Going for Broke- Suez '73

What happens if the Israelis either wipe out the Third Army, go for Cairo (only 100 klicks), or assassinate Sadat? Assuming that the US turns a blind eye. Only this- no Israel-bashing please...
 
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The USA turning a blind eye would be insufficient for the Israeli victory. You'd need the USSR doing the same (which is highly improbable; the Politburo couldn't allow "Zionist aggressors" to win completely). If the Soviets get involved in the conflict, and the USA remains on the sidelines (again, highly improbable), then State of Israel would be mightily screwed. On the other hand, if Nixon responds to the Soviet military intervention with American one, then we'd have stage ready for the WW3.
 
Well, how long would it take to get an Israeli TFW overhead and begin the turkey shoot? Or they could simply take them all prisoner. More for propaganda though. 100,000 soldiers of the top Mideast Arab army surrendering to "the evil Zionists" :rolleyes: doesn't look good.
 
Probably the new Syrian attack (Syrian hogh command was confident enough that they seriously considered going it alone after Egypt pulled out) forces the Israelis to halt and switch their forces over there before any major success is achieved. Then Iseael which is getting screwed by Syria cries out for USA aid which it gets. Then the tables turn against Syria which is now whining for even more soviet aid, but Egypt is now attacking again, and this just repeats over and over until USA/USSR are both fed up and make both sides stop.
 
What happens if the Israelis either wipe out the Third Army, go for Cairo (only 100 klicks), or assassinate Sadat? Assuming that the US turns a blind eye. Only this- no Israel-bashing please...

I dont think the israelis had the logistics in place to actually drive on Cairo. They would need time to consolidate, which is time for egypt to reform, the Syrians to attack, and possibly for the soviets to directly intervene. IIRC, several catagory A airbourne divisions were being prepared to intervene in the war had it continued.
 
How about air raids on Cairo? A few Rhinos with 2000 pound iron bombs could do wonders to Army HQ and the Presidential Palace. Or some SpecOps work. If Sadat is assassinated, the Brotherhood might step in, leading to another Iran on the Israeli border, which would make an excellent TL...
 
I doubt any Syrian attack would have amounted to much, given that Syria had lost a majority of her tanks and Israel's missle boats were increasingly able to blockade Syrian ports.

This is the same military leadership which not only failed a surprise attack with overwhelmingly favorable odds but failed so badly that Egypt felt obliged to abandon Egypt's successful operational plan to try to take pressure off Syria.
 
The soviets had replaced most of the Syrian tank losses by this time, and the Iraqis had sent a division plus ,and the jordanians two brigades, the saudis and gulf states various units.

On paper the Syrians were actually stronger by Oct 22nd than they were at the start of the war. They may have done something.
 
A determined Israeli push for Cairo might easily have prompted the superpowers to intervene directly in the fighting. It might have even touched off a NATO-Warsaw Pact clash in Europe.
 
I'm not sure many people realize just how close the US and USSR came to war in 1973. When the Soviets mobilized those airborne units and threatened to intervene directly, Nixon put the entire US military on war alert. The B-52s were literally loitering over the North Pole with full nuke loads waiting for the final go-message. (Source: Me. I was at Strategic Air Command hq at Offutt AFB at the time.) Granted, Nixon was being savaged by Watergate at the time and needed something to make himself look presidential, but for about four hours it was a pretty near thing. I was told later that more than one general was tossing his cookies in the restrooms off The Hole that night.

BTW, Syria had new tanks, true, what it didn't have was tank crews. There wasn't a high number of returning survivors from tank brigades that went up against Israeli forces in '73.
 

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What happens if the Israelis either wipe out the Third Army, go for Cairo (only 100 klicks), or assassinate Sadat? Assuming that the US turns a blind eye. Only this- no Israel-bashing please...

In this case Ivan decides to try to intervene and resupply the Egyptians, if not directly with Soviet troops.

The U.S. reacts (as it threatened to do IOTL) by preventing Soviet aircraft and Eastern Bloc shipping, by any means necessary, from reaching the region. American and Soviet forces engage in open combat, drawing in the Southern Warsaw Pact countries, followed by NATO, followed by the rest of the Pact.

In short I get killed by a nuclear detonation from a weapon aimed at one of the three primary targets within 12 miles of my home just as I am starting 8th Grade.
 
The soviets had replaced most of the Syrian tank losses by this time, and the Iraqis had sent a division plus ,and the jordanians two brigades, the saudis and gulf states various units.

On paper the Syrians were actually stronger by Oct 22nd than they were at the start of the war. They may have done something.

Yeah but they were a beaten force already, all that required Israel to do was to mount counter attacks to seize all of the Golan. All the rearming did was to ensure the Israelis could not march on Damascus unopposed.

BTW the Iraqis at this time were next to useless.
 
I happen to know a retired teacher who was handling codes for US forces in Europe and he'll tell you that at one point during this he was told to translate a message from Washington DC. It said simply 'PREPARE FOR WAR'.
 
Yeah but they were a beaten force already, all that required Israel to do was to mount counter attacks to seize all of the Golan. All the rearming did was to ensure the Israelis could not march on Damascus unopposed.

BTW the Iraqis at this time were next to useless.


LOL! According to who?
 
The Syrians, with Iraqi and Jordanian support, may have been stronger on paper but Soviet resupply didn't replace everything lost, particularly the many hundreds of BMPs, and it certainly didn't replace trained manpower lost.

Also, at the start, Syria suffered a bloodbath at the hands of one complete Israeli brigade and one partial brigade so what were the chances of this force proving more effective without surprise and against an Israeli force vastly superior to that faced when the war began?

As it was the world saw the Soviets forced to send twenty times the weight of resupply to Egypt and Syria that the US sent to Israel, largely because most of the tanks knocked out belonging to all three countries wound up in Israeli hands. At what point does it become a disaster for Soviet arms sales or even a burden on Soviet armor production if tanks keep being given away in multi-division batches?
 
The Syrians, with Iraqi and Jordanian support, may have been stronger on paper but Soviet resupply didn't replace everything lost, particularly the many hundreds of BMPs, and it certainly didn't replace trained manpower lost.

Also, at the start, Syria suffered a bloodbath at the hands of one complete Israeli brigade and one partial brigade so what were the chances of this force proving more effective without surprise and against an Israeli force vastly superior to that faced when the war began?

Given that Syria had access to this information, and that their generals had concluded that the attack might be worth continuing after ignoring the cease-fire (again, after taking this information into account), wouldn't it make sense to conclude that the attack would have been severly damaging?
 
To Syria, yes, the attack would have been probably catastrophic, especially as it is extremely doubtful that the Jordanians would allow two of their finest brigades to be thrown away by a regime which had invaded Jordan only three years earlier.

And nothing short of lunacy would explain a Syrian decision to launch a weaker attack on a much stronger opponent without surprise and without the more powerful ally of Egypt.
 
To Syria, yes, the attack would have been probably catastrophic, especially as it is extremely doubtful that the Jordanians would allow two of their finest brigades to be thrown away by a regime which had invaded Jordan only three years earlier.

And nothing short of lunacy would explain a Syrian decision to launch a weaker attack on a much stronger opponent without surprise and without the more powerful ally of Egypt.


The Jordanians had sent the units, they had already seen action, and all available sources say that the plans were to throw them into the attack. Do you have access to some information that states Jordanian high command was decieving everybody and was going to pull them out at the last minute?

The numerical advantage of syria was comparable to the advantage at the start (5:1 vs 6.5 to one at the start in tanks at least), the Israeli foreward units were on hostile territory, and Israel didn't have nearly as many reserves to send back (Which were by far the main cause of the successfull defense at the start).

Again, do you think the Syrian high command was gripped with insanity, completely ignorant of the situation, or did they actually know what they were doing?
 
in the 1973 war, things were going pretty shit for Israel, until the US began airlifting supplies to Israel. If the US turns a blind eye to Israel, Israel is screwed, losing all of the Golan and Sinai. Seeing the turn of events, Iraq, Jordan might jump the bandwagon and take the West Bank
 
I meant turning a blind eye to Israel destroying the Third Army or sending some 2000 pound iron bombs towards the presidential palace or Army HQ (as in Syria) by means of the Rhino delivery system. Would anyone like to do a TL where Sadat is assassinated by the Brotherhood, thereby spawning an Islamic Republic of Egypt?
 
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