How many Merkavas were really lost?

[Iron_Yeoman]

@pdf27

And also by the relatively poor performance of the IDF, compared to the rest of the first-world armies. Tanks being knocked out from behind isn’t the fault of the tanks, it is that of their commanders who get them in that position.

Personally I don’t rate the IDF of today that highly. A lot of people tend to put them in the top 5 of world militaries but I really can’t see it. They mostly fight small groups of gunmen and collateral damage seems to be an afterthought. Compare that to some of the scraps NATO forces are getting involved in Afghanistan where the enemy is far more tenacious and usually fields larger numbers than their opposite numbers in Hizbollah and Hamas.

What I find surprising is during the Lebanon campaign how they didn’t employ armoured tactics properly, as others have said bypassing positions without clearing and CQB with armour in built up areas - which is often a recipe for disaster.

[pdf27]

Reading up on the Liberty incident is, as I said, quite revealing. Essentially it has to be either a conspiracy or massive incompetence on the part of the Israelis - and many people believe it to be a conspiracy simply because they can’t concieve of the Israelis being quite so incompetent. The story of the Miznak in the 1973 war is illuminating there - the entire crew being asleep within 45km of Port Said with the EW systems turned off, and only woken up by accident to find a bunch of anti-shipping missiles in the air heading their way. Can any of you conceive of an incident like that happening in a first world navy?

[Chevan]

@pdf27

Mainly lack of support, essentially bypassing positions without clearing them. This was a deliberate attack, and they didn’t treat it like one. If the US video is the one I think it is, it was a somewhat different situation (essentially an armoured raid) and even then I have doubts as to how valuable it was.

But one needs a tanks( arrtillery) to clear up the territory . So this is the close circle - you can’t clear territory without tanks, but tanks are under treat of attack therefore. Often you can’t just destroy the enemy’s firepoint without tanks guns.

[Chevan]

@pdf27

Reading up on the Liberty incident is, as I said, quite revealing. Essentially it has to be either a conspiracy or massive incompetence on the part of the Israelis - and many people believe it to be a conspiracy simply because they can’t concieve of the Israelis being quite so incompetent.

Well honeslty, manies still think the attack of Liberty was …deliberate provocation. At least so thought all the survived sailors and captain of ship.Hardly you can call the incopentence the continuous attack a ship with a big american flag on board and US-radio calls.

[pdf27]

I had a really long post and the cat deleted it, so I can’t face retyping it. There’s a rather good essay on it here though which I do recommend. Essentially my opinion of the Israeli armed forces of the time is so low that I don’t think they could have carried out the sort of attack necessary for this to have been deliberate without cocking it up massively.

[DVX]

@Chevan

But one needs a tanks( arrtillery) to clear up the territory . So this is the close circle - you can’t clear territory without tanks, but tanks are under treat of attack therefore. Often you can’t just destroy the enemy’s firepoint without tanks guns.

Of course I’m not an expert, and I could wrong. But I think that the Israeli tactics for the Lebanon invasion were classic anti-insuregents and antiguerrilla. The target of the Israeli army was to secure a wide zone inside the Lebanon. They thought that the infantry run the worst danger, the tanks much less, on the assumption that the enemy had few effective anti-tank weapons.
So the tanks had to clean up the resistance stronholds and the infantry, after the tanks and the artillery fire, had to clean up the enemies not yet wiped out or fleed. To secure the infantry, the tanks do their job without support (except artillery), and only after that the infantry comes in to clean up the residues of enemy.
This tactic works with an enemy poor of artillery and AT weapons. Hezbollah showed to have quite good AT weapons like the Kornet and other modern AT weapons, and to use good guerrilla tactics with little and fast squads with good firepower, often protected by underground trenches and strongholds or anyway well hidden. In this conditions the lack of a closer infantry support caused bigger losses in the armored forces that had to face mobiles centers of fire often firing from the rear because the infantry was still on the way.

[Nickdfresh]

@pdf27

I had a really long post and the cat deleted it, so I can’t face retyping it. There’s a rather good essay on it here though which I do recommend. Essentially my opinion of the Israeli armed forces of the time is so low that I don’t think they could have carried out the sort of attack necessary for this to have been deliberate without cocking it up massively.

Damn cats! He’s probably a Mossad secret agent…

[Nickdfresh]

@DVX

Of course I’m not an expert, and I could wrong. But I think that the Israeli tactics for the Lebanon invasion were classic anti-insuregents and antiguerrilla. The target of the Israeli army was to secure a wide zone inside the Lebanon. They thought that the infantry run the worst danger, the tanks much less, on the assumption that the enemy had few effective anti-tank weapons.
So the tanks had to clean up the resistance stronholds and the infantry, after the tanks and the artillery fire, had to clean up the enemies not yet wiped out or fleed. To secure the infantry, the tanks do their job without support (except artillery), and only after that the infantry comes in to clean up the residues of enemy.
This tactic works with an enemy poor of artillery and AT weapons. Hezbollah showed to have quite good AT weapons like the Kornet and other modern AT weapons, and to use good guerrilla tactics with little and fast squads with good firepower, often protected by underground trenches and strongholds or anyway well hidden. In this conditions the lack of a closer infantry support caused bigger losses in the armored forces that had to face mobiles centers of fire often firing from the rear because the infantry was still on the way.

The main basic problem is that the IDF is largely predicated on using massed armor in large battles of maneuver. In Lebanon, they faced dug in Hezbollah fortifications they couldn’t simply just by-pass nor destroy using only stand off guided munitions and artillery. The Israelis also had huge logistical difficulties, such as getting basics like water and ammunition to their front line recently called up reservists–who were not properly trained nor prepared to launch such an operation…

[Chevan]

@Nickdfresh

Damn cats! He’s probably a Mossad secret agent…

hmmn , jewish kitty. If he is circumcised then definitelly mossad agent;)

[pdf27]

It’s a female cat, so that won’t work. Must be Mossad after all!

[muscogeemike]

@Iron_Yeoman

You also have to look at what al-jazeera count as a ‘tank’. British media are always calling any AFV a ‘tank’. Most nations these days only have one type of MBT. It’s possible they count any AFV (whether that is an APC, IFV, Recce AFV) as a tank.

Good point, in the US reporters call any armored vehicle a “tank” and often refer to assult rifles, SMG’s and simi-auto weapons as “machine guns”.