Syrian MiG-23s
The YKW 1973 was no fight of survival of Israel.
This is a tall statement.
I assume that some of us remember what happened to the population of every village overran by the Arabs, everytime they had a chance to do it. (which mercifully was only the 48 war).
Imagine a scenario in which Syria would have won on the Golan. Do you think they would have refrained from bombing everything in sight with everything available? What was the range of their arty then ?
Right.
And of course, they would probably have refrained from shelling all the civilian targets, as always.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a big Syrian win would have meant the death of as many Israelis as they could possibly kill. Civilians, women, children, etc. Well maybe the women not right away…
Fortunately their soldiers are any good only when they enjoy comfortable overwhelming numbers. As soon as the IDF reserves got up there (barely in time, but), their cowardice did the rest. The battle lasted not even 3 days.
Syria limited its efforts to reconquer the Golan by force. The Egyptians were more restricted to a part of Western Sinai.
Again two tall statements. Another view is that Egypt needed time to move its AAM network forward before pushing further, which they would fully have done if only they had a chance.
BTW, when they saw an opportunity to attack further on “retreating” Israelis, they did go for it. Too bad they ended up up crushed and pushed back.
Again, there is no question in my mind that Egypt would have talken a chance to move forward if they had won.
And does anyone think that Syria, given half a chance, would have passed up an opportunity to avenge the Degania a/b defeats? Or, again given a chance, that they would pass up on going to the Med, having Levanon comfortably surrounded, etc? Ha!
When the Egyptian succeeded in crossing and win some bridge-heads, the Syrians lost the time/force race by a small margin. After the first week of fighting all particpants had depleted most of their stock and were forced by this into a holding stage.
On what planet did this hapen?
On mine, after a week of fighting, the Syrians had been thrown back ass over head on the Golan, had abandonned scores of tanks intact, surrendered by the hundred, and were frantically regrouping to protect Damascus.
And without the timely arrival of the Iraqi armor, they would prolly have been surrounded before that.
Is this a “holding stage”? or regrouping after a sound defeat? Everyone can have their own opinion.
On the south front, the Egyptian offensive of the 13th was crushed. So yeah, they got into some kind of holding mode…
Syria had depleted most of its stock of SAM 6 and was the first to replenished by Airlift through the SU, the Egypts followed one day later. After this starts,the Israelis saw no chance to mount an offensive, without US assuarance of resupply.
And this explains why they did NOT counter-attack, did NOT cross the Suez canal, and did NOT encircle the 3rd army. Riiiight.
Boy, I hate to think of what would have happened if they actually had mounted an offensive…
Both the USA and the SU were not interested in a real defeat of their clients. Two weeks of further fighting brought an Israeli crossing, when the Syrian-front was on a hold. After the armistice all participants could claim some success.
Yes? the Syrians could? How?
In my book, they suffered heavier losses, they ended up having been pushed back on all fronts, and they got their industrial infrastructure bombed 15 years backwards. They surrendered loads of AFVs intact, 400 POWs, etc. Exactly the archetype Arab crushing and humiliating defeat.
But hey, maybe that doesn’t prevent them from claiming success.
The Israeli had never the force nor the intentions to conquere Cairo or Damascus.
Especially since it would have meant WW3.
The Arab honor of weapons was restored in some ways, after the humilating defeat from 1967. All this opened Sadat the way to Jerusalem and regain the whole Sinai with military and economic help from the USA as surplus. Syria did not grasp this historical chance. Historical we have sofar two political winner and one looser. Egypt and Israel and the other is..? Gaddafi and his son realized just now, after the SU passing away, let us leave that dead-end way.
This I agree fully. But I am not optimistic that Assad junior COULD grasp that chance, even if he had the brains/balls/foresight/patriotism/whatever to want it. His army and mukhabarat wouldn’t let him.
Ahem. how did I get into that rant? I never meant to. getting old sucks, I guess.
I’d much rather we exchanged some pictures. Here’s one of the better ones I’ve got. Anybody got any pics of Syrian MiG-23s other than the usual captured or shotdown photos?
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