Soviet Claim 1967
This coming June marks the 45th anniversary of the 1967 Mideast war. It was a catastrophe for three Arab countries, two of which--Syria and Egypt--were armed by the USSR. Soon after it was over, in the summer of '67, Russian military men arrived in Egypt to discover the cause of the disaster. In their view, defeat stemmed from gross inaction on the part of Egyptian armor.
I have few sources on this claim. In his book, Dayan mentioned the Soviet investigation and its "startling conclusion": If each Egyptian tank had fired just one shot, Egypt would've won the war. But the majority had not fired at all. A few years later, Brezhnev reiterated this view to Anwar Sadat: "If each of your tanks had fired just one shot, the whole pattern of that war would've changed drastically."
This appears to be more of a public relations position than the result of objective analysis. Naturally, the rout of a client equipped with Russian arms greatly embarrassed the Kremlin. It was potentially very detrimental to Russian influence and prestige. Few nations would want Soviet arms and advisors in the wake of such a failure. It was imperative therefore, to explain the disaster in a way that would exculpate Soviet weapons and doctrine. The result was a claim which appears at best questionable if not outlandish. Moscow wanted people to believe Russian tanks (etc) were fine; the Egyptians just didn't use them.
Of course, this view wasn't entirely baseless. As was noted, Egypt's 125th brigade abandoned 60 heavy tanks without a fight. Evidently, the Soviets seized upon this incident, combined it with other evidence of inaction and blamed Cairo's tankmen.
On a number of occasions, however, Egyptian armor did fight, but not very effectively. The inferiority of Russian equipment was at least partly to blame. Generally, western-made IDF armor was more powerful and better suited to desert warfare than Soviet tanks.
I have few sources on this claim. In his book, Dayan mentioned the Soviet investigation and its "startling conclusion": If each Egyptian tank had fired just one shot, Egypt would've won the war. But the majority had not fired at all. A few years later, Brezhnev reiterated this view to Anwar Sadat: "If each of your tanks had fired just one shot, the whole pattern of that war would've changed drastically."
This appears to be more of a public relations position than the result of objective analysis. Naturally, the rout of a client equipped with Russian arms greatly embarrassed the Kremlin. It was potentially very detrimental to Russian influence and prestige. Few nations would want Soviet arms and advisors in the wake of such a failure. It was imperative therefore, to explain the disaster in a way that would exculpate Soviet weapons and doctrine. The result was a claim which appears at best questionable if not outlandish. Moscow wanted people to believe Russian tanks (etc) were fine; the Egyptians just didn't use them.
Of course, this view wasn't entirely baseless. As was noted, Egypt's 125th brigade abandoned 60 heavy tanks without a fight. Evidently, the Soviets seized upon this incident, combined it with other evidence of inaction and blamed Cairo's tankmen.
On a number of occasions, however, Egyptian armor did fight, but not very effectively. The inferiority of Russian equipment was at least partly to blame. Generally, western-made IDF armor was more powerful and better suited to desert warfare than Soviet tanks.
posted by starman at 5:21 AM
10 Comments:
Tanks were not the only problem for the Egyptians. Planes were also an issue. The Egyptian air force was equipped with Russian made Migs. The Israeli air force had Mirage fighter jets, which were Russian made. Israeli pilots outperformed the Egyptian pilots in the war. Of course, the Russians must have blamed that on the "incompetence" of the Egyptian pilots.
Mirages were French made but you're right; they had far better air to air missiles. Of course, in the '67 war, there was little air to air combat because most of the EAF was wiped out on the ground.
Btw I never saw the results of the putative Soviet investigation published anywhere. I doubt it would be classified anymore, since that was half a century ago. The lack of any known paper, showing actual research, argues the putative study was fictitious; with the exception of the abandonment of Stalins by the 125th, it was a baseless propaganda exercise.
Starman,
I'm doing some research and came across your site. Do you know the composition of the Egyptian 6th Mechanized division? I've seen material that shows it with either two brigades or four.
This business about firing one shot struck me as funny as I have never heard this one, However, there is a lot of truth in this claim. The claim I did hear was the reason the Egyptians did so poorly was that they were "poor
fighters" and not therefore Soviet military advisers weren't at fault. This tidbit came from "Victor Suvorov's" book The Liberators. Of course it all boils down to what Napoleon said years ago about there are no bad troops, just bad colonels like this cowardly brigade commander.
Your material here is interesting.
Thanks,
Ryan
Hi Ryan, thanks for your comment. Did you see ARABS AT WAR? It didn't address this specific issue but blamed Egyptian tactical commanders. The common soldiers weren't so bad--as Sharon acknowledged--but battalion, brigade etc commanders lacked initiative. Sorry dunno about # of brigades in the 6th.
Those Russian made tanks were obviously not a match for the Western made tanks of the IDF. Although the Russian manufactured tanks could withstand bazooka shells, they were not able to hold up against fire from the Western made tanks. I also think Maneuverability was also a factor.
I don't think Russian tanks of the period could withstand bazooka shells. Near Rafah in '67, an Israeli claimed to have destroyed an Egyptian tank with a bazooka. Bazookas were still in use on the Golan in '73.
You're right that Egyptian armor couldn't withstand Israeli shells. The only exception was the 75mm ammo of AMX tanks. It bounced off the armor of T-55s. Generally though, the Israelis had an edge. IDF Centurions had a 105mm gun which outclassed the 100mm gun of Egyptian T-55s.
Oh btw I now see that, as I wrote previously, Egyptian IS-3 tanks COULD withstand bazooka rounds. But they were relatively few in number. The bulk of Egyptian tanks were less well-armored T-55s and T-34s.
People should be aware btw that this thread has revived. The last three posts, including this one, are from April 2015, three years after the original post.
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April 4, 2015
That is not the only war in which Russian equipment performed badly against that of other countries. In the Korean War, Russian Migs were no match for the Saber jets of the U.S. Air Force.
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