This video could be more accurately entitled "
The Failure of Israeli Battle Doctrine...Again".
My sense is that the Merkava is a fine vehicle. I find that it achieves the objectives of armor on the modern battlefield. It is surprisingly manueverable, accurate and lethal, and affords a high degree of protection.
Most modern tanks today achieve some balance of the same. I favor the Rheinmettal 120mm used by many in the west over the 125mm equipped on Russian derivative armor only because of the associated ammo, particularly the APFSDS developed by the U.S. Zraver could comment to a much greater degree of expertise here.
OTOH, the failure of Israel in Lebanon is doctrinal and systemic. Any tank is vulnerable to IEDs, depending only upon the size-whether M1A2, al-Khalid, Leopard II, or Merkeva. Not every IED can and will be discovered before striking a target. If large enough, bad things happen.
Such is the fate of war. However, having such happen on a repeated basis, whether as a result of IEDs or ATGWs, calls to question matters of doctrine and tactical/operational training at command levels. Israeli tank crews are, generally, expert at their craft. I wonder, though, how advanced their tactical and operational thinking has evolved among their commanders?
Is there some institutional arrogance that would permit Israel to ignore, even as late as 1973, the lessons driven home during W.W. II about integration of all elements of the combat arms-infantry, artillery, combat engineers, armor, and even army attack aviation/CAS to the battlefield? Yes, and even the COIN battlefields of today, whether the hills of Lebanon, S. Waziristan, or the urban streets of Iraq?
The principles of all-arms combat remain under all circumstance. For instance, we heard the story of the second Israeli attack through a wadi towards the Litani River that was defeated. This is true. What we didn't hear was how the Israelis failed, despite air assaulting infantry onto objectives thought to provide overwatch for that attack, to adjust those infantry when it became clear that they couldn't support the attack because presumed lines-of-sight map-spotted before seizing the objectives weren't available.
You can't shoot what you can't see. Israel possibly had time to adjust this mistake but evidently wouldn't. Maybe there were real world reasons as yet unknown. Maybe it just wasn't true at all but this has been suggested by some.
We know that this same attack had virtually no indirect fire-planning-amazingly, for fear of striking friendly forces. Those same friendly forces, btw, discussed above who were unable to provide suppressive overwatching fires.
O.k. Maybe, but why wasn't there an obscuration plan to smoke suspected ATGW positions then by use of mortar or artillery? This was not an off-the-cuff attack where no planning time was available to prepare the assault. In fact, there was about a week all told from genesis to execution yet these issues of integrating and coordinating all elements of the combined arms team were partial at best and rigid when proved inadequate.
Dogma is dangerous. I read a lot of folks here that fall upon mantras that you don't use tanks in cities, constricted terrain, hills, swamps, including Waziristan
Untrue. These are amazing vehicles with most operating at 20hp/ton or better despite incredible size. You will find places that you cannot go but you won't find them without a.) trying and b.) learning that they're actually very few.
These tanks do so with the ability to reach out and touch you with a wide variety of ammunition from 7.62mm through .50cal to 120mm HE, WP, or APFSDS to normal ranges in excess of 3km. What infantryman doesn't want that asset around?
However, if you fail to apply the strictures of mission, enemy, troops, terrain, and time available (METT-T) to your battle planning and implement all the available resources at your disposal, bad things shall happen.
In short, I think that Israel has found need to reaffirm time-honored lessons of all-arms warfare again and, perhaps, some lessons in hubris as well. Yes, POG (Party of God) should and did know the terrain well but this is terrain that Israel has personally been over in detail in the past and held for some years through its own proxies-the S. Lebanese Army.
There should have been fewer surprises stemming from the terrain or villages with their forces than most. We're not discussing Amerca lifting an expeditionary army 6000 miles from their borders.
I'll be interested in the views of others here as I've a great interest in battle doctrine and the immutable rules of combat as they apply across the full spectrum of conflict.
Thanks.
