The commando brigade is training at the height of the storm
(Photo: Nadav Abs)
A fire area between the Palestinian town of Tubas and the town of Rotem in the northern Jordan Valley, this week. The cold load here is set at level 2, one before the most extreme. The heavy rains that fall here are absorbed in the uniforms and vests of the commando brigade fighters, who carry more than 40 kilograms on bodies. Central Command General Yehuda Fox and Division 98 Commander Brigadier General Ofer Winter have personally confirmed this, and they are on the ground to monitor closely.
A hike and buses were attached at all times to the fighters, in case of aggravation that would lead to an immediate declaration of “cease”. The exercise’s exceptional safety procedures allow fighters to carry 50-60% of their body weight, marching tens of miles in the mountainous training areas of the northern Jordan Valley. In practice, because of the incessant rains, it was heavier and heavier.
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Because of the rain, the equipment is even heavier. Exercise of the commando brigade in the Jordan Valley
(Photo: Nadav Abs )
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The fighters took with them three pairs of uniforms for a change so as not to snatch hypothermia in the four days of the rolling war exercise that began on Sunday. Already after two days they were required for a fourth couple. In the preparation orders on Saturday they weighed every thermal shirt, walkie-talkie and glider they carried on their bodies because they knew it was going to be heavy and hard.
In all the IDF, training and exercises were stopped this week due to the “Carmel” storm, in the Nut Cherry and Magellan units stormed as the origin of much loot.
What began with quiet operations that ended in “clean hands” and quiet raids ended Wednesday with a loud clamp collision on the imaginary enemy targets, along with Mark 4 chariot tanks from the 7th Brigade coming from another direction.
For a few hours it looked like another battalion exercise with combinations of forces. Between the lines, there seems to be a dramatic change in the perception and execution of the IDF fighters on an explosive and sensitive issue.
August 2014, end of Operation Eitan Cliff. The commander of the Givati Brigade, Col. Ofer Winter, one of the toughest and most direct commanders in the IDF, loses three fighters near Rafah: the patrol commander, Major Banya Sarel, the liaison sergeant Liel Gideoni and the patrol officer abducted by Hamas squad Lt. Hadar Goldin.
Two days earlier, he had taken me to the village of Gaza, Khirbet Hazia, for a meeting with the patrol fighters, including Banya and Liel, and promised On Record: “They will release the Ambrax for us and we will reach the sea.” A thick hint of his “Arik Sharonit” approach – if you are already fighting and crossing a border, then hit the terrorist organizations mercilessly, and with all the power that the land army can give.
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“We will come to the enemy from an unexpected direction.” The exercise in the Jordan Valley
(Photo: Nadav Abs )
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Today, as commander of the IDF’s elite division for missions deep in enemy territory, its bulldozer engine is aimed at lower columns, which at one moment can leap upwards. “ninth.
Winter gives them the confidence to act independently and make decisions of strategic value in war when they are alone, tens of miles from the border, sometimes without Air Force assistance due to anti-tank threats or weather conditions, just as cooperation with combat squadrons was canceled this week in the exercise.
But he introduced one important change, which permeated until the last of the commanders. Along with fulfilling the task, such as occupying the enemy headquarters, the people are no less important.
Killed soldiers will burn more national mourning in Israeli society than killing civilians. But the task given is much more explicit – to avoid kidnapping a soldier in any situation.
Terrorist armies like Hezbollah and Hamas will lose almost every direct battle with IDF fighters and lose significant assets because of the strong intelligence. But enough to take a soldier or two captive and the war will end in a victory picture for them – Gilad Shalit, the price was also in the future security.
“There is no kidnapper in the nut. That’s the first thing I said to the fighters in the briefing, and they know it,” explains Major A., a platoon commander in the elite unit, until a few years ago. Prisoners and also casualties in war.It’s a natural part of the campaign, painful as it may be.
This time it’s different. Fighters will be sent to infiltrate only as a last resort, after firing from the air, tank blows or D9 bulldozers to destroy the targets. Fighters will not be put into tunnels that will be bombed from the outside. The kidnapping achievement will be taken from the enemy.
More than a thousand fighters from the commando brigade took advantage of Sunday, the beginning of the brigade exercise “Or HaMaccabim”, as a calm before the storm. The weather still allowed a safe flight and they were flown to the “depth of enemy territory” aboard the owl helicopters. In the days that followed, the connection with the Air Force was severed.
Magellan, walnut and cherry are mainly based on the intention and operation of fire from fighter jets and helicopters, or receiving supplies in the heat of logistics equipment such as ammunition, energy and water to the depths of the area. In the exercise under the storm it was canceled or given a method.
In the moment of truth it may meet them again. Disconnection procedure, requirement to function and fight away from the border without any supply for long days, sometimes more than a week. Doctors and surgeons cling to them deep in the field for complex surgeries and treatment of multi-casualty incidents, with no rescue helicopter able to approach for 12 hours to long days. Water they had to improvise and purify from local wells, also in the exercise, and light sleep in the pauses between acts they found in abandoned buildings in the valley and under broken sheds of base ruins that the IDF had long ago left.
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(Photo: IDF Spokesman )
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The fighters are loaded with advanced technological means, smart laser markers, amar for each fighter, satellite communications capabilities and electronic weapons to disrupt enemy activity in a “soft” and quiet manner. The special missiles of these units, most of them classified, will be retrieved only at the last opportunity.
“A lot of teams here will end a war with clean hands, without physically encountering the enemy, but with aiming bombs from fighter jets and other missions in the heart of the area that are of great value for winning the war, without firing a single bullet,” a brigade officer explained.
He said, “We will come to the enemy from an unforeseen direction with special forces of the Yahalam Engineering Unit for the destruction of long-range rocket and missile launchers, and the production of new targets by the brigade’s forces while fighting. There are new ‘storm’ teams here to accurately hit the targets and expose them. “
There is not a veteran paratrooper who did not know firsthand the Hammam al-Malih base in Samaria, which was used for the basic training of Red Brigade fighters for about three decades, until it was abandoned in the early 2000s, like other training bases in Judea and Samaria.
At the height of this week’s exercise, the commando brigade fighters returned, this time to a battle against each other – Magellan and Cherry together against a nut unit, whose fighters imagined a special Hezbollah force. Lots of tricks were used against each other, many wounded and killed and scams that required the officers to show initiative.
No officer in the brigade or division commander wanted to risk announcing the winners in this night battle, but the clues lead to the blue side. “Both sides thought like IDF officers and not like the enemy, so it was very close and challenging,” the brigade explained.
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(Photo: Nadav Abs )
In the night report exercise as well, the officers were required to think a lot, and not get involved in unnecessary battles. This is called, and in the battle cry they will be required to act on a technologically blind, or with maps and charts, as before.
The shared dialogue with the fighter pilots is also critical to the success of the mission. The commando fighters will, as mentioned, use their ground missiles only as a last resort, and the difference between the infantry culture and the rigidity and professionalism of the Air Force’s times may be shaky in real time.
This is the reason why about 80 commanders from the commando brigade arrived before the exercise for face-to-face meetings and personal acquaintances with the pilots at the Tel Nof base.
Their commander, Commando Brigadier General Col. Manny Liberty, remained awake for 90 hours of the grueling exercise. In war he will have to maneuver in combat in all dimensions – from the air, in the bromine closest to the ground, on the ground, in the space of the invisible spectrum, and also underground.
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