1973, Yom Kippur War Israelis dont quit

Can you cite that? One thing a lot of the histories of that war talk about is how there is no authoritative Syrian account to match the Egyptian and Israeli ones.
He might be refering to a counter attack by arriving Iraqi forces (division level) and other units from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. In earlier fighting, smaller Iraqi units were shown to be mediocre at best.

I think the potential for a successful large scale counter attack existed only on paper. The Syrian army was broken and with the exception of a Jordanian Brigade, arriving arab units simply did not have the skills to match the Israelis in a mobile counter attack.
 
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MacCaulay

Banned
He might be refering to a counter attack by arriving Iraqi forces (division level) and other units from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. In earlier fighting, smaller Iraqi units were shown to be mediocre at best.

I think the potential for a successful large scale counter attack existed only on paper. The Syrian army was broken and with the exception of a Jordanian Brigade, arriving arab units simply did not have the skills to match the Israelis in a mobile counter attack.

I agree with your conclusion. That Iraqi counterattack got pounded into the dirt like nobody's business.

Was not completely surrounded. They were cut off with the Canal to the rear, the Red Sea to their right and the Israelis elsewhere, but the entrapment depended upon a very very narrow LOC across the canal. Remember when Sharon first suggested the action it was rejected for the reason that the link would be very tenous and could be broken easily. IOTL both armies had begun attempts to breakthrough. They do that and Israeli forces in Africa are screwed.

If it was so loosely bottled up, then why didn't it just break out back into Africa?

Adan's division had managed to slam an Egyptian attempt to hit the Sinai anchor, to the point where the Second Army almost had to write off an armoured brigade.
Then the Egyptian commanders weren't helping matters by playing games with just how many Israelis were crossing the Canal, and when they'd started, out of fear of reprisals from the government. That just slowed an accurate and timely response from Cairo.

To be honest, I'm not saying they could've taken Cairo or anything. But my thesis here is that without a doubt they could've pushed stayed in that position for another four or even six days. Reinforcements could be trucked in as well: the Syrians and Iraqis were all done, at least a brigade of Sho'ts could have been pulled out of the Golan and moved south to assist.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I had an odd brainstorm at work today: I'll be wargaming on New Year's Day, and there will probably be an hour or two of free space at the beginning where we'll want to do a warm up game.

I think that would give us an interesting opportunity to put these theories to the test: my friends and I can wargame out an Israeli defense of the Sinai side of the crossing against a determined Egyptian attack in division strength and I can report back what the final outcome is.

I've got some books here, so I'll figure out what the northern part of the Crossing's defense was in detail and we'll be able to do that as our warm up.


EDIT:

I'll be using The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinowitz, Yom Kippur War/The October War by Simon Dunstan, and a couple Military History & Military Heritage magazines.
 

Cook

Banned
There’s another book; Mohamed Heikal’s ‘The Road to Ramadan’.

Tells the war from the Egyptian side of the hill and how it was a draw.

Slightly less than entirely convincing in that respect.
;)
 

MacCaulay

Banned
There’s another book; Mohamed Heikal’s ‘The Road to Ramadan’.

Tells the war from the Egyptian side of the hill and how it was a draw.

Slightly less than entirely convincing in that respect.
;)

One thing that's very odd about the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War is that there's no definitive Syrian account due to the government in power. There's a lot of questions floating around, like why they stopped at the Jordan and didn't just go into Israel proper like they could have.

But without a view on the conflict in the public domain from the Syrian perspective, it's hard to say.

I did read a very interesting book once called Phoenix Over The Nile: A History of Egyptian Air Power 1932-1994 by Lon Nordeen, and that was very enlightening as to the state of the Arab air forces in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War.
 

Cook

Banned
One thing that's very odd about the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War is that there's no definitive Syrian account due to the government in power. There's a lot of questions floating around, like why they stopped at the Jordan and didn't just go into Israel proper like they could have.

As you say, probably because the Party in Government in Syria now is the same government of ’67 and ’73 and the current president is the son of the President of ’73.

North Korea isn’t the only tinpot hereditary socialist dynasty.
 
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