The Israeli Tank Defense Of The Valley Of Tears | Greatest Tank Battles | Timeline

my name's dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video 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 cannot will not concede a few hundred unprepared israeli tankers come face to face with 1200 syrian tanks what i see from 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 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 massed more than 50 000 infantry [Music] 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 uh 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 pilots crazy power what they are doing and i thought this is israeli by mistake they are bombing us i didn't realize that any aircraft from syria can climb across the border and stop the bus and i couldn't talk after that i crossed through the barrage of shells wave five minutes 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 uh a war that was made specifically in order to regain this uh territory that israel occupied 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 this anti-tank church 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 rangers further than 2200 meters but i pull in all my training who can fire and hit targets at about five kilometers [Music] 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 the 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 [Music] 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 the parts of my tank i was surprised what is done i moved my binocular suits down i put it again in my face it's 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 felt 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 meters attack looks strange and they they'll stop like turn on like two he was close to my thing 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 saw the 55 i was in shock of course i shot him [Music] this moment when he was on fire i saw another that was for him [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 50 000 infantry and 1200 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 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 2 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 armies 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 at 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 dakotas and people [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 it again 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 swords came down now we have to do what is necessary we don't think about it too much we open 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 [Music] we hit a few tanks [Music] but not long after this i saw a very large cloud of dust coming from the south east 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 molot 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 shells 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 way the bridges 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 they didn't see them only the last tank saw them and they 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 have 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 pattaya 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 i receive orders to ascend to el al and seal 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 roots down to the sea of galilee [Music] 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 turkeys 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] this movement ahead becomes clearer and clearer and then we start to identify syrian tanks we are getting closer and are stopping at distances of about 1500 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 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 they hang on to it to the death which might be good but it's 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 one tania there was two eels and i was in the cradle you know of the ears overlooking a village i saw a regimen 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 and next to the other very very close the syrian tanks are sitting ducks for the israeli's high-explosive squash head or hesh round on impact they squash against the target and explode creating a shockwave 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 shoot back our thanks started to bend as we evacuate from the tank after a few meters without the 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 golden 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 heights and for the first time since the war began there was a plan for an organized attack with artillery and jets 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 hashnia in the middle of this whole thing we advance with the tanks and the syrians didn't escape us 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 golan 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 seventh 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'm not going to make it to these positions which are the best and govern the entire width of the valley of tears by now unit 7 has retreated back and i find myself alone with six tanks [Music] and i decide to make a defensive stand on the reverse 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 battle opens at close range around 300 to 400 meters [Music] the main road but in this battle after we stopped the syrian army we had only two tanks left on this side at the foot of mount vermont we see today the same famous valley where the commander of the 77th battalion colonel cahalani stood and blocked the syrian advance for this [Music] when i came two kilometers from the hills i saw far away israeli tanks on fire and and other tanks around them it was junior attacks and i moved with my tanks to the valley i was shocked i called my commander and 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 you 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 have 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 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 gunner loader driver and tank commander surgeon listened to my body and i told them look the syrian soldiers how they are fighting so well look at them the motivation what happened to us and i see chicken in my unit start to move and i started to i move another thing joined me and another time joined me 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 the valley will start from tanks and we shout 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 you survive around three four times no more than 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 the israelis launched 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 backed 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 twelve and twenty two hundred but the real tragedy is in the human cost on both sides twenty one thousand dead and tens of thousands more wounded most of my friend i lost 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 uh with disappointment but uh 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 golan heights is not returned to syria i dare say that there will not be peace in the middle east [Music] foreign

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, valley of tears, octobor war, yom kippur war, 6 day war, syrian tank battle, syria vs israel, egypt vs israel, greatest tank battles, battle of golan heights, battle in the valley of tears, tank battles

Id: dmWKTZIWyIs

Length: 47min 9sec (2829 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021