The Israeli Capture of Damascus, 1973

How many of you relize how bad of shape the IDF was in towards the End of the 1973 war .
She was running on Fumes and reciveing tanks and supplys by aircraft .
Rember she had lost a Brig of Tanks in the Hights and for a time she was worried that the Syrians were going to make a breack out in that frount .

I was in Country at the time on a Vaction Visting Freinds on the Hights when the War Started .
 

MacCaulay

Banned
How many of you relize how bad of shape the IDF was in towards the End of the 1973 war .
She was running on Fumes and reciveing tanks and supplys by aircraft .
Rember she had lost a Brig of Tanks in the Hights and for a time she was worried that the Syrians were going to make a breack out in that frount .

I was in Country at the time on a Vaction Visting Freinds on the Hights when the War Started .

Well, the whole "supply of tanks" thing through Operation Nickel Grass was actually a bit of a hoax. The Israelis and the Arabs both used up prodigious amounts of ammunition. There seems to be some thought that if the Soviets and US had just turned off the faucet and told both sides "this is all you get" that the war might have just stopped on it's own due to lack of tank and artillery rounds.

But the famous picture of a tank being unloaded from a USAF transport plane at Tel Aviv is just that: a picture. There was one US Army M-60 that was unloaded from a C-5 for the press, then when the reporters were gone it was put back on the plane and went back to wherever it had come from.

105mm, 120mm rounds, and just about everything else imagineable was supplied to the Israelis, and supplied within days of the war's starting. But as for actual tanks? No. There weren't any. And besides: the Israelis wouldn't have been able to get armour from the major airports in the Tel Aviv/Haifa megalopolis to the Golan or Suez in time to make a difference. They could transport the ammunition much easier.
 
Well, the whole "supply of tanks" thing through Operation Nickel Grass was actually a bit of a hoax. The Israelis and the Arabs both used up prodigious amounts of ammunition. There seems to be some thought that if the Soviets and US had just turned off the faucet and told both sides "this is all you get" that the war might have just stopped on it's own due to lack of tank and artillery rounds.

But the famous picture of a tank being unloaded from a USAF transport plane at Tel Aviv is just that: a picture. There was one US Army M-60 that was unloaded from a C-5 for the press, then when the reporters were gone it was put back on the plane and went back to wherever it had come from.

105mm, 120mm rounds, and just about everything else imagineable was supplied to the Israelis, and supplied within days of the war's starting. But as for actual tanks? No. There weren't any. And besides: the Israelis wouldn't have been able to get armour from the major airports in the Tel Aviv/Haifa megalopolis to the Golan or Suez in time to make a difference. They could transport the ammunition much easier.


Right and there were no South African aircraft there eather :eek:
 
A little off topic, but if the Arab armies had scored a major victory and the Israelis had totally collapsed would the Arabs have pressed on with the goal of occupying the whole of Israel? Imagine Syrian tanks in Tel-Aviv!
 
A little off topic, but if the Arab armies had scored a major victory and the Israelis had totally collapsed would the Arabs have pressed on with the goal of occupying the whole of Israel? Imagine Syrian tanks in Tel-Aviv!

That one's easy: Samson. Estimates give the Israelis somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 nukes during 1973; Damascus becomes glass. Probably Cairo and Baghdad, too.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Ward said:
Right and there were no South African aircraft there eather :eek:

If there were South Africans in country at the time, they were advisors with the nuclear program. And if someone thought they saw South African aircraft in Israel in '73, they were probably seeing Kfirs, which are very similar to the South African Cheetah.

That one's easy: Samson. Estimates give the Israelis somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 nukes during 1973; Damascus becomes glass. Probably Cairo and Baghdad, too.

Yeah.

You can ask anyone on the board who's gotten into nuclear discussions with me, and they'll say that I don't think going nuclear was a viable option at really any point after 1945.

But one of the two countries I could ever see actually using their nuclear weapons is Israel, and it was in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War.

When the European countries decided not to give any aid to Israel, Golda Meir ordered the assembling of nuclear weapons on missiles and nuclear gravity bombs put on F-4s. That was made abundantly clear to the Nixon Administration, which then put Operation Nickel Grass into effect. Had Nixon not, or had Kissinger felt that the Israelis were bluffing in regards to the nuclear option...the results could've been bad.
 
I'm not sure the Israelis could take Damascus. They sat in the Golan Heights because the hills were great defensive positions that funneled enemy troops into the guns of the qualitatively superior IAF forces. If the Israelis had come down from the heights onto the open flats around Damascus, the Arabs' superior numbers would become much more important, since they could attack from all sides...
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I'm not sure the Israelis could take Damascus. They sat in the Golan Heights because the hills were great defensive positions that funneled enemy troops into the guns of the qualitatively superior IAF forces. If the Israelis had come down from the heights onto the open flats around Damascus, the Arabs' superior numbers would become much more important, since they could attack from all sides...

Well, they came pouring out of the Golan in what was essentially brigade strength during the counterattack to retake the Heights. They ended up landing on a road that was taking them right to Damascus, but an Iraqi armoured unit blundered into their path and in the time it took them to take out the Iraqis the Jordanians and Syrians were able form up.

Basically, the Syrians really didn't expect the Israelis to just jump out of the Golan, for the same reasons you mentioned. It was inside the Syrian SAM envelope, also, and the IAF had taken some hits. So when the Iraqi force got slaughtered it really was a bit of an "Alamo" moment, buying time for others to form up.
 
...Had Nixon not, or had Kissinger felt that the Israelis were bluffing in regards to the nuclear option...the results could've been bad.

I've heard something about the possibility of it before, but what might have been the medium-term consequences of such a move? I don't see the Soviets and States somehow getting straight into a shooting war over it, do you?

I'd presume the short-term would be an Israeli success. Nuclear strikes against key arab cities, and presumably against the largest coherent ground formations. Israel gets a ceasefire with the arabs' fear of losing what they've got left and the fact that the tactical strikes have decimated the formations in the best positions to renew their offensives.

Medium term seems Samson, though. Hello economic siege and minimal help with recovery.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I've heard something about the possibility of it before, but what might have been the medium-term consequences of such a move? I don't see the Soviets and States somehow getting straight into a shooting war over it, do you?

Me personally, I don't. Other folks will probably disagree with me, but the Israelis and Arabs' inability to get along is no reason to turn Washington and Moscow into rubble. And I think the Soviets and the US will know that.

I'd presume the short-term would be an Israeli success. Nuclear strikes against key arab cities, and presumably against the largest coherent ground formations. Israel gets a ceasefire with the arabs' fear of losing what they've got left and the fact that the tactical strikes have decimated the formations in the best positions to renew their offensives.

Medium term seems Samson, though. Hello economic siege and minimal help with recovery.

The interesting thing is that the airstrike would have to get back some heavy SAM nets. The SAM systems that the Soviets built in Syria and Egypt were like nothing the US saw in North Vietnam. It was more or less a dress rehearsal for World War III.
One big question would be the use of targets: Damascus could be razed, but it's awful close to Israel. Fallout is a problem.
As for Egypt, they could fire/drop one on troop or aircraft concentrations 50-60 miles behind the line inside Egypt, which might actually prove to be very useful during Operation Gazelle, the Israeli crossing of the Suez.
 
It was clear that the Soviets threat to intervene was a signal to Washington to reign in the Israelis. I get the impression that the Israelis were not that scared of fighting Russians. After all they had fought massive Arab armies equipped with the latest Soviet weapons following Soviet doctrine and had beaten them.
 
IF the Israeli army was defeated in the field, bye-bye Israel. Unlike 1948, brave kibbutzim with light weapons won't be able to stand up to the Arab armies. You better believe that the Syrians (and Egyprians, and Jordanians, and Iraqis, and whomever else) will have no compunction about clearing suburbs with artillery and crowds with machine guns. Under the best of conditions the death toll, rape etc. of the civilian population will be huge, followed by the expulsion of the survivors. You better believe the Israelis would do Samson.

As far as Egypt goes, deliver just one 20kt weapon and it goes away - an F-4 flying nap of the earth hitting the Aswan Dam with an over the shoulder lob - water and gravity wipe Cairo and Alexandria off the face of the earth.If you (the Israelis) believe you are really going to be blockaded out of existence, then ground burst on Saudi & other oil fields will give the western powers other things to worry about when that oil goes away. After all, if they're going to be your enemies.... That's very extreme, but "never again" is not just a saying.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
As far as Egypt goes, deliver just one 20kt weapon and it goes away - an F-4 flying nap of the earth hitting the Aswan Dam with an over the shoulder lob - water and gravity wipe Cairo and Alexandria off the face of the earth.If you (the Israelis) believe you are really going to be blockaded out of existence, then ground burst on Saudi & other oil fields will give the western powers other things to worry about when that oil goes away. After all, if they're going to be your enemies.... That's very extreme, but "never again" is not just a saying.

Well, taking out Cairo and Alexandria would open up more problems than it would solve. If the Egyptian leadership is destroyed, then you don't have anyone to accept a surrender from.

As for the nuclear strike mission to Saudi Arabia...I can't see that happening. Something against the combined Arab (Libyan, Moroccan, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian, Iraqi, etc.) units marshaling in Egypt on the other side of the Suez Canal or in Syria would serve to accomplish alot.
 
Wouldn't Israeli use of nuclear weapons, especially on a city, guarantee a loss of American support and/or Soviet intervention? Bombing the Aswan Dam and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people probably would too.
 
Wouldn't Israeli use of nuclear weapons, especially on a city, guarantee a loss of American support and/or Soviet intervention? Bombing the Aswan Dam and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people probably would too.

If Israel were to find itself facing the choice between a complete arab victory, up to and including occupation of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish state, and the deployment of nuclear weapons against the arabs, up to and including the targeting of cities, they would take the latter. Long story short, Israel will do whatever they deem necessary to survive, regardless of what the world thinks about it.
 
I've heard something about the possibility of it before, but what might have been the medium-term consequences of such a move? I don't see the Soviets and States somehow getting straight into a shooting war over it, do you?

Oh yeah. I was living on base at Offutt Air Force Base -- Strategic Air Command headquarters -- at the time. We went to full war alert at 1:30 in the morning. The guy who woke me up pounding on my barracks room door was dead white with fear. The B-52s were loaded for (Soviet) bear and loitering at their fail-safe points over the Arctic, the military units in Europe were issued full ammo loads. At Offutt, the people who went down into the Hole that night were positive they'd never come up again.

So yes, it was a near thing, and it's a story that still hasn't been fully told.
 
If Israel were to find itself facing the choice between a complete arab victory, up to and including occupation of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish state, and the deployment of nuclear weapons against the arabs, up to and including the targeting of cities, they would take the latter. Long story short, Israel will do whatever they deem necessary to survive, regardless of what the world thinks about it.

If Israel were to find itself facing complete Arab victory, then USA would enter the war on their side, and there would be a ceasefire. once the Arabs are driven out. They're not going to go straight nuclear before this (as that option is probably going to lead to their doom), and after the USA intervenes, there is no need for nuclear weapons.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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Monthly Donor
If the Israelis had tried for Damacus the Soviets would have intervened, or tried too.

The U.S. had already made clear that it would not allow the Soviets to intervene.

Do the math.:eek:
 

MacCaulay

Banned
If Israel were to find itself facing complete Arab victory, then USA would enter the war on their side, and there would be a ceasefire. once the Arabs are driven out. They're not going to go straight nuclear before this (as that option is probably going to lead to their doom), and after the USA intervenes, there is no need for nuclear weapons.

Respectfully, I think I've got to disagree.

I'm not one of those people that says "oh, they'd nuke the whole place!!11!", but if there was Egyptian armour rolling through the Negev and up into the heart of Israel, then the Israelis wouldn't have much compunction against flying a nuclear strike mission.

And precisely what assets the US could put into play (that fast) that would be of greater effectiveness than the F-4s, Mirage IIIs, and Kfirs the IAF had used already is beyond me.
 

CalBear

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Donor
Monthly Donor
Respectfully, I think I've got to disagree.

I'm not one of those people that says "oh, they'd nuke the whole place!!11!", but if there was Egyptian armour rolling through the Negev and up into the heart of Israel, then the Israelis wouldn't have much compunction against flying a nuclear strike mission.

And precisely what assets the US could put into play (that fast) that would be of greater effectiveness than the F-4s, Mirage IIIs, and Kfirs the IAF had used already is beyond me.

Well, there were two full carrier groups in the Med with F-4 F-8, A-6 & A-7 aboard, one of which was east of Cyrpus (making it part, reputedly, part of the SIOP). Planes from the SIOP carrier could be over Israel in about 40 minutes anything from napalm to B-61 dial a yield gravity bombs Both CBG were under orders to prevent Soviet aircraft from entering the region.

The U.S. also had substantial assets in Turkey and Italy at NATO bases (including nuclear weapons in Turkey) & could have put B-52D over anywhere in the region inside of twelve hours carrying anything from leaflets to mulitiple 20MT gravity bombs.

Over all, the U.S. could whistle up quite a bit.
 
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