Armored men, some of the best Israeli fighters, were seriously surprised, killed and wounded by the Russian anti-tank missile with the hollow head Sagar (and its Russian name “Maliotka” – simply guided by wire and periscope tracking) in the Yom Kippur war.
The missile made names in the Israeli armor. The Israeli army was not ready to face Maliotake, even if it was used early in the Vietnam War against the Americans. It was an Israeli intelligence failure, perhaps arrogance, that resulted in many losses of Israeli armored soldiers. All the armies in all the armor schools in the world study the Israeli failure from 49 years ago.
Ukrainian windbreaker
Without the development of a windbreaker, an active protection system for tanks and armored vehicles (APS for short) – in my eyes it is like an act of magic – it is doubtful whether there would have been any point in bringing the advanced Chariot tanks to the battlefield today.
A windbreaker sounds like science fiction, but the system made by Rafael and with the help of Elta detects in seconds, ahead of time, using sensors, an anti-tank missile and its intended course in 360 degrees around the tank (according to Rafael) and destroys it before it reaches the target.
Rafael, the only one in the world with such an active system, has already sold windbreakers to the Americans. A windbreaker is an expensive product, hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit, and the hope is that it also protects against missiles, such as the American Javelin missiles or suicide drones manufactured by the Turkish STM, among the best in the arena today.
Another Israeli trick in the October War (according to the Egyptian name) was the belief that Israel was invincible after the glory of the Six Day War. The concept and complacency determined this: even though the enemy’s ranks were thick with hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts “on a scale we had never known before”, with thousands of tanks and cannons and in formation for an attack, and Soviet planes evacuated the advisers from Egypt via the Aeroflot airline, the then head of the Israeli Defense Forces Eli Zaira stated : “The likelihood that the Egyptians intend to resume fighting is low.” Since then Israel has been trying to rehabilitate the trauma of the failed intelligence.
The Russians invaded Ukraine half a year ago, on February 24, with a massive armored force of thousands of tanks, and promised that the capital city of Kyiv would be quickly conquered by the power of Russian steel that seemed endless. They built on essays as if it were a throwback to World War II. The doctrine of armies in the world holds that breaking into enemy territory must be accompanied by tanks destroying and destroying troops, buildings, warehouses, defense forces and essential public buildings. There are currently about 70,000 tanks all over the world.
But in practice the Russian army suffered a defeat with 20-25 thousand dead, according to American or British intelligence estimates, a quarter of which were Russian mercenaries. Although the Russian army still holds large areas in eastern Ukraine and in the south of the Black Sea basin, the morale of the army is low, because another 60,000 Russian soldiers have been wounded.
For comparison, in the entire war in Afghanistan, the Russians lost 2,448 soldiers and another 20,000 wounded. There are different estimates between the Americans and the Ukrainians and others regarding the destruction of Russian military equipment in the war that has been going on for six months. Between 1,000-1,700 Russian tanks were destroyed, according to the low estimate of the Americans and the exaggerated estimate of the Ukrainians respectively. At least a quarter of the Russian tank position was destroyed, abandoned or captured. 3,905 troop carriers (according to the Ukrainians) were destroyed as well as between 350-856 artillery pieces (the lower number is the American estimate).
According to the Ukrainian newspaper “Prabda” (“Truth”) of July 20 of this year, citing a source in the General Staff of Ukraine, 38,750 Russian soldiers were killed and 250 rocket launcher batteries, 113 air defense systems, 221 planes, 188 helicopters, 703 UAVs were destroyed. , 167 cruise missiles and another 15 ships and ships. The Ukrainian side also suffered losses in lives and equipment.
According to the estimate of a newspaper published in Odessa, the city that the Russians failed to conquer, 232 Ukrainian tanks, 116 troop carriers and 173 infantry transport vehicles were destroyed. The Ukrainians do not provide the number of casualties, and the estimate is 150-200 dead per day.
The Russians are now belatedly developing their own anti-aircraft system (APS) to be attached to their new T-14 main battle tank, known as “Armata”. These systems have not yet come into use, and are still in trials. Even at the parade on May 1 this year, only two such modern tanks were presented.
Russian disgrace
Another disadvantage accrued to the Russians in the system of armored battles in which they were defeated, because they rolled into the campaign tanks and outdated systems. The currently advanced Russian battle tanks T-72 were produced in the 1970s and were used in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. They are protected from direct frontal formation due to heavy steel systems, but the sides of the tank are not well protected and the tank is vulnerable.
The Americans came and gave the Ukrainians javelin missiles, which simply rise above the target tank to a height of 150 meters, penetrate at 90 degrees from above and detonate the ammunition in the belly of the tank, which is not separated by a steel door, as in the American tanks, from the tank crew. This defect will be corrected in the new Armata tank.
British-Swedish NLAWs anti-tank system, which is carried on the shoulder of the lone warrior, is for short ranges, and basically does the job without tracking the launcher in a “launch and forget” way. The missile will follow the tank and hit it while calculating its position in a few seconds or tens of seconds. The Russians are powerless against the deadly modern anti-tank weapons. The tanks and their burned and abandoned troop carriers are plastered all over the world’s media columns to their disgrace.
The world is panicking about the Russian military defeat. All countries and armies of the world are rethinking all their weapon systems for the future battlefield, as a conclusion from the war in Ukraine. More and more countries are asking not to rely on the weapons systems of other countries. Until this year, the main importers of Russian weapons were India, Egypt and China.
Now the Russian weapon has been discovered in its depths. In May of this year, India canceled a deal to purchase helicopters from Russia worth 520 million dollars. India realized that even weapons systems that it does want to purchase from Russia, it will not be able to receive, since Russia needs these systems for itself, to equip the army that has lost its five-pronged capability.
China is increasing the production of its own weapons. It is already copying less and producing more of its own original systems, and it is increasing investments, because it seeks to take Russia’s place as an arms exporter, just as it has already taken Russia’s place as a power. Egypt sought to distance itself from the patronage of the United States, which no longer sees it as a strategic asset relative to the Gulf states, but the war in Ukraine does not allow it to carry out the adventure of changing the weapons array from American to Russian.
Russia itself turns out to be dependent on foreign parts and equipment for its weapons system. At least 27 of Russia’s weapons systems depend on equipment and components from 450 foreign companies worldwide, according to the Royal United Services Institute in London.
About 70% of the companies that supply equipment are companies based in the USA. With the disappearance of globalization in recent years, more countries are moving to develop and rely on themselves in all areas, from the light component to the heavy component – which will lead to an increase in the defense spending of the countries of the world, most of which declared with a committee that they Increase the defense budget significantly.
Israeli opportunity
The leader is Japan, which will double its defense budget starting in April 2023 to 2% of GDP. So does Germany. Israeli defense exports will flourish and strengthen the high-tech economy. Among the leading countries in self-development of weapons are Turkey and Brazil, not necessarily only because of this component of government spending (both countries are close to bankruptcy).
Turkey owns STM’s TB2s suicide drone industry, laser-guided, among the best in the world. The Turkish suicide bomber was successful in his work in Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia and now also in Ukraine. The Iranians have also developed a good drone industry, so much so that President Putin on his last visit In Tehran he asked to purchase them from them for his war in Ukraine.
After two decades of open secrecy, Israel also publicly admitted that it has UAVs, but did not indicate whether they also commit suicide. News from foreign sources indicate that Israel is cooperating with India and Morocco on this issue. The Ukraine war shows that it is very cheap to destroy an expensive tank. The air defense systems in the world were built to examine air attacks by fighter jets, to warn of them and to prevent them. Now all over the world, probably also in Israel, the defense and radar systems are being adapted to detect UAVs, such as those sent to the Harish offshore gas field.
What is important is that Israel’s defense system, the military industry and the future ciphers in the IDF analyze in depth the essence of the failures and successes of the battlefield in Ukraine. We must do quick work, including drawing conclusions and changing the order of priorities and preferences, so that already in the 2023 budget, and especially in the 2024 budget and beyond, there will be A budgetary response to the army within the defense budget, according to the arenas of the new wars. God forbid – and even dangerous – for Israel to bask in its successes in northern Samaria or in the Gaza Strip – this is a tiny testing ground for the television screens and Israeli pride and nothing else.
First of all, the IDF should ask itself whether to continue developing the Merkava tank and how many weapons Israel needs, whether there is indeed an effective defense system even with missiles diving at 90 degrees, whether the all-powerful tank is vulnerable to suicide UAVs or swarms of UAVs The pens on Israel’s battle tank and if we must increase the scope of production of the guns and their range in huge quantities to prevent tank hunters from approaching the scene of activity.
The Russian artillery failed in an attempt to protect the Russian tanks who advanced too quickly and fell into ambushes, the Russian artillery was left behind due to a large SDF and made the Russian tanks easy targets. Has the British tank that first appeared in 1916 and made a name for itself in the German defense formation in 1917 reached the end of its journey? Has the tank , which is conducted heavily and whose value is very expensive, is it even suitable for a modern war?
Maybe we should stop producing the chariot tanks and increase the scope of the independent commando units, units that carry light and smart personal lethal weapons? The tank is a crushing device for breaking into huge areas and it could be a trap for armored personnel carriers, as was the case in the Yom Kippur War. The army may still be busy with logistics and evacuating the wounded. The tank wars in the Sinai or the heroic battle in the Baka Valley in the Golan Heights will never return.
An important lesson
The intelligence failure in the Yom Kippur war still hits us. We also need to examine the increase in budgets for cyber systems, not just the transmission lines between the weapons systems and the security system and headquarters. A lot of money is required to increase the espionage capacity and to enter the enemy countries – their commanders, their designs and their weapon systems. What is related to the encrypted and confused information systems we are already doing well today, but we need to increase it.
Part of the Ukrainian success is the best intelligence provided to Ukraine by the Americans and the British, who spared it equipment and weapons and led to its success on the battlefield, including harming senior commanders in the Russian army. One of the tasks of a modern army, as in ancient times, is systems of deception, deception and trickery. We must establish expert teams of commanders who have learned the ins and outs of military game theory and its trickery while using even social networks that spread falsehood and truth in a jumble and as needed.
The Achilles heel of the Russians in the war in the sister country of Ukraine are the long supply lines that the Russians failed: the Russians sent armored columns, as if the occupation of the main cities in Ukraine was child’s play. Slight resistance by the Ukrainians led the Russian soldiers to a shortage of ammunition, food and communication with the home front.
Israel will also have to study in more depth the issue of supply lines, logistics, the distribution of warehouses, the protection of the emergency warehouses throughout the year, the appropriate and updated stocks for the needs of the present, and more. The chain of command and reliance on the instructions in it will not be able to work in a world of dynamic, agile and changing war. To this end, we must budget for the establishment of independent units that can work and operate independently in a short time. No time for chain of command or supply.
Above all, the air control that Israel has had for decades, actually since the Six Day War, is important. It must continue and intensify. The Air Force, it seems, is working well, updated and renewed. The question is whether soldiers and pilots in the army will be able to reach their base safely – and this is no longer certain after the Arab Revolt of 1951-1952, a century after the great Arab Revolt of 1951-1952. The opening fire instructions of the IDF soldiers must also include an active hostile population of law-breaking Israeli citizens. The military intelligence must also contain an update from home with the help of the Shin Bet, which circulates current information.
All the aforementioned actions can only be done in a strong Israeli economy, as it is today. The strength of the economy guarantees the ability to spend budgets to strengthen the army. At the same time, the army must reduce its staff of officials, so that the defense budget does not burden the economy. The global security tensions will increase Israeli security exports – hopefully also to countries as far away as Japan and, of course, Europe – which will enable the reduction of the cost of weapons and security-related services (per unit). Surpluses in today’s budget may be required for tomorrow’s lean day. Politicians change, take your eyes off the excesses.