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If the Israeli force led by three generals - Sharon, Adan and Magen - was able to reach the northern and southern slopes of Ismailia in the north and Suez in the south, in an attempt to surround the Egyptian Third Army.. Sharon failed to enter Ismailia on October 22 because of the bravery of Egyptian Thunderbolt SF and the commando men assigned to the defense of Ismailia.. And because of the good predictions of Major General Abdel Moneim Khalil - the new commander of the second army - of the main axes of the attack and his focus on the defense of those axes.. Sharon did not try once again to attack Ismailia after he was beaten by the lightning forces, especially the group 139 Thunderbolt led by Brigadier General Osama Ibrahim who was responsible for Sharon's large losses..
General Adan and behind him General Magen, who launched their armored divisions towards Suez after they listened to the advice of General Barlev, the actual commander of the Israeli Southern Command, who gave him the choice "if Beersheba move forward, but if Stalingrad do not advance" meaning, that if it is like the simplicity of the occupation of Beersheba in 1948, go ahead, but if it is stubborn and solid like Stalingrad, do not advance.
Adan predicted that Suez would be like Beersheba and rose the flags of Morocco and Algeria on his tanks to deceive any resistance forces in the city.. but despite heavy aerial bombardment of Suez on 22 and 23, the Popular Resistance Forces cooperated with units of the 19th Division specialized in hunting tanks on all three axes, where the Israeli tanks suffered heavy losses, and also dozens of Israeli paratroopers were killed in fierce battles between buildings and inside, it was a battle from street to street and from one building to another.
After the failure of his attack, it was confirmed to Adan that Suez was not Beersheba and was not Stalingrad, but Suez put its name in a new historic position from the courage of its people who joined its soldiers to defend it and prevent its fall..
After the failure of the fall of Ismailia and Suez:
With total neutrality we can confirm that the Israeli forces have established themselves starting on 25 October in a fatal military situation in all respects, it had no other solution but to stay put on the site and begin a battle of patience and tolerance and exhaustion, which means to continue in a long military mobilization, which mean on its turn more and more weakening the Israeli economy..contrary to its doctrine of swift attacks and ending the war quickly!
The Israeli military situation:
1. Israeli forces lost the capability of attack and were forced to stop because there were no other targets to advance to in an attempt to gain a military or media advantage..
2 - Israeli forces occupy a piece of land much bigger than the size of the forces that can actually defend it in the gap, which means that it is not fully controlling all areas, and this leads to the easy infiltration of Egyptian SF elements into the heart of the camps of the Israeli forces and the cutting of their vital supply lines, in operations which occurred between November 1st, 73 and January 74..
3 - Israeli forces breathe through a narrow corridor of 10 kilometers width in the area of the "Deversoire", the only road leading to the forces in the area of the gap, which is the wrong situation.. and a very bad position..
4 - Israeli forces can not advance west towards Cairo because of the presence of the Egyptian 4th Armored Division, and can not progress north towards Ismailia because of the existence of the Ismailia canal as a natural barrier, and in front of it there are forces of Thunderbolt SF and commandos trained to hunt tanks, and can not go south towards the Red Sea for lack of tactical or strategic objectives, other than the city of Hurghada, which is about two hundred kilometers away and does not represent any strategic or military importance.
5. The Israeli forces suffer from the length of their supply lines, which extend from the center on the middle axis for a very long distance to the gap (200 km), and those lines are exposed to attacks from the 16th division forces east of the canal.
Status of Egyptian forces:
If the Egyptian forces had suffered from erroneous General Command decisions starting on October 14 (from the decision to develop the wrong attack and through the wrong handling of the gap).. The period from 14 to 25 October was a period of confusion, but after the Israeli forces stopped and carried out their objectives and failed to occupy Ismailia and Suez, the Egyptian leadership began making the right decisions..
As follows:
1 - Pull the command and members of the 21st Armored Division, without tanks to the West again, and regrouping in Abu Sultan again (as general Saad Shazly wanted the Armored Division on October 17).
2. The air defense wall was rebounded to the second layer and continued its work successfully despite the losses.
3. Withdrawing the tank hunters groups from the east and regrouping them under the command of the 2nd Army.
4 - Reconfiguration of the 23rd mechanized infantry division and 6th mechanized infantry division again, based on the Soviet supplies that began to arrive effectively after the end of the fighting on 25 October.
5 - Regrouping the 4th Armored Division within the scope of the 3rd Field Army under the General Command immediately after the name of the Third Army forces east of the Canal was renamed the Badr Forces.
6- Grouping of new infantry division, consisting of a Moroccan paratroop brigade and a mixed brigade of battalions from Sudanese, Emirati, Palestinian and Kuwaiti battalions, and placing it under the Third Army command and support it by the necessary artillery.
7 - Reinforcement of the 16th infantry division east of the Canal, after the losses suffered in fierce battles on 15, 16 and 17 October.
8 - Placing the Algerian armored brigade on the Suez road to repel any Israeli attack on Cairo.
In a simple language, on December 1, 1973, the Egyptian forces were able to balance its forces east and west of the Canal and form a large armored and mechanical force west of the Canal under the umbrella of the air-defence missile wall and with very short supply lines..
And there is no better proof for this than what Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan Ali, director of the Armored Corps in the October War, tells us in his memoirs; how to make the armored and mechanized divisions recover quickly..
He says in his memoirs ((Mashawir al-Omar - secrets and hidden 70 years of Omr Egypt)) on page 354:
"On 26 October, I visited the 4th Armored Division, which was equipped with a large number of repaired tanks. I also visited the armored brigade of Algeria. It was stationed on Mount Ghara south of the hole. The view from above the mountain to the battlefield confirms that the Israeli forces could easily be destroyed inside the gap.. since the width of the area used for crossing by the Israeli forces in the Deversoire was only 7 kilometers.. A committee of the US Congress visited the site on 7th of November accompanied by Major General Saad Mamoun and came out with an impression emphasizing the need for peaceful settlement of this conflict, because the Israeli forces trapped inside the gap has become stuck in a siege about to be completed."
"And on November 7th I was visiting the East Canal units and I heard a statement by Moshe Dayan on Israeli radio saying that Egypt completed the 4th field army push in the field around the gap, and I was very happy from this saying because the fourth army was in fact only the supplies sent to the front by the department of the armored vehicles to compensate for the loss of fighting armoured vehicles.. after the arrival of Egypt from Yugoslavia of 94 tanks ready to ride, we also received an armored brigade from Libya without personnel, in addition to the arrival of storming artillery guns from Algeria, and after the visit of Boumediene to the Soviet Union we received 200 T-62 tanks which were fully allocated to support the 21st armored division..with the remaining of its tanks left to support the 16th division bridge head. The 21st armored division returned without tanks to its newly established area, and its personnel were trained on the new T-62 tanks in just one week.. And then The 21st armored division was sent to the front again in three days, and raised dust more than 30 kilometers in length, its last day of arrival to the front was November 7th, which coincided with Dayan's statement that "the Fourth Army has been completed around the gap".. In these lines we can fully recognize the psychological state of the Israeli Defense Minister, Who thought that the re-equipping of the 4th and 21st Armored divisions was to equip a new army Called the Fourth Army, which did not have a real presence".
The plan "Chaamil" (Comprehensive) and its development.
The Israeli crossing to the west of the canal
Although the cease-fire actually took effect on October 25, 1973 and the UN forces began to converge on the area, the front was not at all calm. Egyptian special forces were ambushing the Israeli supply vehicles.
The historian Gamal Hammad said in his book (Combat Battles on the Egyptian Front) that after the Egyptian forces restored their balance after the Israeli forces failed to occupy Suez, a second war of attrition began, including 1500 clashes and artillery shelling involving Egyptian forces with forces from Algeria and Morocco. And those clashes led to the following:
- Destroying 11 aircraft, 41 tanks, 1 tracked vehicle and 10 heavy machine guns.
- Destruction of 36 bulldozers, engineering equipment and vehicle.
- Attack on Israeli oil tanker (Serena) with serious damage.
- Drowning of a sea landing boat.
- 187 Israeli soldiers were killed, as well as hundreds wounded.
All of this during the course of 440 Egyptian offensive operations from the east and west of the channel.
The planning and preparation for the plan was comprehensive and went hand in hand with a brutal war of attrition, conducted by the undisputed heroes of the (Saeqa) Thunderbolt SF and paratroopers commandos that worked deep inside the enemy lines, and turned his life to Hell.. To the point that the elements of the intelligence and reconnaissance detected two facts worthy of attention:
The first is that the Israeli forces are deployed only by day and return to their camps at night for fear of the ambushes of the Thunderbolt SF forces. This has enabled the secret convoys of resupply to the Third Army, to move completely away from the UN-controlled convoys, which Israel was trying to block.
The second is the detection of a hysterical mines laying by the Israeli forces around the camps of their forces (700 thousand mines by some sources), and that the deployment rates were similar to what Rommel did after the Battle of Al alamein, a large percentage of that hysteria can be attributed to the fear and horror felt by the Israeli forces inside the gap.
We return to the comprehensive plan developed by Major General Saad Maamoun to close the gap. Major General Abdel Moneim Wasel, commander of the Third Army, who brings us in his memoirs from page 325 to new facts concerning major changes in the plan before presenting them to the President..
Including the closure of the separation between the forces of the second and third armies east of the Canal and West, which extends to 30 kilometers is the length of the bitter lakes and determine the responsibilities of the leaders, to avoid the disadvantages of leaving that area empty east of the channel, which made the enemy exploit it freely..
According to the words of Major General Abdel Moneim Wasel, some forces from the main forces were assigned to block enemy forces and prevent them from expanding in any direction, it went as follows:
1- The Moroccan brigade in the region of Bir Adib on the Gulf of Suez to prevent the enemy from expanding south.
2- The Algerian armored brigade with the 6th mechanized brigade and the 339th mechanized brigade with the 113th mechanized battalion occupying the second defensive range of the third army from Mount Ataqa till the pliers 12, 13 and 14.
3 - The 18th mechanized brigade of the 21st Armored Division with the brigade 182 parachutes (some called it the 150th Brigade) and the 116th mechanized brigade occupies the area east of Mount Shubrout to the south of Ismailia..
The "Comprehensive Operation 2" plan identified attacking Israeli forces in the West from 5 specific axes, the results of the battle can be deduced according to the situation of the warring forces at the time..
The first stage: liquidate the Israeli forces west of the canal
1- The first direction is a strike from the right side of the bridge head of the 16th Division (from the east) towards the South-west, with the aim of closing the penetration gap from the east and clearing it. The strike is expected to be carried out by the 22nd Armored Brigade, That was gradually assigned to the 16th infantry division from the 2nd infantry division due to the precarious position of the 16th infantry division who fought in the gap throughout the fighting days..
Given Israel's expectation of such an attack, it was not expected to be 100% successful due to the large number of Israeli armored vehicles fighting in a battle of life or death to prevent the closing of the axis to the west of the canal.. but this attack was likely to put the Egyptian forces in a much better position to threaten Israel's important supply hub, thereby reducing or disrupting a large part of those supplies..
2- The second direction is a blow to the Abu Sultan axis, in the direction of the Deversoire, to liquidate the base of the gap on which the supply of the Sharon Group is based. This battle is carried out by the 21st Armored Division, consisting of approximately 250 tanks, Almost identical to Sharon's Group tank numbers, and was expected to be a battle of terrible bone cracking as Sharon has no ability to maneuver his troops in that narrow area, so his defense will be confrontation with Egyptian tanks heading to the main point of Deversoire to destroy the bridge and isolate the Israeli troops completely in the East of the canal..
It was also planed that the Egyptian Special Forces will put pressure on Sharon's forces from the direction of Ismailya to fix part of his forces to facilitate the task of the 21st Armored Division. On the other hand, the knowledge of the 21th Division of the anticipated battlefield would be a factor in choosing the secondary attack axes to reach objectives with the use of infantry units attached to the 18th Mechanized Brigade of the 21st Division in the acquisition of land and sticking to it..The 23rd Mechanized Division is to be a second support of the 21st Armored Division to reinforce its attack and intervene in case of any emergency..
3- The third direction is a strike on the axis of the Genifa road, towards the Lesser Lakes, to liquidate the existing Israeli forces from Fayed to the Janayeen area. The 3rd mechanized division was selected so that the infantry units could deploy in the crops and form protected defensive lines in the event of a counter attack from the south or north. That task would have been the easiest task in the plan, as in those areas where the 3rd mechanized division would move to, the Israeli defenses were too much stretched, because the area occupied by the Israeli forces was very large compared to the size of the forces in it, so it was easy to avoid places of concentration of Israeli forces and move in semi-empty axes to achieve the goal of cutting and isolating the Israeli forces from each other.. The forces present in the area were General Magen's Israeli forces, they were new forces that did not participate in many battles and their experience of the ground was non-existent..
4. The fourth direction is a strike on the axis of the Suez Road, Route 12 (the main strike), to liquidate the existing Israeli forces from Al-Shaloufa and Suez, and to dismantle the siege of Suez, this battle is to put the 4th Armored Division in the face of the Adan Brigade directly..It is also a bone-crushing battle, and its aim is to lift the siege of Suez.
The 4th Armored Division could have been expected to be able to open the Suez road and lift the siege, but at the same time no one can claim its full ability to destroy The Adan fighting division that had experienced fighting since the first day of the war.
So the newly formed infantry division of an Algerian brigade, Kuwaiti and Sudanese units was the second support of the 4th Armored Division.
5. The fifth direction strikes on the parallel coastline of the Gulf of Suez from south to north, to liquidate the existing Israeli forces south of Suez and in Adabiya, a secondary strike by the Moroccan Brigade to open a supply route south of the city of Suez, And the success of this brigade can be expected in the liberation of the port of Adabiya and access to the outskirts of Suez from the south.
Chaamil (Comprehensive) Plan Analysis:
* The plan is comprehensive and well founded, there is the mobilization of forces in specific axes, and there is a concentration of the attack force in those axes, which increases the chances of success in the implementation of the objectives entrusted to them.
* The well-trained Egyptian forces before the October War gained a tremendous amount of expertise throughout the days of the fighting and became experienced experts in the mobile war, aware of the Israeli tactics used.
* Axes of the attack of the Egyptian forces are short and its objectives close, well known and well thought out, which means that the momentum of the attack can not be stopped by a small force that can be repelled easily, but needs large Israeli forces to stop any axis of the axes.
* Israel has forgotten the important military principle ("If you want to be strong everywhere, you will be weak everywhere"), that is to say, it ignored the principle of mobilization of forces. It is clear that the areas acquired by the Israeli forces to reach Suez and Ismailia turned into administrative and military burdens For the Israeli leadership, the Israeli armored brigade, which is supposed to occupy a confrontation front of up to 10 kilometers, is charged with a confrontation line of 20 kilometers. This means that there are breaks between its battalions, which makes the force to repel the attack dwindle to less than a third of its capacity.. Instead of nearly 100 tanks to repel an attack in a given area, the force has now only 30 tanks to defend with.
Which means that the Israeli armored forces in the gap, which consists of 3 groups of operations, consisting of 6 armored brigades with a total of 600 tanks in addition to a brigade of parachutists and two mechanized brigades, these tanks instead of being mobilized in one confrontation to repel an Egyptian attack, they were now spread to be deployed on a large confrontation area, which reduced the strength and the impact of counter-attacks.
* The comprehensive plan was adopted to exploit the disadvantages of the Israeli military position. Closing the only escape corridor for the Israeli forces, which is the stone bridge on the Suez Canal, was one of the priorities of the Egyptian plan and the Israeli forces became hostages (and have to negotiate their liberation) in the hands of the Egyptian forces' 21st Armored division and 22nd Armored brigade East of the Canal with full support of 2nd Army artillery, Thunderbolt SF and parachutist commandos units.
The closure of the narrow Israeli escape and supply corridor in the Dversoire is very effective in making the rest of the Israeli forces not capable of fighting because there are no resources for fighting. (I would like to mention here that all Israeli fuel and ammunition stores west of the Canal were targets of the Egyptian Thunderbolt in the Second War of Attrition) Which made the stockpile of ammunition and fuel necessary for fighting depend entirely on supplies from the east of the canal.
* There is no indication of the timing of the attack, and it is believed that it would be in the middle of the day to allow sufficient time in the day for Egyptian tanks not experienced in night fighting to reach its goals, and the use of the night for deployment of mechanized infantry and SF to ambush the Israeli forces expected to attack in the next morning..
* The situation of the Egyptian air force is much better than that of the Israeli air force, Despite the large losses of the Egyptian air force in the beginning of the gap crossing and the technological shortcomings of the Egyptian aircrafts, there is the presence of many Egyptian airports near the front line from which these aircrafts can be flown at low altitude with enough fuel to stay above the target, with the nearest airport it will take less than 3 minutes flight, which means more presence of Egyptian aircraft to support ground forces..
* The rebound of the air-defence missile wall and its restoration with its usual danger to the Israeli air force on the second layout west of the canal will enable the Egyptian ground forces to deal with the forces of the Israeli gap without heavy intervention by Israeli air force.
Why the comprehensive "Chaamil" plan has not been implemented?
The US Secretary of State Kissinger (A jewish American) intervened strongly to stop the implementation of this plan, and this fact can be found in his personal memoirs.
In the book of Major General Kamal Hassan Ali ((Mashawir al - Omar - secrets and hidden 70 years of Omar Egypt)) on page 334 says"
"Thus the Israeli gap turned into a trap..With the arrival of Kissinger to Egypt on the first of November 1973, President Sadat summed up the situation, saying, I have 800 tanks and Israel have 400 tanks and I have a missile and a half for each Israel tank, and the Israelis are confined in the area of 6.5 kilometers east of the Canal and if we close it, the Israeli forces will be definitely destroyed without any doubt..
Kissinger responded that he knew the situation, and the Pentagon provided him with satellite images showing the recovery of the air defense wall for his effectiveness and pictures of the 800 tanks, guns, etc."
Kissinger replied: "Do you think the US administration will let you do this?"
If we study that statement, we can realize that the US was fully aware of the real situation of the Israeli forces West of the canal..Namely:
1- Low morale of Israeli soldiers due to continuing losses and failure to achieve their goals of the gap.
2. Israel's failure to subdue the Third Army.
3. Israel tried to play with a card that the Third Army was held hostage and broadcast the pictures of the supply convoys moving in the protection of the United Nations forces and published them as providing Egypt with those meager supplies in order to break the morale of the Egyptian people.This has not happened and Israel has failed in this too..
4 - Israel failed to occupy Suez and gain great media glory.
5 - The time factor has become against Israel by all standards, its forces are being depleted day after day, and the Egyptian forces regained their cohesion west of the canal and turned into a large armored force threatening Israel.
6 - The exit of Israeli forces from the dilemma of the gap became a necessity and a wish rather than a possibility, but how ??? How the Israeli forces can withdraw without losses, to continue to promote this false victory and that television battle.
7. The implementation of the plan is comprehensive enough to expose Israeli forces to a large massacre west of the canal. Therefore, the US Secretary of State, Kissinger, intervened and called upon Egypt, with all the US might, not to implement the Chaamil plan..
Kissinger invested in the first Kilo 101 agreement, followed by a second disengagement agreement, under which Israeli forces withdrew from the west of the canal on 14 January 1974 in four days (in a haste) to the east of the straits, 40 kilometers away from the main border of the Egyptian forces east of the Suez Canal, while the Egyptian side agreed to reduce the Egyptian forces east of the Canal as evidence of Good faith in future peace negotiations without giving up its military gains east of the canal.. and agreed to open the Suez Canal..
General Mu'taz al-Sharqawi said about the 100-day siege period, that immediately after the declaration of the disengagement agreement and the start of the withdrawal of the Israeli forces to the east of the canal, he saw hundreds of signal shots in the skies of western Suez. The Israelis fired all the shots - like fireworks - into the skies of the area, rejoicing in their release from the gap alive. Those fireworks were accompanied by hundreds of shots fired by the same soldiers in the sky along the gap of Ismailia to Suez that stretched for many hours, sensing that they had been rescued.
Is this a coherent military force action besieging the Third Army? Or is it the behavior of psychologically defeated and exhausted forces because they know the impasse in which they were unconsciously inserted into without thorough, study or conscious afterthought, and which was solely intended for the media aura and propaganda glory of Israel's generals.
For Israel, everyone knows that they don't give up an inch of land without some price for it.
So why it has authorized the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the gap, and from the front line with the second and third army east of the canal to return to the east of the Strait ???
In his book, Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan Ali, "the secrets of the age - the secrets and secrets of 70 years of Omar Egypt" summarizes the reason for the withdrawal of Israel from a point of view of the warrior and director of the Armored Corps who is familiar with the finest details in that difficult period of the history of the conflict:
"No one can claim that Israel accepted the second ceasefire on 25 October and then withdraw to the east of the straits because of its desire for peace. Indeed, Israel accepted this only under the phantom of the threat of the trap in the gap."
The fact that the Israeli gap and the west of the Canal intrusion did not achieve the hope of the Israeli leaders in turning the outcome of the war to their advantage has many reasons, including the Israeli losses declared that has reached 400 dead and 1,200 injured, although in reality it was much bigger..
Another reason is that the Egyptian forces had the opportunity during the cease-fire period to reorganize and supply their forces so that they would not allow the Israeli side to widen the gap or withdraw from it.
Third, the size of the Egyptian forces around the gap reached five divisions, including two armored divisions, and 3 mechanized divisions.. were Israeli forces compared to the Egyptian forces were in the ratio of 1: 3 in the infantry, 1: 6 in artillery and 1: 2.5 in tanks..
Compiled from source: Group73 Historians
General Adan and behind him General Magen, who launched their armored divisions towards Suez after they listened to the advice of General Barlev, the actual commander of the Israeli Southern Command, who gave him the choice "if Beersheba move forward, but if Stalingrad do not advance" meaning, that if it is like the simplicity of the occupation of Beersheba in 1948, go ahead, but if it is stubborn and solid like Stalingrad, do not advance.
Adan predicted that Suez would be like Beersheba and rose the flags of Morocco and Algeria on his tanks to deceive any resistance forces in the city.. but despite heavy aerial bombardment of Suez on 22 and 23, the Popular Resistance Forces cooperated with units of the 19th Division specialized in hunting tanks on all three axes, where the Israeli tanks suffered heavy losses, and also dozens of Israeli paratroopers were killed in fierce battles between buildings and inside, it was a battle from street to street and from one building to another.
After the failure of his attack, it was confirmed to Adan that Suez was not Beersheba and was not Stalingrad, but Suez put its name in a new historic position from the courage of its people who joined its soldiers to defend it and prevent its fall..
After the failure of the fall of Ismailia and Suez:
With total neutrality we can confirm that the Israeli forces have established themselves starting on 25 October in a fatal military situation in all respects, it had no other solution but to stay put on the site and begin a battle of patience and tolerance and exhaustion, which means to continue in a long military mobilization, which mean on its turn more and more weakening the Israeli economy..contrary to its doctrine of swift attacks and ending the war quickly!
The Israeli military situation:
1. Israeli forces lost the capability of attack and were forced to stop because there were no other targets to advance to in an attempt to gain a military or media advantage..
2 - Israeli forces occupy a piece of land much bigger than the size of the forces that can actually defend it in the gap, which means that it is not fully controlling all areas, and this leads to the easy infiltration of Egyptian SF elements into the heart of the camps of the Israeli forces and the cutting of their vital supply lines, in operations which occurred between November 1st, 73 and January 74..
3 - Israeli forces breathe through a narrow corridor of 10 kilometers width in the area of the "Deversoire", the only road leading to the forces in the area of the gap, which is the wrong situation.. and a very bad position..
4 - Israeli forces can not advance west towards Cairo because of the presence of the Egyptian 4th Armored Division, and can not progress north towards Ismailia because of the existence of the Ismailia canal as a natural barrier, and in front of it there are forces of Thunderbolt SF and commandos trained to hunt tanks, and can not go south towards the Red Sea for lack of tactical or strategic objectives, other than the city of Hurghada, which is about two hundred kilometers away and does not represent any strategic or military importance.
5. The Israeli forces suffer from the length of their supply lines, which extend from the center on the middle axis for a very long distance to the gap (200 km), and those lines are exposed to attacks from the 16th division forces east of the canal.
Status of Egyptian forces:
If the Egyptian forces had suffered from erroneous General Command decisions starting on October 14 (from the decision to develop the wrong attack and through the wrong handling of the gap).. The period from 14 to 25 October was a period of confusion, but after the Israeli forces stopped and carried out their objectives and failed to occupy Ismailia and Suez, the Egyptian leadership began making the right decisions..
As follows:
1 - Pull the command and members of the 21st Armored Division, without tanks to the West again, and regrouping in Abu Sultan again (as general Saad Shazly wanted the Armored Division on October 17).
2. The air defense wall was rebounded to the second layer and continued its work successfully despite the losses.
3. Withdrawing the tank hunters groups from the east and regrouping them under the command of the 2nd Army.
4 - Reconfiguration of the 23rd mechanized infantry division and 6th mechanized infantry division again, based on the Soviet supplies that began to arrive effectively after the end of the fighting on 25 October.
5 - Regrouping the 4th Armored Division within the scope of the 3rd Field Army under the General Command immediately after the name of the Third Army forces east of the Canal was renamed the Badr Forces.
6- Grouping of new infantry division, consisting of a Moroccan paratroop brigade and a mixed brigade of battalions from Sudanese, Emirati, Palestinian and Kuwaiti battalions, and placing it under the Third Army command and support it by the necessary artillery.
7 - Reinforcement of the 16th infantry division east of the Canal, after the losses suffered in fierce battles on 15, 16 and 17 October.
8 - Placing the Algerian armored brigade on the Suez road to repel any Israeli attack on Cairo.
In a simple language, on December 1, 1973, the Egyptian forces were able to balance its forces east and west of the Canal and form a large armored and mechanical force west of the Canal under the umbrella of the air-defence missile wall and with very short supply lines..
And there is no better proof for this than what Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan Ali, director of the Armored Corps in the October War, tells us in his memoirs; how to make the armored and mechanized divisions recover quickly..
He says in his memoirs ((Mashawir al-Omar - secrets and hidden 70 years of Omr Egypt)) on page 354:
"On 26 October, I visited the 4th Armored Division, which was equipped with a large number of repaired tanks. I also visited the armored brigade of Algeria. It was stationed on Mount Ghara south of the hole. The view from above the mountain to the battlefield confirms that the Israeli forces could easily be destroyed inside the gap.. since the width of the area used for crossing by the Israeli forces in the Deversoire was only 7 kilometers.. A committee of the US Congress visited the site on 7th of November accompanied by Major General Saad Mamoun and came out with an impression emphasizing the need for peaceful settlement of this conflict, because the Israeli forces trapped inside the gap has become stuck in a siege about to be completed."
"And on November 7th I was visiting the East Canal units and I heard a statement by Moshe Dayan on Israeli radio saying that Egypt completed the 4th field army push in the field around the gap, and I was very happy from this saying because the fourth army was in fact only the supplies sent to the front by the department of the armored vehicles to compensate for the loss of fighting armoured vehicles.. after the arrival of Egypt from Yugoslavia of 94 tanks ready to ride, we also received an armored brigade from Libya without personnel, in addition to the arrival of storming artillery guns from Algeria, and after the visit of Boumediene to the Soviet Union we received 200 T-62 tanks which were fully allocated to support the 21st armored division..with the remaining of its tanks left to support the 16th division bridge head. The 21st armored division returned without tanks to its newly established area, and its personnel were trained on the new T-62 tanks in just one week.. And then The 21st armored division was sent to the front again in three days, and raised dust more than 30 kilometers in length, its last day of arrival to the front was November 7th, which coincided with Dayan's statement that "the Fourth Army has been completed around the gap".. In these lines we can fully recognize the psychological state of the Israeli Defense Minister, Who thought that the re-equipping of the 4th and 21st Armored divisions was to equip a new army Called the Fourth Army, which did not have a real presence".
The plan "Chaamil" (Comprehensive) and its development.
The Israeli crossing to the west of the canal
Although the cease-fire actually took effect on October 25, 1973 and the UN forces began to converge on the area, the front was not at all calm. Egyptian special forces were ambushing the Israeli supply vehicles.
The historian Gamal Hammad said in his book (Combat Battles on the Egyptian Front) that after the Egyptian forces restored their balance after the Israeli forces failed to occupy Suez, a second war of attrition began, including 1500 clashes and artillery shelling involving Egyptian forces with forces from Algeria and Morocco. And those clashes led to the following:
- Destroying 11 aircraft, 41 tanks, 1 tracked vehicle and 10 heavy machine guns.
- Destruction of 36 bulldozers, engineering equipment and vehicle.
- Attack on Israeli oil tanker (Serena) with serious damage.
- Drowning of a sea landing boat.
- 187 Israeli soldiers were killed, as well as hundreds wounded.
All of this during the course of 440 Egyptian offensive operations from the east and west of the channel.
The planning and preparation for the plan was comprehensive and went hand in hand with a brutal war of attrition, conducted by the undisputed heroes of the (Saeqa) Thunderbolt SF and paratroopers commandos that worked deep inside the enemy lines, and turned his life to Hell.. To the point that the elements of the intelligence and reconnaissance detected two facts worthy of attention:
The first is that the Israeli forces are deployed only by day and return to their camps at night for fear of the ambushes of the Thunderbolt SF forces. This has enabled the secret convoys of resupply to the Third Army, to move completely away from the UN-controlled convoys, which Israel was trying to block.
The second is the detection of a hysterical mines laying by the Israeli forces around the camps of their forces (700 thousand mines by some sources), and that the deployment rates were similar to what Rommel did after the Battle of Al alamein, a large percentage of that hysteria can be attributed to the fear and horror felt by the Israeli forces inside the gap.
We return to the comprehensive plan developed by Major General Saad Maamoun to close the gap. Major General Abdel Moneim Wasel, commander of the Third Army, who brings us in his memoirs from page 325 to new facts concerning major changes in the plan before presenting them to the President..
Including the closure of the separation between the forces of the second and third armies east of the Canal and West, which extends to 30 kilometers is the length of the bitter lakes and determine the responsibilities of the leaders, to avoid the disadvantages of leaving that area empty east of the channel, which made the enemy exploit it freely..
According to the words of Major General Abdel Moneim Wasel, some forces from the main forces were assigned to block enemy forces and prevent them from expanding in any direction, it went as follows:
1- The Moroccan brigade in the region of Bir Adib on the Gulf of Suez to prevent the enemy from expanding south.
2- The Algerian armored brigade with the 6th mechanized brigade and the 339th mechanized brigade with the 113th mechanized battalion occupying the second defensive range of the third army from Mount Ataqa till the pliers 12, 13 and 14.
3 - The 18th mechanized brigade of the 21st Armored Division with the brigade 182 parachutes (some called it the 150th Brigade) and the 116th mechanized brigade occupies the area east of Mount Shubrout to the south of Ismailia..
The "Comprehensive Operation 2" plan identified attacking Israeli forces in the West from 5 specific axes, the results of the battle can be deduced according to the situation of the warring forces at the time..
The first stage: liquidate the Israeli forces west of the canal
1- The first direction is a strike from the right side of the bridge head of the 16th Division (from the east) towards the South-west, with the aim of closing the penetration gap from the east and clearing it. The strike is expected to be carried out by the 22nd Armored Brigade, That was gradually assigned to the 16th infantry division from the 2nd infantry division due to the precarious position of the 16th infantry division who fought in the gap throughout the fighting days..
Given Israel's expectation of such an attack, it was not expected to be 100% successful due to the large number of Israeli armored vehicles fighting in a battle of life or death to prevent the closing of the axis to the west of the canal.. but this attack was likely to put the Egyptian forces in a much better position to threaten Israel's important supply hub, thereby reducing or disrupting a large part of those supplies..
2- The second direction is a blow to the Abu Sultan axis, in the direction of the Deversoire, to liquidate the base of the gap on which the supply of the Sharon Group is based. This battle is carried out by the 21st Armored Division, consisting of approximately 250 tanks, Almost identical to Sharon's Group tank numbers, and was expected to be a battle of terrible bone cracking as Sharon has no ability to maneuver his troops in that narrow area, so his defense will be confrontation with Egyptian tanks heading to the main point of Deversoire to destroy the bridge and isolate the Israeli troops completely in the East of the canal..
It was also planed that the Egyptian Special Forces will put pressure on Sharon's forces from the direction of Ismailya to fix part of his forces to facilitate the task of the 21st Armored Division. On the other hand, the knowledge of the 21th Division of the anticipated battlefield would be a factor in choosing the secondary attack axes to reach objectives with the use of infantry units attached to the 18th Mechanized Brigade of the 21st Division in the acquisition of land and sticking to it..The 23rd Mechanized Division is to be a second support of the 21st Armored Division to reinforce its attack and intervene in case of any emergency..
3- The third direction is a strike on the axis of the Genifa road, towards the Lesser Lakes, to liquidate the existing Israeli forces from Fayed to the Janayeen area. The 3rd mechanized division was selected so that the infantry units could deploy in the crops and form protected defensive lines in the event of a counter attack from the south or north. That task would have been the easiest task in the plan, as in those areas where the 3rd mechanized division would move to, the Israeli defenses were too much stretched, because the area occupied by the Israeli forces was very large compared to the size of the forces in it, so it was easy to avoid places of concentration of Israeli forces and move in semi-empty axes to achieve the goal of cutting and isolating the Israeli forces from each other.. The forces present in the area were General Magen's Israeli forces, they were new forces that did not participate in many battles and their experience of the ground was non-existent..
4. The fourth direction is a strike on the axis of the Suez Road, Route 12 (the main strike), to liquidate the existing Israeli forces from Al-Shaloufa and Suez, and to dismantle the siege of Suez, this battle is to put the 4th Armored Division in the face of the Adan Brigade directly..It is also a bone-crushing battle, and its aim is to lift the siege of Suez.
The 4th Armored Division could have been expected to be able to open the Suez road and lift the siege, but at the same time no one can claim its full ability to destroy The Adan fighting division that had experienced fighting since the first day of the war.
So the newly formed infantry division of an Algerian brigade, Kuwaiti and Sudanese units was the second support of the 4th Armored Division.
5. The fifth direction strikes on the parallel coastline of the Gulf of Suez from south to north, to liquidate the existing Israeli forces south of Suez and in Adabiya, a secondary strike by the Moroccan Brigade to open a supply route south of the city of Suez, And the success of this brigade can be expected in the liberation of the port of Adabiya and access to the outskirts of Suez from the south.
Chaamil (Comprehensive) Plan Analysis:
* The plan is comprehensive and well founded, there is the mobilization of forces in specific axes, and there is a concentration of the attack force in those axes, which increases the chances of success in the implementation of the objectives entrusted to them.
* The well-trained Egyptian forces before the October War gained a tremendous amount of expertise throughout the days of the fighting and became experienced experts in the mobile war, aware of the Israeli tactics used.
* Axes of the attack of the Egyptian forces are short and its objectives close, well known and well thought out, which means that the momentum of the attack can not be stopped by a small force that can be repelled easily, but needs large Israeli forces to stop any axis of the axes.
* Israel has forgotten the important military principle ("If you want to be strong everywhere, you will be weak everywhere"), that is to say, it ignored the principle of mobilization of forces. It is clear that the areas acquired by the Israeli forces to reach Suez and Ismailia turned into administrative and military burdens For the Israeli leadership, the Israeli armored brigade, which is supposed to occupy a confrontation front of up to 10 kilometers, is charged with a confrontation line of 20 kilometers. This means that there are breaks between its battalions, which makes the force to repel the attack dwindle to less than a third of its capacity.. Instead of nearly 100 tanks to repel an attack in a given area, the force has now only 30 tanks to defend with.
Which means that the Israeli armored forces in the gap, which consists of 3 groups of operations, consisting of 6 armored brigades with a total of 600 tanks in addition to a brigade of parachutists and two mechanized brigades, these tanks instead of being mobilized in one confrontation to repel an Egyptian attack, they were now spread to be deployed on a large confrontation area, which reduced the strength and the impact of counter-attacks.
* The comprehensive plan was adopted to exploit the disadvantages of the Israeli military position. Closing the only escape corridor for the Israeli forces, which is the stone bridge on the Suez Canal, was one of the priorities of the Egyptian plan and the Israeli forces became hostages (and have to negotiate their liberation) in the hands of the Egyptian forces' 21st Armored division and 22nd Armored brigade East of the Canal with full support of 2nd Army artillery, Thunderbolt SF and parachutist commandos units.
The closure of the narrow Israeli escape and supply corridor in the Dversoire is very effective in making the rest of the Israeli forces not capable of fighting because there are no resources for fighting. (I would like to mention here that all Israeli fuel and ammunition stores west of the Canal were targets of the Egyptian Thunderbolt in the Second War of Attrition) Which made the stockpile of ammunition and fuel necessary for fighting depend entirely on supplies from the east of the canal.
* There is no indication of the timing of the attack, and it is believed that it would be in the middle of the day to allow sufficient time in the day for Egyptian tanks not experienced in night fighting to reach its goals, and the use of the night for deployment of mechanized infantry and SF to ambush the Israeli forces expected to attack in the next morning..
* The situation of the Egyptian air force is much better than that of the Israeli air force, Despite the large losses of the Egyptian air force in the beginning of the gap crossing and the technological shortcomings of the Egyptian aircrafts, there is the presence of many Egyptian airports near the front line from which these aircrafts can be flown at low altitude with enough fuel to stay above the target, with the nearest airport it will take less than 3 minutes flight, which means more presence of Egyptian aircraft to support ground forces..
* The rebound of the air-defence missile wall and its restoration with its usual danger to the Israeli air force on the second layout west of the canal will enable the Egyptian ground forces to deal with the forces of the Israeli gap without heavy intervention by Israeli air force.
Why the comprehensive "Chaamil" plan has not been implemented?
The US Secretary of State Kissinger (A jewish American) intervened strongly to stop the implementation of this plan, and this fact can be found in his personal memoirs.
In the book of Major General Kamal Hassan Ali ((Mashawir al - Omar - secrets and hidden 70 years of Omar Egypt)) on page 334 says"
"Thus the Israeli gap turned into a trap..With the arrival of Kissinger to Egypt on the first of November 1973, President Sadat summed up the situation, saying, I have 800 tanks and Israel have 400 tanks and I have a missile and a half for each Israel tank, and the Israelis are confined in the area of 6.5 kilometers east of the Canal and if we close it, the Israeli forces will be definitely destroyed without any doubt..
Kissinger responded that he knew the situation, and the Pentagon provided him with satellite images showing the recovery of the air defense wall for his effectiveness and pictures of the 800 tanks, guns, etc."
Kissinger replied: "Do you think the US administration will let you do this?"
If we study that statement, we can realize that the US was fully aware of the real situation of the Israeli forces West of the canal..Namely:
1- Low morale of Israeli soldiers due to continuing losses and failure to achieve their goals of the gap.
2. Israel's failure to subdue the Third Army.
3. Israel tried to play with a card that the Third Army was held hostage and broadcast the pictures of the supply convoys moving in the protection of the United Nations forces and published them as providing Egypt with those meager supplies in order to break the morale of the Egyptian people.This has not happened and Israel has failed in this too..
4 - Israel failed to occupy Suez and gain great media glory.
5 - The time factor has become against Israel by all standards, its forces are being depleted day after day, and the Egyptian forces regained their cohesion west of the canal and turned into a large armored force threatening Israel.
6 - The exit of Israeli forces from the dilemma of the gap became a necessity and a wish rather than a possibility, but how ??? How the Israeli forces can withdraw without losses, to continue to promote this false victory and that television battle.
7. The implementation of the plan is comprehensive enough to expose Israeli forces to a large massacre west of the canal. Therefore, the US Secretary of State, Kissinger, intervened and called upon Egypt, with all the US might, not to implement the Chaamil plan..
Kissinger invested in the first Kilo 101 agreement, followed by a second disengagement agreement, under which Israeli forces withdrew from the west of the canal on 14 January 1974 in four days (in a haste) to the east of the straits, 40 kilometers away from the main border of the Egyptian forces east of the Suez Canal, while the Egyptian side agreed to reduce the Egyptian forces east of the Canal as evidence of Good faith in future peace negotiations without giving up its military gains east of the canal.. and agreed to open the Suez Canal..
General Mu'taz al-Sharqawi said about the 100-day siege period, that immediately after the declaration of the disengagement agreement and the start of the withdrawal of the Israeli forces to the east of the canal, he saw hundreds of signal shots in the skies of western Suez. The Israelis fired all the shots - like fireworks - into the skies of the area, rejoicing in their release from the gap alive. Those fireworks were accompanied by hundreds of shots fired by the same soldiers in the sky along the gap of Ismailia to Suez that stretched for many hours, sensing that they had been rescued.
Is this a coherent military force action besieging the Third Army? Or is it the behavior of psychologically defeated and exhausted forces because they know the impasse in which they were unconsciously inserted into without thorough, study or conscious afterthought, and which was solely intended for the media aura and propaganda glory of Israel's generals.
For Israel, everyone knows that they don't give up an inch of land without some price for it.
So why it has authorized the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the gap, and from the front line with the second and third army east of the canal to return to the east of the Strait ???
In his book, Maj. Gen. Kamal Hassan Ali, "the secrets of the age - the secrets and secrets of 70 years of Omar Egypt" summarizes the reason for the withdrawal of Israel from a point of view of the warrior and director of the Armored Corps who is familiar with the finest details in that difficult period of the history of the conflict:
"No one can claim that Israel accepted the second ceasefire on 25 October and then withdraw to the east of the straits because of its desire for peace. Indeed, Israel accepted this only under the phantom of the threat of the trap in the gap."
The fact that the Israeli gap and the west of the Canal intrusion did not achieve the hope of the Israeli leaders in turning the outcome of the war to their advantage has many reasons, including the Israeli losses declared that has reached 400 dead and 1,200 injured, although in reality it was much bigger..
Another reason is that the Egyptian forces had the opportunity during the cease-fire period to reorganize and supply their forces so that they would not allow the Israeli side to widen the gap or withdraw from it.
Third, the size of the Egyptian forces around the gap reached five divisions, including two armored divisions, and 3 mechanized divisions.. were Israeli forces compared to the Egyptian forces were in the ratio of 1: 3 in the infantry, 1: 6 in artillery and 1: 2.5 in tanks..
Compiled from source: Group73 Historians
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