Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!pacbell.com!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: mav@cs.huji.ac.il (Marc Alexandrovich Volovic) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: TOW vs Saggers and RPG's in Iraq and Yom Kippur War Message-ID: <1991Jan10.025148.3218@cbnews.att.com> Date: 10 Jan 91 02:51:48 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 29 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Marc Alexandrovich Volovic Hello, I quite agree that the the Sagger and RPG equipped Egyptian forces caused heavy losses to the Israeli tank forces. The reason is, as you have stated, lack of infantry support. During the years from 67 to 73 the Israeli Army, under the influence of General Tal, developed the "tank-heavy" doctrine. The decided that the ancilary forces of the tank division are less important than the tanks and that tanks "can do it alone." The US has that experience, and its tank divisions have infantry support, with independent and organic AT subunits. I doubt very much that the Iraqis have Blazer or the newer Israeli designed fire attenuation systems incorporated in the Russian tanks, and even if they do, they probably have the subsystems on the better tank divisions (i.e. RepGuard). We are all waiting for the Ides of January. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Marc A. Volovic email: mav@lizardo.huji.ac.il | | Linguistics Dept snail: P.O. Box 23114 | | Hebrew University Jerusalem, 91230 | | Jerusalem, Israel Israel | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Linguists do it cunningly | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+