabilities) than the Anglo-Americans in the second half of WWII. The Germans in the 1941 offensive campaigns were 3.6 times as effective as the Soviets, 2.7 times at Kursk, but the ratio tended to shrink to around 1.5 with the Soviets on the offensive, as they almost always were later on.
The Israelis he calculated were 1.54 times as effective as the Jordanians, 1.75 as effective as the Egyptians and 2.63 times as effective as the Syrians in 1967. In 1973 he found the Israeli superiority didn’t change much overall, actually increased v the Egyptians and Jordanians though declined v the Syrians.
According to him, that paradox of the early Arab successes in 1973 v constant disaster in the briefer 1967 war was explained by factors such as initial surprise (in favor of the Israeli’s in 67, in favor of the Arabs in '73), the quick elimination of Arab air power in '67 but not '73 (the effectiveness ratio’s are ground forces), and less competent top Arab leadership in 67 than 73 (which is not included in military force effectiveness).
Why one particular force is more effective than another man for man, weapon capability for weapon capability (these figures purportedly correct for equipment differences) is a lot more complicated assuming one accepts the numbers to begin with. It could be fairly superficial and fixable factors of how an army is run (the Soviets for example presumably got better in a fairly short time in significant part by re-emphasizing competent over politically favored officers). It could be deeper institutional or even societal factors. It could vary by type of combat, as in the persistent large German superiority over the Soviets in maneuver warfare, not as much in slogging defensive fighting v Soviet set piece advances. Which actually seemed to be echoed in the greater Egyptian success in the pre-planned canal crossing in 1973 and meeting the initial predictable Israeli counter attacks. Then things tended to fall apart for the Egyptians as the Israeli’s successfully found room for armored maneuver which put a premium on the ability to improvise.
One of my former debaters has written a well-regarded book on the subject of military cohesion. In it he addresses a number of the items brought up in this thread.
It did more or less. The pre war boundary was literally the 38th parallel, the boundary for accepting Japanese surrender agreed by the US and Soviets in 1945. The post Korean War DMZ gave up all ROK territory south of the 38th west of the Imjin River, including completely indefensible enclaves and islands further west, but runs north of the 38th to the east on more defensive terrain targeted by the UN forces in the static phase of the war. The territory of the ROK expanded a few % v 1950.
Also the previous thumbnail was not correct citing the Inchon landing as countering the Chinese intervention. The Inchon landing countered the original North Korean only invasion in 1950, leading to the virtual destruction of the KPA and the UN advance into NK which caused the Chinese to enter the war. The Chinese (and revived NK) forces pushed the UN forces down into South Korea in early 1951 but not as far the North Koreans had gotten in 1950. That and subsequent Chinese offensives exhausted themselves in the face of logistical limitations and far superior UN firepower and each time the UN forces were able to push the Chinese back to the vicinity of the 38th parallel, with the political decision made by summer 1951 to accept the Communist sides’ agreement to truce talks. The fighting thereafter was to improve one side or another’s position along a line not far from the eventual DMZ.
:dubious:
Often read that, yet the actual war seems to belie that. The defence at Ismailia aand also at Port Said was organised more or less on the fly by the local commanders. The IDF had more advantages there than pretty much ever in its history but were unable to breakthrough. Admittedly Dayan’s nervousness about Egyptian reserves coming up probably affected ops.
Its an observation made about one part of the military and then extended to the entire force, unnecessarily I am afraid. A similar idea is used that about the Germans, that somehow they gave lots of autonomy to their junior leaders (true), and thats exactly how they fought at every level. In fact the German Panzer Groups kept their sub-formations and units on a tight leash as far as the general plan was concerned. The British did not and typically got their pretty behinds kicked. Until Monty and later Dempsey managed to instil such effective control.
On second paragraph that’s not anything I said in my short post. But whatever the reasons, it’s pretty apparent that German superiority to the Soviets (and the British not to mention then inexperienced Americans in North Africa), tended to be greatest in mobile warfare in open terrain, combat power for combat power. According to Dupuy their effectiveness ratio v the Soviets in such combat was higher than the Israeli’s typically enjoyed. Exactly how they achieved it is more difficult to nail down. Politics, social attitudes and nationalism (direct or indirect which makes some people naturally more the ‘fans’ of one side) tend to enter into analysis. It’s particularly potentially tricky to discuss why the army associated with the Nazi regime was as good at it was. However that’s not from what I know a myth. Maybe certain simplistic explanations of it are a myth.
But I think the same observations would often apply with Arab/Israel, Muslim world v Western proxy etc, complete objectivity is not the rule IME. If your point is it’s not easy to say why the Israeli’s were superior, and I believe on balance the results don’t belie that that was particularly true in improvisational situations, I agree. If you’re maintaining the Israeli’s actually weren’t significantly superior, even in 1973, that’s obviously not so IMO.
Interesting phrasing, given that the Israeli military is one of the few in the world where women & men are both required to do national service, and are pretty much equal within the service.
ETA: In reply to Corry El
(Ismailia and Port Said were as improvisational as it ever got in Arab-Israeli wars and the Egyptians performed well there so, yes I do doubt that.).
As for the rest, I must confess I have always found claims of “combat effectiveness” of soldiers to be suspect. How do you compare effectiveness “man to man”, when looking at such a diverse entity as a modern mechanised, combined arms formation.In the '73 War in the Sinai, Israeli armour was undoubtedly far superior to the Egyptians, which is why the later initially decided to fight statically. Conversely, Israeli Artillery was pretty poor, while Egyptian Artillery was good. There is no doubt that Egyptian Anti-Tank teams were highly effective, the Israelis having no real counterpart. Israeli infantry was probably of a higher calibre than their opposition.
So man to man? Israeli Air Defence Missileer versus Egyptian artilleryman? Egyptian Ant-Tank team member versus Israeli Tanker? The later two at least fought each other directly, but totally different roles.
t-bonham@scc.net: In 1973, the IDF fighting arms were all male and IIRC, most still are.
It’s accurate phrasing as far as 1967 and 1973 wars in context of analysis of front line combat unit performance.
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Well it’s back to how politics and culture get sucked if you’re really going to say the Israeli’s weren’t superior to the Arab armies including the Egyptians, including 1973. I don’t see another explanation for denying military historical reality that way. That’s different from saying the Israeli’s fully achieved their objectives in every encounter.
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I think that’s overly semantic, though not outright incorrect like quibbling with Israeli Army ‘men’ in 1967 and 73 since yes, Israeli front line combat units were all male in those wars. But ‘man for man’ is just a turn of phrase anyway. You’ll note I also said ‘combat power for combat power’. It means organization to organization trying to strip away the effects of numbers and quality of equipment. Which is never beyond any debate, and if the two organizations were fairly close it might indeed hinge on which type of combat emphasized the types of things one or the other side was better at. But in the 67 and 73 wars it just wasn’t close enough for that to be very relevant. Somehow the Israeli’s fielded forces which were significantly better with any reasonable correction for their numbers or opinions about equipment.
And when two armored forces each are comprised mainly of tanks capable of penetrating the frontal armor of their opponents at normal combat ranges that’s a tie basically. I like talking about the minutiae of tanks more than most people, but once there’s that basic parity in mutual capability to destroy opposing tanks you have to look mainly to human factors I think to explain the Arab Israeli combat outcomes in general.
In both those wars, airstrikes seem to have mattered a lot against Arab concentrations. What would have been the main Israeli air-to-ground platforms and munitions? How did jet planes primarily take out tanks in '67 and '73?
Didn’t the Arabs have Shilkas or some other SPAAG to cover their tanks? I realize that SPAAGs have a low effective altitude but wouldn’t taking out tanks with a jet plane in '67 and '73 require getting within range of SPAAGs?
You are dodging the main question. You make the claim that the Arab Armies were unable to react to, to employ your term “improvisational” situations. I have given examples of two* battles, major battles at that, where the Egyptians performed well in just such situations. You have not replied to that, rather made some snide remarks about “denying military historical reality”. I am curious. Why? Maybe you have not studied those battles in any details.
No its not overly semantic. You can’t compare organizations without looking at their disparate parts, both individually and as a whole. And in something like a modern military formation, you can’t just crunch numbers and come with some “effectiveness” quotient. If the claim had been about the relative effectiveness in a certain type of Operations, then yes it would have been arguable. For instance saying Army A was superior to Army B in offensive maneuver operations,** that would be a quantifiable statement, with a context. Saying “men of Army A are 2x as effective as men of Army B”, well that sounds like a Buzzfeed article.
- Although they took place at the same time, they involved different formations and AFAIK, had little overlap in forces.
**As the Israelis undoubtedly were.
On OP, this article published in 1999 is generally considered and most often cited as the best overview of the underlying military, national culture, and general sociological reasons:
Why Arabs Lose Wars
by Norvell B. De Atkine
Middle East Quarterly
December 1999
FWIW (a lot, obviously) this is a brief bio of the author posted at the US Naval Institute:
Colonel Norvell B. De Atkine, U.S. Army (Retired), is a former foreign area specialist who has taught Middle Eastern political-military affairs within the special operations community for the last 17 years. A graduate of the masters program at the American University of Beirut, he lived for 8 years in the Arab world and traveled extensively throughout the region. He was the military attaché in Amman, Jordan at the time of the 1970 Jordanian civil war and director of Army programs in the Office of Military Cooperation from 1981 to1983 as Egypt began its conversion from Soviet to U.S. military armament.
Leo Bloom, why did you just bump a years-dormant thread, to repeat a cite that you yourself already gave 22 posts ago?
I made a mistake. I scanned the thread and miseed tgat.
I found the thread by accuident.
Was there any indication the Arab states were planning a genocide if they had won?