AHC: Better Arab performance in the Yom Kippur war

marathag

marathag

Banned
tomo pauk said:
, along with the Western advantages and possible disadvantages.
Click to expand...
Like the US unwilling to send Armored Divisions to Hanoi.
US had political restrictions that the Israelis did not have.
But the Vietnamese could have told them that the T-54s didn't do so well against the USN and USAF, and Even ARVN M41 put up a strong fight.

The Egyptians had listened to everyone, so made things rough for the IAF with Mobile SAMs to cover their operations
 

fastmongrel

In my luckily brief experience of Arab officers they were only of use as 2 legged mine clearance devices. Arab armies have always had too many senior officers who can barely move such is the weightof medals they wear and too many arrogant barely literate junior officers who only got the job because of who they knew or where they were born. What was needed was experienced well trained NCOs but when your a twenty year veteran and some snot nosed prick can slap you in the face for speaking the truth why would anyone want to be an NCO. I saw the last sentence happen when an officer came to the transport section and decided all the men who were trying to get the vehicles servicable were better off decorating his uncles house and garden.
 

Riain

Banned
Given the general state of development in these Arab countries it's likely that Soviet style training and equipment are the best for them. As an example the talent pool for a fighter pilot is quite shallow in these countries, so they struggle to fill the seats of the planes they get, whereas the talent pool of potential SAM battery commanders is much greater and the training demands are significantly less. So it is better to have a lot of SAMs than a lot of fighters, as an example.

But fuck it, I'm going to be contrary! After the 6 Day War Egypt and Syria abandon both the Soviets and Americans and go balls-deep with Britain and France. They sell as much Soviet crap as they can and buy export model Lightnings, Buccaneers, Mirages, Bloodhound, Thunderbird and crotale SAMs, Chieftain and AMX30 tanks and other AFVs. This is all backed by extensive support arrangements including training.

In 1973 the Red Top proves itself to be the best AAM in the world and the other Anglo-French stuff performs well but Israel survives.
 

tomo pauk

Riain said:
But fuck it, I'm going to be contrary! After the 6 Day War Egypt and Syria abandon both the Soviets and Americans and go balls-deep with Britain and France. They sell as much Soviet crap as they can and buy export model Lightnings, Buccaneers, Mirages, Bloodhound, Thunderbird and crotale SAMs, Chieftain and AMX30 tanks and other AFVs. This is all backed by extensive support arrangements including training.

In 1973 the Red Top proves itself to be the best AAM in the world and the other Anglo-French stuff performs well but Israel survives.
Click to expand...
Doh. I was about to say 'buy European' minutes ago.
 

James Ricker

They get nuked before the United States has a chance to intervene
In OTL Richard Nixon told the Israelis "negotiate" the Israelis told Nixon "resupply us or we go nuclear"
 

Alanith

Monk78 said:
Can nukes be "loaned" from soviets ? based on IRBM/strke fighters so they cannot reach USSR or eastern europe ?
Click to expand...

“Ah yes, I would like my warmongering client states to kick off a nuclear exchange between me and my rivals.”

The ONLY way soviet nukes are ending up in any Arab countries is if they’re safely secured on a soviet warship swinging at anchor on a port visit.
 

Monk78

Alanith said:
“Ah yes, I would like my warmongering client states to kick off a nuclear exchange between me and my rivals.”

The ONLY way soviet nukes are ending up in any Arab countries is if they’re safely secured on a soviet warship swinging at anchor on a port visit.
Click to expand...
"bit of a sticky situation I'm afraid, hopefully we will be done before teatime"
like a SOviet SSBN escorted by some elements of soviet navy hanging out in friendly waters off the host nations ports ?
 
Sarthak

Sarthak

You could just have the Golan front be a stalemate whilst Egypt successfully executed their defense if the Sinai without needing to aid Syria
 

comrade cat

HistoricalArthropod said:
Why cant the Arabs just make their own nukes? India and Pakistan did
Click to expand...

Well, the Iraqis and Syrians did try (although much later after the war. I don't know how they could managed to start their program earlier. As their technical and technological know how is decisively much below that of Israel). The main problem is....well, the Israelis just keeps coming after them.

Even today when the Iranians built their research facility underneath literal mountains, the Israelis just keeps coming after them in different ways. What's with Iranian top nuclear scientists keeps dying in drive by shooting or car-bomb.
 
Last edited:

Riain

Banned
HistoricalArthropod said:
Why cant the Arabs just make their own nukes? India and Pakistan did
Click to expand...

India did in the 70s and Pakistan in the 90s, Pakistan in particular is a long way from the 1973 war.

Sārthākā said:
Libya did too.
Click to expand...

Iiuc Libya never built a nuclear weapon.

The word "just" shows a misunderstanding of the difficulties in making a nuclear weapon, especially for a 3rd world country against the will of great powers. Libya had to try to get almost everything needed for a weapon on the black market because they couldn't build it themselves or buy it openly on the world market.
 
Sarthak

Sarthak

Riain said:
India did in the 70s and Pakistan in the 90s, Pakistan in particular is a long way from the 1973 war.



Iiuc Libya never built a nuclear weapon.

The word "just" shows a misunderstanding of the difficulties in making a nuclear weapon, especially for a 3rd world country against the will of great powers. Libya had to try to get almost everything needed for a weapon on the black market because they couldn't build it themselves or buy it openly on the world market.
Click to expand...
i was referring merely to the fact that Libya had a nuclear program, not the fact that they did have weapons.
 
Sunny

Sunny

karatachi said:
I don't think the Soviets would trust their client states with them.
Click to expand...

Definitely not. And I'm pretty sure Israel and the West would consider any attack by a client state using Soviet built nukes as an attack by the Soviet Union. The Soviets of course, would think the same if the US delivered working nukes to Japan in 1970 (just as an example) and Japan then proceeded to use them on the Soviet Union (or one of its allies). It would be considered an attack by the United States on the Soviet Union. As it should.
 

Linkwerk

Sārthākā said:
You could just have the Golan front be a stalemate whilst Egypt successfully executed their defense if the Sinai without needing to aid Syria
Click to expand...

This would do it. Really just a Syrian plan to initiate a grinding attritional fight in the Golan, based on seizing local high ground with smaller "bites", bringing up infantry with antitank weapons to dig in, extending the SAM umbrella to cover them, repeat might have worked. The OTL Egyptian plan probably would have worked fine if the Syrians didn't need bailing out. If Syrian leadership can be politically brought over to a more Egyptian perspective of "win symbolic victory, end the war holding Israeli-occupied territory, negotiate for favorable terms" then it would be a lot harder for Israeli leadership to defeat the Arab armies in detail.

There is also the issue of time; if either Egypt or Syria goes in planning on a protracted war of 3-4 months that is a significant advantage for them. They have strategic depth that Israel doesn't- remember that every day the IDF stays fully mobilized is a day the domestic economy basically grinds to a halt, given the numbers of reservists. This isn't an issue in a lightning campaign where reserves are whiplashed from one front to the other to defeat the enemy in detail, but....

It's day 40 of the war. Iraqi reinforcements are arriving in Syria despite air interdiction and they are being thrown into the meatgrinder of positional warfare in the Golan. A counterattack has split the Egyptian lodgment on the east bank of the Suez canal into two parts but the IDF is running out of working tanks and artillery ammunition and an assult on the opposite bank of the canal is off the table. The Egyptian and Syrian airforces are largely out of the fight but small probing raids from distant bases in western Egypt and eastern Syria are contributing to IAF pilot fatigue, something replenishment jets from US stocks can't make up for. There's never been the prospect of an Arab breakthrough so "existential threat" arguments to DC are falling on increasingly weary ears and diplomatic pressure to end the war is starting to mount. The word comes through intermediaries in Jordan or Moscow that Damascus and Cairo only want return of the 1967 territories in exchange for a ceasefire, a non-aggression pact, end of support for Palestinian guerillas, and some whispers even say a peace treaty......

The political ramifications of a narrow Arab victory would be immense. If you thought heads went rolling in Israel in the aftermath of '73 OTL then....whew. The politics of the Arab would would be almost unrecognizable. Everything from the Lebanese civil war to the rise of Islamist groups.....my head is spinning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top