The Fierce Tank Combat Strategies Of The Arab–Israeli Wars | Greatest Tank Battles | War Stories

the middle east 1967 with lightning speed the israeli tankers charge into sinai it was a big mistake for them to believe that the egyptian doesn't know how to how to fight [Music] at stake is the destiny of the middle east they're willing to stand there they're willing to duke it out with the israelis two armies six days and only one winner this is the showdown in sinai this is the six day war [Music] [Music] the desert borderlands of southern israel [Music] a hotly disputed corner of the middle east which has been torn apart by conflict born in the throes of violent warfare to survive israel has had to learn to fight and in the desert battles of the last 60 years it's the tankers who've held the key to military success from its creation in 1948 the modern state of israel was besieged on all sides by hostile arab neighbors whose ambition was nothing less than its total and utter annihilation the first arab-israeli war of 1948 was swiftly followed in 1956 by a second war against egypt and ten years later with the conflict still unresolved israel and egypt begin to mobilize their armies once again since the end of the israeli war of independence in 1948 the israelis and the arabs had constantly been pushing against each other in 1967 all of this comes to a head the crisis gets out of hand egyptian forces build up the rhetoric on both sides escalates it sets and train a series of events that ultimately make the war unstoppable as the battle lines are drawn along israel's southern border in sinai egypt can boast not only a numerical advantage but also the superpower backing of the soviet union by june of 1967 the sinai bristles with egyptian manpower and weapons one hundred thousand men one thousand artillery and more than 900 tanks the role of the tanks was extremely important in an open area like cyno in order to counter a tank you need a tank so it has to be tank versus tank egyptian armor is overwhelmingly composed of a t-55 medium tank it has good armor a good gun good mobility and very rough and tumble in terms of being able to operate in the harsh climate of the desert the soviet t-55 weighing in at less than 40 tons it's light fast and carries a lethal 100 millimeter cannon and its wide tracks make it ideal for the soft sands of the sinai when you throw it all together the t-55 is on balance a much better tank than what the israelis had the israeli armored force is a hodgepodge reflecting the fact that in 1967 israel does not have a great power back the israeli forces are using relics from the second world war that they have collected from the scrapyards of europe they still have centurions they still have a few of the old sherman tanks but now there are american-made habitats the m48 patent medium tank armed with a 90 millimeter main cannon it's more powerful than the sherman more reliable than the centurion and the best tank the israelis can field the only drawback is the crisis comes to a head in june of 67 the israelis have far too few of them mobilizing along their southern border the israelis can only muster 700 tanks 70 000 troops and less than 200 artillery outnumbered out gunned and on the brink of war israel's only hope is to strike first and to strike hard out of the blue on june 5th that is precisely what they do it's fair to say that the israeli did their homework very well and the egyptians were sleeping and were not ready at all in less than three hours the israelis destroy almost 300 planes on the ground all but obliterating the egyptian air force the israelis they have been training for this attack for almost 10 years especially the airstrike attack for the israeli tankers the dye is now cast and at eight o'clock they launched their ground defensive their plan a three-pronged attack blitzing into the sinai the northern arm under general israel tau aims to slam through the first line of egyptian defenses at khan yunus and rafa and reach el arish the northern gateway to sinai tao's order was it doesn't matter how many casualties we get on the first day of the war whether we can communicate or not we go forward we shoot and we charge the fate of the war is in our hands i've decided to cross the border and when i crossed the border i realized that we are in the world we drove between trees and we couldn't move to the left and the right and all the fire was straight to my face after maybe one kilometer two kilometer i lost my time i jumped to the second one and after a few kilometers i lost second tank and after that i was the first israeli tank in hanunes and they shot my thank from all over they shot every house every many many soldiers all over they tried to stop my attack because i was the first israeli tanker behind me nobody could protect me support me i found myself trying to protect myself but it almost was mission possible i used my main gun i shot some houses that i saw many soldiers waited for me there we got an order before that not to shoot with the main gun to the houses in this moment i said forget about that i fought to survive i didn't have any experience and even my soldiers and i was lieutenant young officer running all the time first time first time all the time this was my mission by 10 o'clock cannes eunice has fallen driven by the urgency of their commander the israeli tankers barely pause for breath their next objective i had the feeling that nobody could stop us a normal man is afraid even i was afraid everybody was afraid we kept on charging i didn't see anybody in the first moment but suddenly i saw a black line uh one kilometer in the front of me and i didn't know what is that the black line i came crawl and i saw thanks at this moment that i realized that we are in the middle of our division and this is my mission now to uh to attack them of course june 5th 1967 day one the six day war israeli armored division strike first and crashed through the egyptian defenses in the sinai in the north general tal's division storms khan yunus and without stopping hurtles towards the egyptian fixed defensive lines at rafael so they realize that if they can move faster and think faster and make decisions faster than the egyptians they can constantly catch the egyptians at a disadvantage everything happened all of a sudden in one day or so so it was a big surprise to realize that we are in the middle of our division and this is my mission now to uh to attack them of course [Music] in rafael i put all the tanks beside of my tanks and it was the first time that i used all of them together we couldn't stop because go go go go all the time people support each other you know it's uh some tanks stop for a moment and other tanks move forward and they cover each other egyptian forces demonstrate a real capacity to fight from fixed defensive positions it's what they're best at they're willing to stand there they're willing to duke it out with the israelis if you put them in a position where they feel comfortable where they feel like they can fight back they will fight back hard they build special places like fire position they cover themselves with the dune with their sand and the just uh the top of the third we saw i remember one of them one metal in the front of my tank and i saw him and of course we we moved the gun and we shot him back the enemy can be in shock when you don't stop even you lose some some few tanks don't stop move and move and move and be behind him you run so fast when you stop you are a good target when they realize that they cannot stop us they jump from the tunnel and they start to run away from us and they took off the shoes and they threw away the rifles and they started to run to the ocean [Music] by noon the egyptian forward defensive line at rafael is decisively breached [Music] reeling from the explosive speed of the israeli advance the egyptian high command is in a state of [Music] the denial of war descends very heavily on egyptian forces it is humiliating for the arab commanders to admit that the israelis the jews are beating them and so rather than admit that they're losing they claim the exact opposite they claim to be succeeding they claim to be beating the israelis back and so when those israeli formations that have now penetrated the egyptian front lines begin to push into the deeper egyptian positions those egyptians farther back are totally unready for them by early afternoon the first israeli units reach the jaradi defile a heavily fortified choke point on the road to el arish where they catch the egyptians off guard i approached the girardi is a narrow passage like the route to jerusalem this terrain is very difficult with soft dunes and landmines so i decided to go back to the technique of moving in a column with three tanks shooting forward we returned fire we saw a few burning flames bother with repairing tanks during this ever the first israeli tanks break through the jaradi at breakneck speed but for those following on behind the element of surprise has been lost and as a result when the main body of the israeli force comes to the jaradi pass unlike its vanguard they now face an egyptian foe who is dug in armed and waiting for them i didn't know that few hours before two companies crossed the girardi already i didn't know that nobody told me that suddenly i saw two soldiers beside of the road i looked to his faces he was so fair and scared and he said something like be careful you have many tanks here suddenly it was a big bomb on the tanks june 5th 1967 israeli tanks smashed through rafael and charge into northern sinai the lightning speed of their attack catches the egyptians off guard and the lead tanks of general tal's armor division punch through the jaradi defile but by the time the main body arrives the egyptians are ready and waiting for them suddenly i saw two soldiers beside of the road and he said something like be careful you have many tanks here and i've decided to move the main gun and put it in the direction that my gunner will try to identify them and i moved down to talk with him and to give them the the direction at this moment suddenly it was a big bomb on the tank at this moment i say bye bye the world shalom to the world and then i started to scream all my body was on fire two of my crew was killed by deputy that i was in his tank and the loader they would kill both of them outnumbered from the outset the israelis can ill afford casualties and by mid-afternoon of day one their losses mount alarmingly seeing this such a heavy price for the first battle what is going to be next my feeling after this battle was not fair but if this is how the war continues [Music] they found a real war in all aspects of the world and they have to fight and they have to suffer and they lost lots of their men and their armored forces on the seventh armored brigade the elite of the israeli army suffers its heaviest losses during that combat in the gerardi past they just have to fight it out yard by yard pushing the egyptians back and there ensues one of the most ferocious fights of the entire six day war we took control of the commanding terrain and we started to hit the egyptians that sat at from behind when a defending force sits in dugouts in positions and bunkers it was very difficult for it to change direction we attacked tanks cannons and bunkers from the that is what actually broke them up [Music] and then they started to flee and that was the collapse of the gerardi tal's division surges through the jaradi towards el arish but their momentum is so fast and so furious that their position is now dangerously overstretched the egyptians send their elite fourth armored division north to hit the israelis hard in the flag but racing through the desert to head them off where they least expect it is the second arm of the israeli offensive under general abraham yaffi south of the coastal roads the egyptians believe the trackless desert to be impassable to armored vehicles and impenetrable to tanks but not to general yaffi our move was especially surprising because they didn't expect us to come from a direction they thought impassable there were heavy dunes on the right side and heavy dunes on the left side and we advanced on that pathway [Music] now the going's tough and a lot of israeli tanks do get stuck and it is hard to get the forces through there [Music] when yofi's forces get to the other side they're strung out they're piecemeal they're a little bit heltor skelton and their task now is to intercept the egyptian fourth armor division which is advancing with hundreds of deadly t-55 main battle tanks this was a tank battle that was perhaps one of the biggest since world war ii june 6th in the north of sinai general towels divisions have breached the egyptian front line but now his flank is dangerously exposed the tanks of general yafi's division speed through the desert in a race to head off a massive egyptian counter-attack at birla farm the two sides come face to face 200 soviet tanks of the elite egyptian fourth armored division against just 100 israeli centurions israelis have become expert at long-range gunnery the superb guns on the centurion allow the israelis to engage the egyptian forces at much longer ranges than the egyptians realistically can we open fire at the range of 1500 to 2000 yards the 52-ton british centurion in service since 1945 has been upgraded by the israelis with 105 millimeter cannon giving it more firepower and a greater striking range than the egyptians t-55 [Music] if you have better cannons and a good fire control system and if you are trained well then of course if you can hit from a bigger range than the enemy it gives you a great advantage [Music] israelis have learned that the best way to kill tanks is not just by shooting them head-on but to get on their flanks hit them in the side hit them in the rear [Music] there is a saying in the armored core that the best tank is the tank that has the best sometimes the cool is more important than the thing the combat itself is a swirling tank fight that plays to all of egypt's disadvantages and all of israel's advantages if you have tanks that are heavy less to maneuver slow and counter by faster tanks more maneuvering you left lane back in the sand the israeli tankers maneuver constantly they dart from firing position to firing position they get out on the egyptian flanks the egyptians lumber forward clumsily in large formations that are very difficult for them to maneuver general yuffie centurions destroy as many as 80 egyptian tanks the rest of them flee but the israelis still face their biggest challenge farther south at abu aguilar the third arm of the israeli offensive under general ariel sharon has an even tougher task to crack open the massive egyptian fortifications defending the main axis of advance into central sinai the egyptians in 1967 are on the defensive they have the advantage of being able to sit behind very well developed soviet-aided fortifications trench lines deep minefields positions dug in in depth interlocking fields of fire pre-registered artillery fire zones they're the heaviest fortifications in the whole of sinai the task of breaking through falls to battalion commander natke near alex told me that he can't give me any artillery [Music] all the trenches had been constructed to a soviet design with cement walls how to find places to climb up the dunes without sleeping they also had anti-tank missiles and this was a problem the first attack wasn't going our way we lost many tanks it was a big mistake for them to believe that the egyptian doesn't know how to how to fight i reassigned new people company commanders one company commander died another was injured four platoons you can only go up in the back of the dunes otherwise you sleep off them i found a place where i would be successful [Music] [Music] the initial breaching operation is a tough one for the israelis that costs them a great deal of the casualties that they take in the entire operation but once they're through those fortified defenses they are effectively free their mission now encircle and destroy the egyptians defensive stronghold of abu aguilar in what will become one of the most audacious maneuvers in the history of armored warfare central sinai the tanks of ariel sharon's division penetrate the egyptians formidable fortified defensive line their mission to wreak havoc on the egyptian stronghold at abu aguilar sharon's plan to deal with the egyptian defensive system aguila is to hit it from all sides he pushes a battalion task force of armor through the soft sand dunes north of the abu aguilo lines their main weapon is surprise and maneuvering in the dead of night confusion reigns the egyptian tanks that was sent against me got mixed up and got into my congo depending on what side the egyptian tanks well after hours of treacherous maneuvers in enemy territory they ride into the egyptian's unprotected rear they prepared straight in front of them from east to west i didn't think even for one second the tanks or vehicles can cause the difference through firing as we move i also turned around cannons to the right and cannons to the left in two columns i went into the area of the supplying command and it all caught on fire [Music] all of them supply all of their fuel their ammunition everything their command headquarters it was all burning it all exploded the entire place was on fire when we finished one pass through we turned around and came back but near's attack has alerted the egyptian armored reserve which in desperation throws itself into the fray egyptian units tend to stick together they will hold together they will fight as units for long periods of time even in very poor even desperate circumstances when other formations of other armies might fall apart without knowing where we are they just moved you shoot one low one high and destroy the egyptians [Music] at night suddenly we were 10 meters 15 meters away from six tanks seven tanks four times the tanks got on fire we destroyed all of these attacks when the tankers jumped out they were burning like torches from their tanks at the same time many of our projectiles were being shot at and disabled the egyptians shot projectiles that were turned on for too long a time it was a very difficult nut to crack but thanks to the movement from the rail it all began to collapse with the decisive israeli victory at abu aguilar the egyptians face defeat on all three fronts and their command begins to panic cairo realizes that the jig is up and at that point in time field marshal amer makes one of the worst decisions in military history he simply orders all egyptian forces to retreat and they should get back across the suez canal as quickly as they possibly can that was a disaster that was the biggest disaster and they received the order to withdraw in 24 hours which is technically impossible a good withdrawal technique should take at least one week it should happen during the night [Music] the retreat becomes a route huge numbers of egyptian tanks flee westwards only to find their escape route blocked by israeli tankers the sinai june 6th in a space of less than 36 hours the egyptian tank divisions are routed by the israelis and they flee the battlefield one of their main routes of escape lies through the midla pass leading to the suez canal and the safety of egypt beyond but in a headlong dash the israeli 200th brigade gets there first sitting at the mouth of the midla pass is a tiny little armored force no more than a dozen israeli tanks led by bren adapt i gave an order to the 200 brigade to send the battalion quickly to the midlane and block them has basically taken as many tanks as he could run south as fast as he could and every time they began to run out of gas he'd siphon it out of the tanks to keep as many as he could running to get down to the midla pass with this tiny little force and there they engage in one of the great feats of long-range gunnery of the modern world [Music] using their long-range gunnery skills to keep the egyptians at bay they keep an enormous force of egyptians from getting through the meet la pass until additional reinforcements are finally able to come up hours later and seal off the altogether it's a skate route blocked the egyptian armor now falls easy prey to the israeli air force with the egyptian army left reeling the israeli tankers press on through the midla pass towards their ultimate prize beyond the suez canal and complete domination of the sinai in the west side what surprised me that the egyptian army [Music] was not in the situation of withdrawal they just stopped with all their i realized that i have a real enemy in front of me i knew that from the terrain point of view the maneuvering is going to be very difficult so i must use something which is very fundamental in any wall this is surprise i talked to all the 10 commanders and i told them look i'm going to to do something which is unusual with open lights and we will go towards the source canal if we will face the enemy we will shoot we will fight but it could be that the enemy will feel that it's egyptian trope going because otherwise they will not understand about the light just be ready with the guns to the right to the left the only one will give you orders to shoot is myself and we start moving and you know it was quiet nothing happened all of a sudden when the sun came up we were in the middle of a big deployment of armor and infantry and it was a big surprise i hold the fire i said don't shoot because this army is a defeated army i'm not going to start a massacre because both sides will suffer once they raise their hand we want the battle without even one single shot [Music] it has taken the israelis just three days to destroy the egyptian army and reach the suez canal their conquest of sinai is absolute it's fair to say the military leadership on the egyptian part were not up to the challenge or up to the responsibility at all the army was not really ready and trained and prepared to fight the war in same eye against the israeli to lose it bad in two three days that was kind of humiliating [Music] in the course of a brief campaign the egyptians have lost more than 10 000 men and 700 tanks for the israelis victory also comes at a price with 1400 casualties and more than 60 tanks destroyed [Music] but for their tankers the six-day war is nothing short of a triumph israel's victory in the six day war is one of the most stunning military accomplishments of the 20th century a small israeli force takes on a larger better equipped egyptian force dug in in the right places in the sinai peninsula and they'd not just defeat it they destroy it we knew there wasn't any other option either you win or you die there is no middle way there is nowhere to retreat there is no place to escape outgunned and outnumbered a small but highly trained israeli tank force has proved to be unstoppable [Music] tanks qualities are important but they are not the main issues the same goals it's not the steel that counts but the man that strives october the 6th 1973 hundreds of egyptian tanks surge across the suez canal in a bold and shocking surprise attack on israeli forces the desert is moving like earthquake determined to avenge their humiliating defeat in the six day war of 1967 egypt strikes deep into the sinai distance what has been taken by false has to take it back by force the israelis caught off guard and outnumbered almost five to one find themselves in a desperate fight for survival they're facing a very different egyptian army this time they're in for a very rude awakening two mighty tank forces clash in an epic 18-day battle a battle that will determine the fate of the entire middle east there is no retreat we have only one alternative victory [Music] [Music] oh the sinai peninsula a vast desert in western egypt separating israel and the egyptian heartland it is one of the most lonely and desolate places on the planet but in 1967 this was the stage for one of the swiftest and most dramatic victories in the history of warfare [Music] june 5th 1967 israel launches a preemptive strike against egyptian forces massing along its border and catches them completely off guard [Music] in less than a week israeli forces seize the entire sinai peninsula and they dig in building fortifications all along the suez canal for the egyptians it is a humiliating blow someone came to my house take half of it can you live with someone in your house bother you every day and tell you what you're going to do about it and this is the day when we decide to do something about it as soon as the 1967 war ends egyptian president gamal abdel nasser begins completely rebuilding his battered army it took egypt a good six years of training of straight hard training restructuring of all the system in the army by the fall of 1973 it is a force of over three hundred thousand well-trained men two thousand artillery pieces and twenty four hundred tanks but it will take more than just men and machines to beat the battle-hardened israelis the egyptians know that they need to catch israel by surprise the egyptians develop a plan they develop one of the most remarkable deception campaigns of the last hundred years they practice forming up their units driving to the canal and then they practice the canal crossing itself and they do it over and over and over again so over the course of time the israelis just come to expect it it just becomes a part of the scenery beyond that the israelis have grown complacent in their defensive positions and believe the egyptians pose no serious threat since the sixth day war after such a famous victory the israeli army became to be too arrogant they believe something that wasn't true they believe that the egyptian doesn't know how to fight or the arab doesn't know how to fight and will never fight successfully in october 1973 all the israeli defense force has to defend its 200 kilometer sinai front are 18 000 men 100 artillery pieces and less than 300 tanks a tiny defensive force woefully ill-prepared for battle [Music] and on october 6 1973 egypt and their syrian allies launch an immense two-front offensive against israel [Music] in the opening hours of the attack israeli forces are quickly routed on the northern front masses of syrian armor steadily advance into the golan heights and on the sinai front the situation for the israelis is even more desperate my brigade was the only brigade along the swiss corner responsible for a front of 200 kilometers [Music] egyptian aircraft were bombing [Music] 2200 artillery guns were firing ammunition the feeding mode is the desert is moving like earthquake i had 88 eggs and 850 egyptian tanks were crossings the swords come up the tanks bearing down by the hundreds on rasheed and his men are soviet-designed t-55s at 36 tons the t-55 is relatively small but it can move at up to 50 kilometers per hour and is armed with a 100 millimeter main cannon providing a perfect balance of speed and deadly firepower [Music] immediately we had our first casualties over there we tried to avoid them from crossing but the ratio between their forces and our forces were unthinkable [Music] in response the israelis send their elite air force to smash the advancing egyptian invaders the israeli they always depend on their quick and effective airstrike [Music] so the first lesson the egyptian uh consider is the how to alienate the israeli airstrike by surface-to-air missile by creating what we call the wall a rocket wall in the first two days as our ali air force lost more than one third of its airplanes so they decided to stop any airstrike at [Music] with the all air force neutralized the egyptians can begin the most difficult and dangerous phase of their operation the crossing of the suez canal the minute you just see the canal you can just have tears because it was just a great feeling that you get this piece of land back the egyptian crossing of suez is an absolutely brilliant military operation they have figured out every aspect of the canal crossing they know that the israelis are reliant on these huge sand barriers to try to keep the egyptians away and they develop high-powered water hoses that allow them to effectively just spray holes using water to erode the sand and cut passages through these israeli sands egyptian operation has gone like clockwork and in the first 18 hours of the attack they send 90 000 men and 850 tanks across the sewers canal by the end of the day the egyptians have advanced almost eight kilometers into the sinai now all that stands between the egyptian invasion force and the israeli heartland are a couple of hundred tanks most of which are just arriving on the battlefield as part of the idf's armored reserves the israeli armored reserves in sinai immediately do what they have been trained taught ordered to do counter-attack this time they're in for a very rude awakening [Music] october 6 1973 after a massive artillery barrage and wave after wave of air strikes hundreds of egyptian tanks surge across the sewers canal and storm into the israeli-occupied sinai desert the feeding mode is the desert is moving like earthquake the handful of israelis defending the 200 kilometer front are caught off guard and quickly overwhelmed and by the end of the day the egyptians have advanced eight kilometers into the sinai desperate to starch the egyptian invasion israel calls up its armored reserves and by october 8th they are ready to strike back the israeli armored reserves in sinai immediately do what they have been trained taught ordered to do counter-attack the israeli plan calls for the lead elements of their reserve forces 100 tanks strong to attack straight into egyptian positions break up their formations and force them back across the canal leading the 217th preserve armored brigade against egyptian positions near the ferdinand bridge is colonel natke near the next day on the 8th i received an order to move southward and to attack will it go on my left another thundery game was supposed to attack but when i got my orders to attack towards the ferdan there were no forces on my left when we approached to about 600 meters from the direction of the canal we encountered an inferno of shelling a tongue division and an infantry division with tanks were already on our side of the canal [Music] they sat on our syndrome on outside of the canal and hunted us [Music] we started the attack without artillery [Music] without air support and the whole attack depended on tanks it was the first time we understood that the egyptians were equipped with thousands of saggier missiles [Applause] the at-3 sagger is a soviet-designed portable anti-tank guided missile fitted with a 2.6 kilogram warhead the sagger can penetrate 200 millimeters of armor at ranges up to 3 kilometers but its most deadly feature is a wire guidance system which allows the operator to steer the missile all the way to the target the operator has an optical sight and he concentrates on the target he fires the missile and using a joystick literally direct the missile onto the target at distance it's effective and it allows egyptian sagar operators to fire volleys of missiles with a fairly good hit rate [Music] so that the small numbers of israeli tanks that are charging at them wind up suffering heavy casualties much heavier than they had ever expected faced mainly sagar missiles they did a job on my pregame i gave an order to retreat this is the only time in my life that i gave such an order out of the approximately 22 tanks six got out and the rest were all destroyed [Music] this was a different army this was not the same army i fought against in the six day war [Music] they crushed the israeli counter-attack on october 8th crushed completely this is an unbelievable victory by the egyptians something that they have never achieved beforehand and it is a stunning reversal for the israelis by nightfall on october 8th egyptian forces have widened their bridgehead almost 10 kilometers into the sinai the ferocity and magnitude of the attack has forced most of the israelis back but a few remain trapped deep behind egyptian lines we came to the conclusion that we have to try to evacuate the people from this position when the swords come out the problem was that between this position and us there were five enforced infantry division with about 1500 tanks we moved my tank was the left one shower was next to me when we entered in the egyptian opened fire i saw saggers moving towards my tank so you see a kind of fireball moving towards you [Applause] and when i saw a missile coming to me i was breaking my direction and they missed my tank and all my friends there were some cables of the sagging after 2-3 minutes i saw a group of 30 people on one of the dunes and when i came to the range of 100 meters or so i realized that they were egyptian and then i had my my own personal fight because it was either them or me i use my machine gun grenades and then i had to go over them with my tank and i killed all these 20 people then i realized that i was by myself i took my binocular watching and i saw a monster moving a gun and something undefined [Music] and then i realized that there were soldiers on a tank shaol took all the 33 of them on this tank and moved out with their front-line soldiers rescued the israelis fall back to defensive positions near the strategically important passes through the sinai mountains a new phase begins in which we are on the defensive without any offensive intentions not to seek contact but to rebuild our forces as the israelis pause to regroup the egyptians prepare for an enormous armored offensive one they hope will drive their enemy out of the sinai for good october 14 1973 in just over a week egyptian forces have pushed 10 kilometers deep into the sinai and easily repel every israeli attempted counter-attack on the southern front of the october war the egyptians are doing well their cross canal operation has worked they've pushed into sinai but they have a problem their ally syria syria is not experiencing the same degree of success syrian forces have not only failed to secure their objectives on the golan but the israelis are now smashing hoping to draw israeli forces away from their syrian allies the egyptians launch a massive armored offensive in the sinai their plan attack with two armored divisions in a gigantic pincer movement aimed at smashing the israeli forces guarding the passes through the sinai mountains at first light on october 14th one thousand egyptian tanks advance towards israeli lines when the egyptians renew their offensive on october 14th the attack that they launch is the absolute antithesis of the attacks that they had launched on october 6 7 8 9. this time around they don't have that same plan the egyptians simply lumber forward in the kind of clumsy frontal assaults that they had been famous for in 67 and this time around the israelis are waiting we received an alert that on the 14th the 21st egyptian armored division will cross the canal and try to advance and capture [Music] territory early in the morning we were under a terrible artillery fire when the smoke cleared the first tanks of the brigade that were opposite us were already upon us first of all we knew they were coming we waited for them i saw hundreds of tanks moving forward tsunami a huge wave moving towards you and i said oh god how can i stop them the first to draw stays we alive into fire position and we fired on one thing after the other every tank was behind camouflage on a hill and only the guns were sticking out from the start in such a situation when they are in motion and we choose the firing positions that gives us a huge advantage here is the case where our quality gander equality is important one of the israeli's main battle tanks is a modified version of the american m48 patent known as the magog it is well protected with 120 millimeters of frontal armor and has a 105 millimeter cannon that can accurately hit targets at ranges of up to three and a half kilometers the superb guns on the tanks that the israelis are deploying in sinai allow them to begin hitting and killing the egyptian tanks long before the egyptians are able to start destroying israeli tanks israelis have become expert at long-range gunners we were fighting very accurately aiming and destroying tank by tank all the egyptian things were in the area which was dominated with ah bayern were destroyed [Music] within simply a matter of hours the entire egyptian attack has been completely unhinged [Music] and they lost in this one day around 250 tanks we felt the first time that we can make it for the egyptians the promise of victory now gives way to the reality of defeat and sadat orders his battered armored divisions to fall back to defensive positions but these positions are vulnerable when originally formed the egyptians left a dangerous gap between their second army and the great bitter lake israel is now ready to grab the initiative and go back on the offensive and they use this piece of information this gap this scene to plan their counter offense the israeli plan is get to the canal cross over it to get behind the egyptian formations and to be able to tear them up from the inside out october 14 1973 in an effort to finally achieve victory in the sinai egyptian forces launch a massive armored assault over one thousand tanks strong against the israeli defenders but in less than a day the israelis destroy 260 enemy tanks forcing the egyptians to pull back [Music] but the egyptians have left a gap in their lines giving the israelis an opening to advance to the canal the israeli plan is get to the canal cross over it to get behind the egyptian formations and to be able to tear them up from the inside out before the israelis can cross the canal they must secure their flank against the egyptian second army positioned a few kilometers north in a small agricultural area called the chinese farm we didn't know exactly where the enemy position were located [Music] when i entered into the area which was north to the chinese farm i realized that i am in the hell the israelis perhaps have bit off more than they could show because they're in the midst of not only a heavily reinforced egyptian infantry division they're also in the middle of an egyptian armored division hundreds of egyptian soldiers were firing the world tanks anti-tank gun a lot of action i was fighting against two divisions the ratio was unthinkable so i was firing with my machine gun grenades with my cannon i realized that i am in hell everywhere all these hours under such pressure of egyptian tanks infantry everything [Music] we could see wave of tanks trying to recapture the positions that we already captured after about half an hour i saw five tanks in the range of 50 meters when they came to the range of 30 meters i realized that they are egyptian tanks and we fired five very high speed rounds back pack pack we destroyed all the five tanks we fought all the night with egyptian units and tanks the range between the egyptian tanks and my tent was sometimes half a meter meter fire darkness blood there is no better description like the real hell i lost 121 [Music] soldiers and a lot of commanders in their terrible night the battle of chinese farm will go on to last another three days and when it's finally over hundreds of destroyed israeli and egyptian tanks litter the battlefield [Music] the heavy price paid by the israelis clears the way for a task force to advance to the canal [Music] and they immediately begin work on building a bridge but the egyptians quickly react the egyptians finally found the bridgehead and that's when the inferno began the bridgehead went up in flames everything was burning it has been 11 days since egypt launched a massive offensive into the israeli-occupied sinai after hundreds of tanks are destroyed and thousands of men killed [Music] on october 17th the israelis are finally ready for their attack into egypt their plan using temporary bridges send three armored divisions across the suez canal and into central egypt where they can attack egyptian forces from the rear and even threaten the capital of cairo i understood that if grand division will not cross the canal and we will not be in the other side of the canal in africa or egypt we will lose the world all what we have done again by 4 i told everyone the bridge is ready go ahead the egyptians at this stage were in complete shock and the egyptian started to understand it was raised the egyptians finally found the bridgehead and that's when the inferno began hail started and the devil started to walk in this operation where we lost more than 100 people it was every under every fire on the way the bridgehead went up in flames everything was buried from the heavy shaming people were buried alive it was very heavy fire egyptian helicopters dropped barrels full of explosives people were dying you were injured and that was a real hell it was the longest night ever in my life i was not afraid to die i was afraid if this mission will not be accomplished and we succeed [Music] the egyptian response to israeli tanks on the western banks of the canal is both immediate and lethal their plan attack from the south with a massive armored column aimed at cutting off and trapping the israelis the israeli they have to go between the two egyptian armies for a long distance for like 50 or 60 kilometers and became very vulnerable to any egyptian attack for the attack the egyptians send their elite 25th armored brigade 100 of their most modern soviet-designed tanks straight into the vulnerable rear of the israeli bridgehead october 17th 1973 after 11 days of bloody fighting israeli forces finally fight their way across the suez canal and begin their invasion of egypt desperate to stem the flow of israeli tanks across the canal egypt counterattacks with its elite 25th armored brigade their plan is to push north in a massive armored column and destroy the israeli rear guard cutting off israeli forces west of the canal a brand new brigade armed with with the most advanced soviet t-62 tanks is now pushing northwards along the great bitter lake brene dan turns southward and hustles down with his division puts them in place in an l-shaped ambush i thank him the first position of our tanks was about three kilometers from the canal they were camouflaged so the egyptians couldn't see them advancing straight into the ambush are 100 soviet-designed t-62 tanks in 1973 the t-62 is considered one of the best tanks in the world it is well protected with over 100 millimeters of frontal armor and carries a 115 millimeter smoothbore cannon a powerful and deadly accurate main gun that can easily destroy an israeli tank especially at close range but i don't want our men to move i don't want the egyptians to feel anything i want them to enter enter enter the zone of destruction once the entire egyptian brigade entered the ambush area i gave the order to fire to accept their tanks on fire one after the other the egyptians i can see the battle the egyptians tried to counter-attack from the top they tried to fire several shots but listen the ambush was little after two hours there were a few tanks left that tried to escape it was a big mess some of them drove back towards the bitter lake and they ran into a minefield in two hours we destroyed the egyptian 25th today almost all of it five tanks were able to escape back [Music] after we finish this ambush i told my division commander to erase the egyptian 25th brigade from the enemy territory [Music] with the destruction of the 25th brigade the egyptians lose any hope of stopping the israeli advance into the egyptian heartland by the next morning the israelis have elements of two armored divisions almost 200 tanks west of the suez canal by october 24th the israelis have advanced to within 100 kilometers of cairo and have encircled the third egyptian army [Music] the israelis have done what they need to do they have the third army trapped and they know that that is the most important bargaining tool that they need to bring the war to an end on their terms and so they agreed to a cease-fire it would take another five years of negotiations before israel finally returns the sinai to egypt for the egyptians it is a great victory the anniversary is a moment to remember our dignity that was retrieved in 73. honor the people who worked hard for six or seven years to make this victory happen anwar sadat gets everything that he wanted the sinai is returned to egypt and anwar sadat is seen by the egyptian people as of the october war the man who regained sinai for egypt but egypt is not alone in declaring victory as israel has its own cause to celebrate they attacked us and we won in the most difficult possible conditions the egyptian army was crushed the fight that israel underwent in 1973 is a great victory for israel but it is a traumatic experience we had nearly 3 000 casualties in this war for us this is an enormous number there's no israel after 1973 who wants to go through that again and that convinces israel too that the best answer to their situation with egypt is to simply make peace [Music] the golan heights in 1973 this rocky terrain on the israel-syria border turns into a killing ground the golan heights is syrian territory and syria a few hundred unprepared israeli tankers come face to face with 1200 syrian i see tanks horizon to horizon the entire syrian army starts to drive across from me this was a no-holds-barred fight neither side backed down from it the golan heights 1200 square kilometers of the most hotly contested real estate on the planet it's dante it's inconsiderable it's an inferno [Music] the golan heights 1200 square kilometers of the most hotly contested real estate on the planet [Music] it's a barren volcanic escarpment that has been occupied by israel since the six-day arab israeli war of 1967. both israel and syria claim it as their own in the fall of 1973 that border dispute erupts into a sudden ferocious and bloody war october 6th it's yom kippur the jewish day of atonement most israelis are at home repenting for their sins and observing a fast leaving the frontier with syria lightly guarded the commander of the 74th israeli tank battalion lieutenant colonel yar nafshi begins a routine patrol it was simply pastoral peacefulness and i am patrolling the positions along my front at 12 a commander from the hermann post calls me and he says yair the syrians are taking off their camouflage nets from their artillery and then i act instinctively so i turn my jeep around and gather all my men and say to them look the scenario is that the syrian army is removing their camouflage screens i don't know what this means and the men stop fasting bound their tanks and start to prepare them and as we are driving from the lots the bombardment starts the artillery lands on us then planes of the syrian air force attack the syrians have been planning the attack for nine months israeli intelligence had some clues but for the men on the front it's a complete surprise what these syrians do is lull israel into a false sense of security the israelis have seen the syrians move all their troops up get geared up for war time and again only to have them all go back to their bases and so on the 6th of october when the syrians don't go back to their bases the israelis are caught completely off guard israel is a small state and they have perfected the art of mobilization so it is in the first shots of the war that you want to accomplish as much as possible so as not to bring the bulk of the israeli army against you the majority of the israeli forces are reservists who need 20 hours to fully mobilize consequently israeli forces on the golan heights consist of fewer than 6 000 light infantry [Music] 60 artillery pieces and two under-strength armored brigades with 170 tanks in comparison the syrians have masked more than 50 000 infantry 600 artillery pieces and 1200 main battle tanks this is a huge amount of armor and over and above that it was yom kippur in israel people were on holiday the intelligence services were in israel were lacks the arabs can't fight and so as a result they were in for a very major surprise i thought to myself what's going on what are those pile of crazy bubbles what they are doing and i thought this is israeli by mistake they are boring us i didn't realize that any aircraft from syria can climb across the border and stop the boss and i couldn't talk after that i'm finally at the edge of booster ridge viewing over half the golan heights [Music] at first it's small and then like rings of cigarette smoke it slowly gets closer bigger and bigger all i see from horizon to horizon the entire syrian army starts to drive across from me but this is only part of a much larger war egypt and syria have launched simultaneous attacks on two fronts splitting israeli defense forces their mission to take back territory lost during the six-day arab-israeli war including the sinai and the golan heights the syrian body politic was humiliated was traumatized it is as a result of this that we had the 1973 war a war that was made specifically in order to regain this uh territory that israel occupied [Music] over the course of time they developed a campaign plan that was specifically tailored to retake the golan and repair syria's tarnished honor the syrian battle plan is to use overwhelming force and penetrate the israeli line at two points then send armored divisions through the gaps to advance across the golan plateau and seize key bridges over the jordan river [Music] at the spearhead of the syrian attack are masses of the soviet-designed t-55 tank the t-55 at 40 tons is relatively small for a main battle tank making it hard to hit its 100 millimeter main cannon has an effective range of just 2400 meters no match for the bigger guns of the israelis but that disadvantage is offset by numbers the syrians attacked the golan heights with more than 1200 t-55s the defending israelis with their 170 tanks are outnumbered almost seven to one the syrians had rehearsed the initial attack on the israeli positions countless times beforehand but apparently one thing that they hadn't quite planned out properly was where to put the bridging equipment the israelis had built a deep anti-tank trench in front of their positions all along the golan front but the syrians had put their bridging equipment far back in their columns and as a result the first thing that happened was you had syrian tankers who bizarrely drove straight at the israelis drove right into the tank ditch and as a result were picked off like sitting ducks by israeli tankers sitting up on the heights overlooking the sandy tank trench for the israelis the tank of choice on the rocky terrain of the golan is the shot cow an upgraded version of a centurion main battle tank it's protected by 152 millimeters of frontal armor and equipped with a 105 millimeter rifled cannon accurate at ranges in excess of 3600 meters the shot cow is a formidable opponent to the syrians t-55s when david goes out to fight goliath he made a decision to fight him with a slingshot and he knew he could defeat goliath because he wouldn't enter in range of goliath's weapons and from outside that range he hits him with a rock and knocks him over [Music] i am going to be david syrians don't open fire from ranges further than 2200 meters but i pull in all my training can fire and hit targets at about five kilometers [Music] the israelis understood that in the terrain of the middle east where you often had very long fields of fire being able to kill the other guy before he could kill you was a tremendous advantage and so the israelis had put a tremendous amount of effort into developing long-range gunnery skills [Music] when the initial syrian attack in the north floundered the commanders decided that they would nevertheless try to mount some kind of a night operation to see if they couldn't get back on schedule and so they pushed forward in the darkness at that moment they had a tremendous advantage syrian tanks had soviet night fighting equipment israelis didn't and as a result when the syrians began to push into their lines the israelis were at a complete loss as to what to do or how to do it the hardest combat was during the night it was dark and nobody used any lights when you turn on the lights immediately they kill you really the main problem is during the night they had infrared system syrian infrared projectors enabled the t-55s to see through the dark detecting targets up to 1200 meters away it's a huge advantage for the syrians the only defense the israelis have are night vision binoculars that can detect the infrared beam one situation i was looking to identify them and i moved my face down and i saw all parts of my tank i was surprised what is done i move my binocular my suits down i put it again in my face i see every part and i found the 200 meters in front of me one projector looks straight to my eyes with infrared system and he was he identified me he was ready to shoot i screamed to my driver go far away and we moved back we affect the direction they came from just to give them the feeling that we are real waiting for them they didn't know that we are blind the syrians infiltrate israeli positions through the night and the line between the two tank armies becomes increasingly blurred my situation i saw a tank beside my tank and 10 metal attack looks strange and they they'll stop lights turn on like two he was close to my tank he said there is a thing there use the light and show me who is this tank he didn't want first of course and i convinced him i ordered him and he took the lights and i soaked the 55 i was in shock of course i shot him [Music] this moment when he was on fire i saw another that goes for him i shot him too [Music] after 18 hours of almost continuous combat the tankers of the 77th and 74th israeli battalions have held the line in the north golan heights and pay a terrible price hundreds of dead and wounded and 75 of their tanks destroyed [Music] but for the syrians the price is even higher the casualties number in the thousands and more than 100 tanks are lost but in the open terrain farther south the syrian offensive has been far more successful they've wiped out an entire tank that happened clearing the way for a push into the israeli heartland of course i was as euphoric as all arabs were to see images of syria advancing in the golan heights the future not just of israel but of the whole middle east now hangs in the balance [Music] october 6 1973 egypt and syria attack israeli forces on two fronts they're determined to take back all the territory they lost in the six day war of 1967 syrian armored brigades strike at two points on the golan heights throwing fifty thousand infantry and twelve hundred tanks into the battle in the rugged and hilly northern sector israeli defenders hold the line through the first day of fighting even though they're outnumbered almost seven to one and take heavy casualties but in the more open country farther south the syrians seem unstoppable in the south you have two very aggressive syrian commanders they dragged their bridging equipment forward one of their commanders actually had his infantry fill in portions of the israeli anti-tank trench by hand they crossed over and they were able to mass so much power against these thinned out israeli defenses in the southern flank of the golan that they were able to punch through october 7th after a day of fierce fighting the israeli southern line falls apart under a massive onslaught of syrian armor by 8 am syrian forces are advancing across the golan plateau driving towards key bridges crossing the jordan river the syrian assumption was that if they could punch through those israeli lines and drive as fast as they could grab those bridges they would effectively be able to prevent the israeli reserves from mounting a viable counter-attack out of galilee [Music] at two o'clock when i held the alarm i opened immediately the radio i heard the bbc announcing that the war started in israel a heavy battle of all mixed forces is continuing on the golan heights as syrian armor has been attempting to break the israeli line and has according to the news here been checked by israeli tanks and artillery i called my unit the gate and they told me they come immediately there is there is a wall the water was empty i drove like a hell and the feeling was that they caught us the quotas unprepared [Music] in 73 the tanks were bare of ammunition and equipment they had to be loaded with shells and all of the equipment taken out of storage and organized if you have the full call which are four members you have to it takes something like four to six hours to prepare it really properly but during the rush time we didn't really prepare properly the tanks [Music] everybody went to the golan heights doesn't matter how many tanks he had if the tanks are completely equipped or not they just went syrian intelligence estimates it will take israel 20 hours to mobilize its tank reserves but the israelis do it in 10. throughout the night israeli reservists make their way to the battlefield are hastily organized into units and thrown into the fight against the syrians by the early hours of october 7th the first tanks reached the golan heights in the early morning we advanced towards the enemy already inside the golan heights dawn was beginning to break and he saw lots of tanks a mask of sorts came down now we have to do what is necessary we don't think about it too much we opened fire on them but directional alignments are required to match the barrel of the cannon to the cross of the telescope but we didn't do this because of our hurried exit [Music] we didn't hit them it is possible to make battle time alignments but this is a lot less precise but it's better than nothing we hit a few tanks [Music] but not long after this i saw a very large cloud of dust coming from the southeast and when this cloud got closer it turns out that it was a very large syrian force with t-62 tanks [Music] it's the last thing the outnumbered israelis want to see on the battlefield the t-62 is an upgraded version of the t-55 those upgrades include 240 millimeters of frontal armor and a bigger 581 horsepower engine but the biggest threat is the t-62's 115 millimeter malot main cannon its smooth bore design increases muzzle velocity giving it a range of nearly 3 000 meters [Music] and then i honestly started to feel that i was being targeted and chills are falling beside me or behind me and if the first one is long the next shell will be short and then the next will hit me so i reverse off the firing ramp and look for a new position we started the battle with maybe five or six tanks against this very large syrian force all that was left for us to do was try to fight a stalling battle but they simply pushed us backward it's overwhelming four syrian brigades 350 tanks pushed through israeli defenders and advanced towards the bridges over the jordan river before dark both of them run into very small groups of israeli infantry and even though at this point in time they're only a couple of kilometers from their objectives both brigade commanders decide to stop for the evening and with almost nothing standing in their the way were sitting there they were theirs for the syrians taking when they woke up the next morning they found strong israeli forces guarding those two bridges my battalion meet them on the road from the batega valley up to the golan heights the first tanks in our column didn't see them only the last tank saw them and he began to shoot the commander shouted him why are you shooting we are in our territory we say this is syrians already here we didn't believe that they arrived so west their problem was that the t-55 had only five degrees of degradation that means the cannon can't be aimed very far down it's a disadvantage for a tank on higher ground engaging an enemy approaching from below beyond that the israeli shot cows have a high degree of elevation making it easier to hit targets above them they had to expose themselves if they wanted to have enough degradation to shoot at us so when they expose themselves we shoot them so by that way we succeed to stop them the real problem there was simply syrian junior officers allow small israeli forces to completely derail the one thing that might have actually secured victory for syria the drive to take the jordan river bridges israeli reserves from the 39th battalion stopped the syrian first armored division at patea road but farther south the syrian offensive remains unopposed as 40 tanks of the 132nd mechanized brigade advanced towards the small village of el al anee i receive orders to assemble [Music] and fill up what is known as the l out position it's a position between two deep canyons about two kilometers wide he who possesses it and successfully holds the position controls all routes down to the sea of galilee at around nine o'clock through my binoculars i start to identify what we in the armored call masses of dust this means that you can see the clouds of dust far before you hear the noise and through the binoculars i noticed some movement from a distance of about four kilometers that movement in the distance is an entire brigade of syrian tanks their mission is to occupy the western edge of the golan heights overlooking the sea of galilee from here the flatlands of israel lie almost undefended and at the mercy of the advancing syrians if they are successful and pass us the syrians will be at the sea of galilee and i understand that a loss or even a retreat is not mine alone it would be fatal october 7th 1973 it is 20 hours into the syrian attack on the israeli-occupied golan heights and in the rugged and rocky northern sector two israeli territories struggle to hold off the syrians but in the flatter terrain of the southern golan masses of syrian armor have rolled over these ravens and are pushing on towards bridges over the jordan river at around nine o'clock through my binoculars i start to identify what we in the armored called masses of dust [Music] movement ahead becomes clearer and clearer and then we start to identify syrian tanks the needs are getting closer and are stopping at distances of about meters and we start to notice a lot of strikes at the plateau of el al it's absolutely flat it's as if they put the tanks on a billiard table and said please go ahead and play now you can see huge distances there is nowhere to hide and the only thing that can save you is your own capability your own skill and to always be on the move i always make sure that the tanks are always moving and not firing more than what's called a ball to the target which is just two or three shells one after the other we fire one and then adjust we fire another and then move to another position in order to get a target you'd have to stop and stand then you bring the turret to a point where it is in line with the enemy tank you give the range according to your estimation when everyone announces on i give the command to fire the israelis for their part maneuvered constantly they darted from firing position to firing position those syrian armor units didn't maneuver at all they simply drove straight at the israelis and so this is really the big difference between the syrian and israeli armies syrians when they gain territory uh they hang on to it to the death which uh might be good but is very bad if we need to maneuver the simple fact is that the syrian tankers are just no match for the israeli counterparts the israelis have taken the best shots that syria has to give and they're now in a position with enough combat strength that they can begin to push back so we started to move unit by unit and i found myself alone in montana there was two years and i was in the cradle you know of the years overlooking a village i saw a regiment getting fueled or re-armed and so on and i started to shoot at them and i saw some syrian like leaving the hills and i started to eat one by one because they were extending one next year the other very very close the syrian tanks are sitting ducks for the israelis high explosive squash head or hesh round on impact they squash against the target and explode creating a shock wave that tears apart the inside of the tank i think i destroyed something like seven tanks before they started to move and to understand that somebody should take them they shot back i would thank starter to ben as we evacuate from the tank after a few meters without the time time our tank exploded the outnumbered israelis fall back and regroup and the syrians gear up for a final big offensive by late evening on the 8th of october they've assembled an entire armored division over 250 tanks in bushnia a tiny hamlet in the south golan which is about to become ground zero in one of history's greatest tank battles [Music] [Music] once a thriving village in the southern golan heights today it's a scattered collection of ruins a grim monument to the ferocity of the 1973 arab-israeli war syrian and israeli tank forces clashed here in a historic encounter now simply remembered as the battle of hosnia october 9th the syrian advance into the golan loses steam and they assemble an armored division over 250 tanks at bushnell in preparation for a final big offensive but in the three days since syrian attacks on the golan heights began the israelis have mobilized hundreds of tanks and thousands of reserve soldiers most of them streamed towards hosnia for a showdown with the syrians i received an order to cross the oil pipeline and advance and capture hashnia the syrians held this place as their last stronghold on the golan tides and for the first time since the war began there was a plan for an organized attack with artillery and jack the artillery started falling on hashnia and we in two squads of tanks started to advance crossing the territory from the oil line towards the village of hashnia it's dusk the last light and you can see the entire village blazing exploding and the mask of ashnia in the middle of this whole thing we advanced with the tanks and the syrians didn't escape but it's dangerous because everything is exploding and blazing around us it's dante it's inconceivable it's an inferno and then from within the village outburst syrian tanks and trucks they are terrified trying to escape and i see a syrian tank and it isn't clear if it is able to get out but then his turret starts moving in my direction but my cannon and my turret are farther away and it's completely clear that i won't be able to target him he's going to get a bid on me first and if he does then i'm a gundam behind me is one of my battalion officers and he launches a shell and the syrian fan lights up they are difficult displays to describe but the syrians ran for their lives the israeli reserves destroy more than 200 tanks stalling the syrians big push by the afternoon of october 9th the israelis have retaken most of the southern goal but on the northern front they are still struggling to hold off syrian forces in a place that will soon become known as the valley of tears in the north the remnants of the elite seventh armored brigade are still just barely holding back the syrian 7th infantry division syrians tried one last time to blast through the israeli positions they've got 200 tanks half of them t-62s and the israelis are down to less than 30 centurions we are currently located at the positions that control the valley of tears which we see here in front of us and when i arrive from booster ridge with six tanks i realize that i am not going to make it to these positions which are the best [Music] by now unit 7 has retreated back and i find myself alone with six tanks and i stop the six tanks and spread them out along the back slope of the hill that is located behind us and i see the smoke from the exhaust of the syrian tanks over the hero and i tell my men you see those moving on the other side of the hill you take those three you these two you these three and i let the syrians come right over the hill i allow the syrians to advance and they head towards the top of the hill with the barrel of their cannons pointed upwards and i wait for them the battle opens at close range around 300 to 400 meters [Music] but in this battle after we stopped the syrian army we had only two tanks left we see today the same famous valley where the commander of the 77th battalion colonel cahalani stood and blocked the syrian advance [Music] when i came two kilometers from the hills i saw far away israeli tanks on fire and in other tanks around them it was junior attacks and i moved with my tanks to the valley i was shocked call my commander said if you have any junction area send them immediately [Music] [Music] october 9 1973 israeli and syrian tank forces have been fighting on the golan heights for three days with heavy casualties on both sides the syrians outnumber the israelis and quickly gain the upper hand but the israelis push back with their reserve forces now time is running out for the syrian army they make one last attempt to break through israeli defenses in the north throwing an entire armored division into the battle they've got 200 tanks half of them t-62s and the israelis are down to less than 30 centurions the main forces is just behind the hill if they will come to the top of the hills nobody can stop them they will run all the way to the gallery and i've decided to move forward and to catch the hills and to catch them on the valley it's a desperate gambit and the only chance the israelis have they must regain their firing positions and to do that they have to cross 800 meters of open ground in the teeth of syrian fire i ordered to move forward like it was written in the book and i've decided to move all of them to my frequency to my radio every gamer loader driver and tank commander surgeon listened to my voice and i told them look the syrian soldiers how they're fighting so well look at them the motivation what happened to us can i see chicken in my unit start to move and i pray to the god just give me to arrive to the top of the hill and we will catch them and suddenly another tanks arrive to the hills [Music] like crazy the moment that we've been on the fire position and they moved on the valley this was easier for us i fought to survive [Music] some of them they stopped and they shot and they killed my tanks [Music] you survive around three four times from all that i remember that i would try to count the tank that we shot all over and i couldn't so many [Music] after the battle israeli observers counted 500 syrian tanks destroyed in that defile and as a result it came to be called the valley of tears for all of the syrians killed them syria's hope of retaking the golan heights ends in the valley of tears on october 11th israelis launch their own offensive into syria and on the 23rd the syrians capitulate [Music] the battle for the golan heights is finally over this was simply competent israeli commanders out thinking out moving out fighting their syrian opponents but there's no question that the syrians fought incredibly hard they mounted attack after attack after attack into the teeth of ferocious israeli defenses in many cases they died to a man this was a no holds barred fight neither side back down [Music] the 1973 arab-israeli war lasts just 16 days but those days are among the bloodiest in the history of armored warfare the battlefields are left littered with the hulks of destroyed tanks [Music] the israelis lose between four and five hundred the two arab countries somewhere between 12 and 2200 [Music] but the real tragedy is in the human cost on both sides 21 000 dead and tens of thousands more wounded most of my friends i lost their walls they were 19 20 years old no more than that and i saw them how they're how they fight and it's unbelievable and i was very proud the war ended with with disappointment but it ended with a solemn promise by syrians and two syrians and of syrians that they will get back the golan heights one day [Music] if the golden heights is not returned to syria i dare say that there will not be peace in the middle east [Music] [Music] you

Channel: War Stories

Views: 1,117,281

Keywords: armored warfare history, armored warfare tactics, battlefield insights, battlefield tactics, battlefield tactics history., conflict history, historical conflict studies, historical insights, historical military battles, historical tank battles, military analysis, military engagements, military history insights, military strategies, tank battles history, tank warfare, tank warfare tactics, war chronicles, war stories channel, warfare studies

Id: bOPogMcCh3I

Length: 133min 55sec (8035 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021