WI: Egyptian Victory in the Sinai?

What if, on October 8, 1973, the Egyptian army had managed to defeat Ariel Sharon's 143rd Infantry Division and continued to advance into the Sinai and further, into Israel? Could the Arabs have defeated the Israelis? What would have been the repercussions?

Alternatively, what if the Egyptians had decided on a second air strike to wipe out the Israeli Air Force (OTL, they decided against it due to the success of the first one, a fact which left their armored divisions vulnerable later on)? Could they have defeated the IDF on October 14, when they launched a major armored thrust into Israeli defenses?
 
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Seeing how Israel rejected their previous 5 or so years of doctrine and training in armoured warfare and reverted to an older, combined arms style within days of the start of the war, and then managed to go onto the offensive in Africa I dont think there is much Egypt could do to defeat them.

Whats more I dont think Egypt even hoped to do so, they wanted to grab some territory, attrit the Israelis and await an externally enforced ceasefire while holding these gains. Israels offensive gave them a counter-position in Africa that Egypt had to trade back, nullifying the Egyptian forward holdings.
 
Well, they certainly did want to gain more, as shown by the massive armored thrust on October 14, where no less then 1000 Egyptian tanks at six different places on the lines charged forward. Unfortunately, this left them without aerial cover from the SAM umbrella, and so they were devastated by the Israeli air force.
 
That wasnt part of the oringinal plan. Between the 11th and 14th Israeli forces began operating inside pre-war Syria and the Egyptians were looking to make another push to extend the gains they had made in their first days and take some heat off Syria. I dont think they thought theyd be marching into israel proper as a result.

Besides, this battle was where the Israelis showed their skills by destroying some 250 Egyptian tanks as against 40 of their own, with only 6 being total losses. Its hard to believe that the qualities the Israelis showed in this war would bring them anything other than some sort of victory.
 
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OTL Egypt's original plan worked even better than expected, which is widely considered nothing less than miraculous in military terms, while Syria's effort went completely to pieces.

Sadat then jettisoned the plan for a premature advance into central Sinai, known to be premature by Egyptian military leaders who wanted the SAM system pushed forward first, which is what really enabled Israel to win on that front after heavy losses.

Let Egypt's military leaders, vindicated by a proven success, convince Sadat that Syria' defeat in 1973 combined with Syria's behavior in 1967, lying about imaginary Israeli build-ups and then sitting back hoping to be ignored while Egypt(and Jordan) were attacked, means Egypt has already done enough on Syria's behalf. If this leaves Egypt a clear winner holding much of the Sinai while Syria falls, well, from the Egyptian perspective...
 
That assumes that even without the big attack on the 14th that bought the Egyptians into Israels lap that the Israelis wouldnt attack and defeat Egypt anyway. I think the Israelis displayed such combat mastery that they could still crossed the canal without the failed Egyptian offensive is some form or another.
 
Didn't Israel plan tactical nuclear strikes against the egyptian forces if they had managed to break through the Israeli defensive lines?
 
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No, it was Syrian. If the Egyptians break through they will need a couple of days to get into populated areas, but if the Syrians did theyd be right there. Whats more the knife edge of that battle is famous, it was probably one of the nearest weve come to nuclear release since WW2.
 

Cook

Banned
Alternatively, what if the Egyptians had decided on a second air strike to wipe out the Israeli Air Force…

This overstates both the objectives and extent of the Egyptian air attacks to the point of ridiculousness. The Egyptian air strikes were on front line Israeli positions of the Bar-Lev Line and on only three small Israeli air bases in Sinai. The result of the attacks on the bases was a couple of runways temporarily put out of action and a Hawk Missile Battery destroyed, at the cost of a very large part of the Egyptian attack force destroyed. The damage was not significant; the bases with damaged runways simply used their secondary runways and continued operations. Since all three bases were within Egyptian radar range they would have been well aware that their attacks had been costly failures even when they had strategic surprise, they didn’t follow up with a second air strike because the result would just have been more burning aircraft wrecks littering the Sinai desert.

No attempt was made to attack the main Israeli Air Force bases in Israel and since the Sinai Delta is less than 200 km wide, even if the Egyptian air strikes had been a resounding success the Israeli’s would have had no difficulty operating from their home bases.

In strictly air to air terms the Yom Kipper War wasn’t much less than the Turkey Shoot that the Six Day War had been. The Syrians and Egyptians had been supplied with export versions of the MIG-21 which had very rudimentary avionics and their pilots were very inexperienced, while the Israeli air force had some of the most experienced pilots in the world. The Arab air forces lost somewhere between 300 and 500 aircraft in the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Air Force lost 102, almost all to SAMs.

The difference in the air war was the Egyptian deployment of a large number of the latest Soviet Surface to Air missile batteries; it was this SAM umbrella that caused the Israeli’s such heartache, not Egyptian air strikes or air to air combat. This SAM umbrella is also the reason why the Egyptians could not continue their advance across the Sinai, most of the SAM sites were static and located on the west bank of the Suez Canal; a rapid advance in depth would have exposed the Egyptian armoured columns to Israeli air attack.

What if, on October 8, 1973, the Egyptian army had managed to defeat Ariel Sharon's 143rd Infantry Division and continued to advance into the Sinai and further, into Israel? Could the Arabs have defeated the Israelis? What would have been the repercussions?

Ariel Sharon’s 143rd Division was an Armoured division not infantry and by the time of the battle of the Chinese Farm any hope of Egypt advancing further was long gone; the Israeli’s had ceased their initial piece meal counter-attacks on the Egyptian crossings and had brought up mechanised forces in strength.

The only hope of success the Egyptians had was in their initial attack and immediately after it when the Israeli forces were at their weakest, without reserves mobilised and with large numbers of their regular forces at home celebrating Yom Kippur. Once the shock of surprise wore off the Arabs had little chance.

Had the Egyptians dug in and secured their hold on the East Bank of the Suez Canal and used the prestige gained from this military success to open negotiations with the Israelis they may have met with success, but since this would have meant abandoning the Syrians when they were still fighting desperately this would have been unthinkable. But the Egyptians really couldn’t apply any significant pressure on the IDF and force them to divert forces away from the Golan Heights; in Sinai there is depth, in the Golan there is none. The Israelis would simply use their existing forces in the Delta to screen the Egyptians and fall back, giving ground to buy time until the Golan battles were resolved. Then once that was done and they could divert forces from there to the south they would have attacked the Egyptians who would have been strung out across the delta far from their SAM bases and vulnerable to strikes by the IAF on their front line forces and their lines of supply. The Egyptians would have been forced to defend several routes, only one of which the Israeli’s would have needed resulting in the Egyptian forces being divided and the Israeli’s concentrated.
 
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