MH355 – Modern Middle East Military History

Battle Analysis – The Egyptian Assault across the Suez Canal, October 6-10, 1973

By Birrion Sondahl, Student ID#1010578

The initial battle in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 serves to illustrate many principles of war as well as the affect of terrain upon the battlefield. Although the battle itself was not decisive, it played a major role in the war and shows the Israeli and Egyptian armies in action. The sheer size of the battlefield and number of troops involved make the tactical events of the battle very numerous and complex. Although all of these events provide insight into war, certain tactical episodes serve better than others to outline the principles of war and the outcome of the battle.

The terrain upon which the battle of the Suez Canal was fought varied greatly. The main feature of the battlefield was the canal itself. At this time the depth of the canal ranged from 180-240 yards wide and 50-60 feet deep. The Israeli forces held the east bank. Along this bank was a dyke that averaged 18-30 feet of height. At key locations the Israelis had reinforced the dyke to a height of 75 feet. To the east of the dyke, the desert naturally rises into numerous ridges and mountains. To the north there is a salt marsh through which the only feasible means of travel was upon constructed roads. Running north-south there were two roads along the canal: the Lexicon road right behind the dyke and the Artillery Road five miles inland to the east. The west bank, from which the Egyptians made their assault, was mainly farm land with an irrigation canal running along it.1 In order to have a better observation capability, the Egyptians had raised a portion of the west bank to a height of 130 feet. In response to this, the Israelis raised their own banks and constructed observation towers of 230 feet. In addition to these observation towers, the Israeli fortified positions were also located so as to give an optimal field of fire and view of the ground surrounding them. These fortified positions also provided man made cover and obstacles.

These fortified positions were known as the Bar Lev line. Sixteen of these forts were manned by Israeli forces. The forts were spread out along the canal and were not mutually supporting. This would allow the Egyptians to isolate and overwhelm each singly. A number of these fortified positions had only just recently been reopened by Major General Schmuel Gonen, who had taken over control of Israeli Southern Command on July 1, 1973. This meant that their defenses were still incomplete. Each of the forts had a code name. From north to south these names were: Orkal, Budapest, Lahtzanit, Drora, Ketuba, Milano, Mifreket, Hizayon, Purkan, Matzmed, Lakekan, Botzer, Lituf, Mafzeah, Nissan, and Quay. These were truly the keypoints of the Bar Lev line.

Any approach the Egyptian forces could make to the Israeli positions would have to cross the canal. The Egyptian high command chose their crossing locations carefully. There would be bridges in three key locations: Kantara, Ismailia-Deversoir, and Geneifa-Suez. There were to be a total of ten bridges, three each at Kantara and Ismailia-Deversoir, and four at Geneifa-Suez. This would allow for moderately quick crossing of the canal without straining the engineering capabilities of the Egyptian army. The first objective of these crossing forces was to establish bridgeheads five miles wide and three and a half miles deep. Their next objective was to expand the bridgeheads and take all of the Israeli fortified positions on the Bar Lev line. The final objective of this offensive was to reach the Artillery Road.

At the start of the battle the Egyptians had a great numerical advantage. In total the Israeli forces along the Bar Lev line consisted of 300 tanks, 18,000 men, and 80-100 pieces of artillery. The tanks were in the 252nd Armored Division which served as the reserve along with a strong infantry brigade. The Israeli Airforce consisted of 366 aircraft, most of which were F-4 Phantoms and A-4 Skyhawks. In opposition to this defense force, Egypt had an army of 2,400 tanks, 300,000 infantry, and 2,300 pieces of artillery. Their total strength in manpower was 800,000 men. The initial assault force was the Second and Third Armies which consisted of about 1,600 tanks, 200,000 men, and 2,000 peces of artillery. The rest of the forces would be close at hand on the west bank as a reserve. This attack force was supported by an airforce of 435 aircraft. A fair amount of these were of the MiG variety. Egypt had also concentrated a mass of anti-air batteries to cover their attack. These consisted of 135 SAMs of the SA-2 and SA-3 varieties, 20-40 of the SA-6 variety, and 2,100 anti-aircraft guns. Their ground forces had over 5,000 of the shoulder launched SA-7. Egypt had a very clear advantage in mass.

Egypt's greatest advantage at the start of the battle was that of surprise. The Israelis were not expecting to be attacked. The Egyptians had paid great attention to security through their propaganda campaigns prior to the attack. These campaigns were created specifically to deceive the Israelis as to the actual state of readiness in the Egyptian army. Several articles were published describing the lack of maintenance and general unpreparedness of Egypt's army for war. These were believed to be true around the world and especially in Israel. Israel had already considered Egypt unready to fight a war and this information only helped to concrete that belief. In order to keep information of their true plans from spreading, not even the Egyptian troops knew when the date of the attack was until the morning of October 6, when they deployed to the assault. Prior to the beginning of the war, Egypt had continually had large scale exercises near the canal and Israel believed the deployments of October to simply be another one of these. The date of the attack was also significant. As it was the day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, most of the soldiers on the Bar Lev line had returned home to attend worship services. This left the forts only manned by token forces of reserves. Each fort only held around 30 men at the time of the attack. These men were mostly reserve forces and had no expectation of an assault.

Egypt had been training for years in preparation for this single battle. The Egyptian leadership had analyzed their mistakes of the Six Day War and did their best to rectify them. During this restructure of the Egyptian armed forces, Egypt paid much detail to security. Concrete hangars were added to their airbases to prevent the Israeli Air Force from destroying aircraft on the ground. Numerous new anti-aircraft batteries had also been installed. When Egypt began their assault on the morning of October 6, 1972, they were thoroughly prepared for the battle.

The battle began with Egyptian artillery bombardment and airstrikes against the Israeli positions in the Sinai. This artillery bombardment was carried out on a massive scale. As Chaim Herzog writes, "In the first minute of the attack, 10,500 shells fell on Israeli positions at the rate of 175 shells per second."2 This was in addition to free rocket over ground type missiles and concentrated tank fire across the canal. This opening bombardment lasted for 53 minutes. The airstrikes were conducted by 240 aircraft of the Egyptian Airforce and targeted Israeli command positions, airfields, SAM batteries, artillery positions, and the heavily fortified point in the north, "Budapest." The total number of sorties flown was between 250 and 300. The most accurate of these sorties were against the Israeli artillery positions. Eighteen Egyptian planes were shot down during the airstrikes.

Once the airstrikes and bomardment were completed at around 14:15, the Egyptian ground assault began. The first wave consisted of 8,000 troops. This group had been the most thoroughly trained and were the elite of the Egyptian army. A brigade of commando special forces led the attack at each crossing location. These commando forces crossed the canal in boats and helped to secure the east bank while the combat engineers placed the bridges. Once this task was complete, the commandos continued inland to set up anti-tank locations. The forces of the attack were dispersed among the crossing points so as to give the Israelis no clear main force against which to aim a counterattack.

The Israeli sand ramparts on the east bank in most locations were washed away by the Egyptian engineers' use of high pressure hoses. The only difficulties with this rampart were in south where the soil was not as sandy and turned into mud when the hoses were focused upon it. It was in this area that the Egyptian Third Army ran into the most significant Israeli resistance on the ground. One of the divisions assaulting across the canal here took 10 percent casualties. Despite this resistance in the south and numerous Israeli airstrikes against the bridges, the Egyptians were able to maintain a constant flow of troops across to the east bank. Over 90,000 men, 350 tanks, and 11,000 support vehicles had crossed within 18 hours of the beginning of the assault. The Israeli forces had been taken completely by surprise. Only 208 Egyptians were killed in the crossing operations.

After the crossing, the initial resistance to the Egyptian assault came from the sixteen fortified positions. These were manned by only 436 men of the Jerusalem brigade who had little experience. In addition to these men, there were only few tanks in immediate range of the Egyptian assaults. The rest of the force was the reserve force under Major General Avraham Mandler. This consisted of the 252nd Armored with 280 tanks and an infantry brigade. The infantry brigade was posted in the north. Upon receiving reports of the Egyptian attacks, Major General Mandler began moving this force to counter attack. While this force moved to attack, the Egyptians were concentrated upon overwhelming the Israeli fortified positions.

The success of the Egyptians against these positions varied. As Chaim Herzog describes, "In those fortifications in which the troops had manned the firing points, the Egyptians were beaten back, but the Egyptian forces succeeded in penetrating those fortifiactions in which the men had been order to take shelter on the asumption that what they were experiencing was only an artillery attack."3 From this it is evident that the fortified positions each had been optimally located so as to give a clear field of fire to the defenders. Where the Israelis had neglected security and not manned the defenses, they were overwhelmed with minimal resistance. Where they took it upon themselves to use their firepower, they were able to hold off the Egyptians even though greatly outnumbered.

One of the stronger positions was the "Quay" position on the southern end of the canal. A contingent of 42 Israeli troops commanded by Lieutenant Shlomo Ardinest held this position. At the end of the first day of combat, in which the Egyptian crossing in front of the position had been defeated, this force was supported by four Israeli tanks. Although quite damaged, these tanks were still capable of a significant amount of firepower. The position itself was a very strong one. The fort was surrounded by water on three sides which meant that there was only one clear avenue of approach. This approach was covered by the four light machine guns of the position as well as the tanks. Thousands of troops and dozens of tanks were concentrated upon the position. This advantage of mass was of little use due to the limited approach and the strength of the position. It was not until October 11 that the Israeli force under Lieutenant Ardinest surrendered via the Red Cross. At this point only twenty men remained who were able to fight and the medical officer had run out of supplies. As these troops marched out to surrender, "The thousands of Egyptians surrounding the position watched the proceedings in awe."4 The defense of "Quay" serves as an example of the principle of simplicity. This position was so well designed that it was truly a simple matter of keeping fire upon the single avenue of approach. Even though almost a quarter of the Israeli forces were untrained in combat, a mere 42 men were capable of defending this position against the vastly superior Egyptian forces.

Egypt did not concentrate all of its forces upon the fortified positions. A main part of the effort was given to simply consolidating their positions in the bridgeheads. Kenneth M. Pollack describes the way in which Egypt created these defenses in the following manner, "They established intricate semicircular defensive position several kilometers wide with minefields; interlocking fields of fire from tanks, ATGMs, antitank guns, and automatic weapons; and supported by mortars and artillery on boths sides of the canal."5 These defensive positions were created in order to decimate any attacks made by Israeli forces in response to the attack.

During the first two days of the battle, the Israeli reserve forces quickly moved to make contact with the Egyptian invaders. A main part of this counterattack consisted of the Israeli air force. In these two days, the Israeli airforce took significant losses of 14 planes downed and numerous others took severe damage. This led to the withdrawal of the Israeli airforce from the canal zone. After this withdrawal, the Israeli airforce played little part in the battle for the canal. The Israeli 252nd Armored division also attacked during this period. The counterattack by this armored force had no clear objective and therefore there was no concentration of effort or economy of force. In each location where the Israeli tanks attacked, they were heavily outnumbered by the Egyptians. By the end of October 7, the 252nd Armored had lost 2/3 of its strength and was not fit to continue fighting. The Israeli reserve force had been shattered due to its ineffective deployment and the defensive strength of the Egyptian force.

Despite the failure of the initial counterattacks to achieve any gains, these attacks had bought time for the Israelis to mobilize more forces. These forces were the 162nd and 143rd Divisions under Major General Bren Adan and Major General Ariel Sharon. On October 8, the entire 162nd Division proceeded to attack in the center of the Egyptian lines. Although the original plan had been for the 162nd to strike the northern flank of the Egyptian bridgehead, it strayed too far to the south and struck the strongest portion of the Egyptian lines. Once again the mass of the Egyptian forces simply overwhelmed the Israeli counterattack. Israeli tanks fell into the fields of fire that the Egyptian forces had prepared and were riddled by antitank fire. At the same time as the 162nd advanced, the 143rd began to move to the south in order to hold the Gidi pass. When it became clear that the attack in the north was failing, the 143rd was ordered to counter march back to the north. Thus the 143rd was not used at all in the counterattack. The Israelis once again failed to utilize the principle of economy of force and paid for this with heavy losses.

The overall Egyptian advance continued despite the Israeli counterattacks and the difficulties with subduing the fortified positions such as "Quay" and "Budapest." This advance was slow and rigidly structured. The cessation of this advance came about due to the Israelis ability to adapt to the Egyptian tactics. Once it became clear that their counterattacks had failed, Israel began to deploy in a different manner. Their attacks had succeeded in slowing the Egyptian advance and this gave time for the Israeli adaptation. The Israeli artillery units which remained had been relocated from their prewar positions. This meant that the Egyptian artillery no longer could use their prepared fields of fire while the Israelis were able to zero in upon the Egyptian locations. As Kenneth M. Pollack describes, "Because the Egyptians attacked schematically and advanced brigade by brigade or division by division, the Israelis found that gaps would usually open up between these units as they advanced – gaps into which the Israelis could push armor."6 The predictability of these Egyptian advances were a failing in security. The success of the Israelis in exploiting this was an example of economy of force through maneuver. When the Egyptians advanced, Israel was able to attack where they had no prepared defensive positions or fields of fire. Egypt was not flexible enough to maneuver in response to these attacks and thus the entire Egyptian force came to a halt by October 10.

In the days from October 6-10, the Egyptians had truly shown a thorough understanding of the principles of war in the battle for the canal. At the start of the battle, everything had been well planned and organized. The Artillery Road was a clear objective and each task force knew what it must do to achieve its part of this objective. Egypt held the initiative throughout the battle and knew when to switch from offensive to defensive with the coming of the Israeli counterattacks. Following the defeat of the Israelis involved in this attacks, Egypt resumed the offensive and forced Israel to react to their maneuvers. Throughout the entire battle Egypt had an overwhelming numerical superiority. Their numerical advantage was so huge that economy of force played little part in the battle. In each location, Egypt had more than enough troops to deploy to combat. It is true that in places such as the "Quay" fortification Egypt was unable to make effective use of this superiority in numbers due to factors of terrain. For the most part the mass of the Egyptian forces proved very effective in overwhelming the Israeli positions. The unity of the Egyptian command was assured by the thorough training beforehand. The troops involved in this battle knew their tasks and subordinate commanders simply had to insure that these were carried out. General Isma'il 'Ali's plan was aptly followed until the advance came to a halt at the end of the battle. The overall Egyptian plan was kept secure through the use of the media and the misinformation campaign. This ensured that Egypt had the advantage of surprise throughout the battle. The plan itself required no complex maneuvering, but was quite simple in design. The simplicity of this plan allowed for the intense training to pay off in the end.

Overall the Egyptian assault across the canal was a success. The halt of the advance signaled the end of this opening battle in the war. The objective of the Artillery Road had not been achieved, but the Israeli airforce had been neutralized and the Bar Lev line was for the most part in Egyptian hands. The Israeli counterattacks of October 7 and 8 had been defeated. Egypt had overcome the natural obstacle of the canal and the man made fortifications opposing them and had taken the west bank. The Egyptian forces had used many of the principles of war and had achieved results which surprised the world. The completion of the battle for the canal set the stage for the rest of the war.

End notes

Herzog, Chaim. The Arab-Israeli Wars. Pg. 231

Ibid. Pg. 241

Ibid. Pg. 244

Ibid. Pg. 245

Pollack, Kenneth M. Arabs at War. Pg. 111

Ibid. Pg.113

2005-06-14T12:26:40