Bad news also came from the ground forces as 8 October resulted in a similar defeat for the IDF’s armored corps in the Sinai.  The Egyptian light infantry and commandos, lying in wait on the Eastern side of the canal, were armed with Soviet-made anti-tank weapons such as the AT-3 “Sagger” anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) and rocket propelled grenades (RPG-7), which inflicted devastating losses on General Avraham Adan and General Ariel Sharon’s armored divisions attacking the Egyptian 2nd and 3rd Armies.[9]  The effective Egyptian and Syrian defenses against the IDF’s counterattacks in the early days of the war illustrated the importance of stamping out hubris from one’s military preparations.  The IDF/AF would eventually snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and reverse their military setbacks from the first days of the Yom Kippur War by routing the Syrians to the gates of Damascus and crossing the Suez Canal with three armored divisions, but the cost to achieve this victory was too high a price to accept. 

          The decision to direct the IAF to strike north rather than continue the operational plan and pre-briefed concept of operations against the Egyptians has been a highly debated and a controversial legacy within the IAF post-1973.  In A War of Its Own by Professor Uri-Bar Joseph, newly examined archive documents have highlighted details and analysis on the Israeli Air Force’s inability to “stick to the plan”.  In the United States Air Force, it is common in de-briefs for combat crews to be berated by instructors for “not doing what you briefed” if the crew performs sub-standard.  A similar critique can be attributed to the IAF high command in the opening days of the war.  The panic inspired by the shock of the combined Arab assault sent the IAF into a spiral of indecision.  The shock forced attention to one theatre while pausing and shifting to another without a coherent intent.  This leapfrogging course of action resulted in concentrating on little while achieving nothing to influence the overall battle until Israeli armor could destroy SAM sites at point blank range with their main guns to clear the way for the IAF to break through the “SAM wall”.  This stood in sharp contrast to the experience in 1967, when the tiny Israeli air component concentrated their attacks on one Arab air arm at a time, destroying one air force in detail and re-directing to another.  In the Times of Israel article, “Newly Opened Archives Show Israel’s Air Force Was A Weak Link During the Yom Kippur War”, Abraham Rabinovich further illustrates the comparison between the IAF in 1967 and 1973 by stating,   “Veteran officers on Peled’s staff believed that his much-admired predecessor, Gen. Motti Hod, who had carried out the preemptive strike in 1967, would have found a way to keep Tagar alive, either by explaining the situation to Dayan more persuasively or otherwise.  Two years before, Hod had witnessed an Egyptian division deployed along the Suez Canal as if preparing to cross. The Egyptian force was lined up densely for miles on a narrow road leading to the waterway — tanks, personnel carriers, fuel trucks and the myriad of other vehicles an army requires to go into battle. Hod ordered his staff to draw up a detailed plan to attack any such formation at the beginning of a future war. The plan’s code name was “Srita,” Hebrew for “Scratch.”  When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Hod expected Peled to unleash the attack on one or more crossing points of the canal to throw the Egyptians off balance. But rather it was the IAF that was off balance. Expressing his deep disappointment in Peled later, Hod said, “He had only to say [into the radio] ‘Srita. Execute.’ The air force knew what to do.”[10]  The lessons learned from the 1973 Arab Israeli War would inspire innovation and development of new methods championed by both the IAF and the United States to defeat the SAM.  The setting of military momentum against your enemy early and retaining it is also a concept that 21^st century war planners must consider as a key take away from the IAF’s 1973 experience. 

Conclusions and Lessons Learned

          Hubris in any professional military force is inherently dangerous.  The current military adventure by Vladimir Putin’s Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 presents us with an opportunity to evaluate performance and weigh pre-war conceptions of effectiveness of an adversary.  We should be careful in our conclusions regarding the preparations we make for contingencies in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific.  The Russian Air Force’s failure to win air supremacy over Ukraine and its high loss rates produce valuable lessons to be learned by future war planners, but an even more studious evaluator is closely counting the costs, Beijing.  The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will watch the outcome of this war and its vicarious lessons in armor, anti-tank weapons, public relations, troop morale, amphibious assaults, artillery, modern missiles, and air power.  In 1973, the missile had bent the wing of the aircraft and from 1982-1991, the aircraft had bent the missile.  This is a cycle of technological innovation that swings a pendulum back and forth, war after war.  The Pacific Alliance should consider this pendulum and examine it carefully to ensure that the United State Air Force and our Naval Aviation elements do not find themselves at the receiving end of the next deadly swing.  The suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) will continue to plague war planners for years to come and the innovation of unmanned systems integrated with all other elements of modern air power will be required for winning the battle for the skies in any future near-peer contest. 

          Another key learning point from the first few days of the IAF’s 1973 experience reside in a vital principle of warfare, simplicity.  Of course, striking an IADS is anything but simple, but the orders to immediately execute coordinated combat operations against the enemy can either be simple and easily relayed or complicated and filled with hesitation and indecision.  General Hod’s “Srita Execute” OPLAN is a fundamental take away from this work.  In the Pacific, the vast expanse of the combat area and the complications of modern command and control (C2) interference must be expected.  This will require a level of simplicity in the execution of a defensive war plan that requires years of training and unit development with the intent of being able to effectively respond to a PLA amphibious assault with no more than a one-line command from headquarters, “Execute”.  Any air campaign, with assets responding to the battlespace from many islands, aircraft carriers, and continental bases spread over thousands of miles must be able to begin the cycle of response in a timely and efficient manner with little misunderstanding involved.  This concept cuts down on hesitation which can derail any modern force operating in an environment containing hypersonic weapons, cyber weapons, and anti-satellite technology.  Understanding the value of context behind the development of modern warfare through the ages to our modern day is an essential tool in building the fundamentals upon which we can develop our doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that future leaders must employ to deter and defeat our foes of tomorrow.  With this context, like the bloody history of the IAF in 1973, we can avoid such dilemmas, out preparing and out planning our enemies. 

“Courage is useless in the face of educated bullets”- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

Author Biography:

2^nd Lt Grant T. Willis, USAF

Lieutenant Willis is a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) pilot currently stationed at Cannon AFB, NM. He is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, majoring in International Affairs, with a minor in Political Science.

Sources:

Aloni, Shlomo, and Chris Davey. Israeli F-4 Phantom II Aces. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004.  

Emran, Abdallah, and Tom Cooper. 1973 – The First Nuclear War: Crucial Air Battles of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Solihull, West Midlands: Helion & Company Limited, 2019.

Rabinovich, Abraham, Nebi Qena and YURAS KARMANAU, Agencies, TOI staff, Afp, Chris Megerian, Emanuel Fabian, et al. “Newly Opened Archives Show Israel’s Air Force Was a Weak Link during Yom Kippur War.” The Times of Israel, December 18, 2021. https://www.timesofisrael.com/newly-opened-archives-show-israels-air-force-was-a-weak-link-during-yom-kippur-war/.

McNab, Chris, Johnny Shumate, and Alan Gilliland. Sagger Anti-Tank Missile vs M60 Main Battle Tank: Yom Kippur War 1973. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2018.

Griess, Thomas E. The West Point Military History Series . Wayne , New Jersey: Avery Publishing Group , 1987.