The IDF would love nothing better than to fight an old-fashioned tank battle, at which it is famously proficient:
Standing near a firing range, with three wedge-shaped Merkava III tanks maneuvering in the background, Major Dori Saar, operations officer for the 188 th Armored Brigade, described how Israel will use tanks to defeat tunnels. “The tanks will provide fire support for the infantry and engineers,” he explained.
It’s a tactic that takes advantage of two strengths that modern tanks enjoy: long-range firepower and advanced sensors. Standing off at a safe distance from anti-tank ambushes, tanks can spot enemy troops and provide covering fire while the foot soldiers go in to destroy the tunnels. Tunnel-busting will be a combined-arms operation down to the company level, with two platoons of tanks working with a platoon of infantry and engineers apiece.
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An advance into Lebanon will not be the timid, clumsy offensive of 2006. Saar says that his brigade will maneuver “fast and deep,” operating across a battlespace 30 to 40 kilometers (17 to 25 miles) in depth. This will be a small-unit war, waged by platoons and companies instead of brigades and divisions. The sort of combat that puts a premium on quick-thinking junior officers, flexible tactics, and well-trained soldiers.
The threat of advanced anti-tank weapons, such as the deadly laser-guided Russian Kornet employed by Hezbollah in 2006, had led some critics to question whether tanks are still useful. Combat in the rough terrain that guerrillas will operate from, such as hills or the numerous villages that dot Lebanon and Syria, is challenging for armored vehicles. Yet Schneider argues that tanks are still vital: they have firepower and armor protection that a foot soldier can’t carry on his back, and the mobility to bring that firepower to where it is needed.
New technology is also making tanks less vulnerable. Active protection systems mounted on vehicles, such as Israel’s Trophy (which is being adopted by the U.S. Army), can shoot down incoming anti-tank rockets.
The IDF did not perform well against Hezbollah the last time. Now Hezbollah has a lot of experience operating at the company, battalion and brigade levels, and they have lots of new weapons. Their troops are also dedicated. Israel relies on young, half-trained conscripts for its infantry. Things are likely to go even worse the next time the IDF matches up with the jihadis.
By the way, this time Hezbollah is part of the elected government of Lebanon. Would a new war involve the Lebanese army?
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that has expended a bunch of “experienced” and “well-trained” members trying to prop up the Syrian regime of Assad at the behest of their Iranian masters. What that means in terms of taking on the Israelis? My military judgment is that they are in about the same shape as the Iraqis were right before Desert Storm–Brittle.
I do not know how I would approach the Hezbollah problem, or Gaza. If I were an Israeli senior leader, though, dealing with what they have to deal with? I’m pretty sure that I’d find a way, and that way would rely on massive amounts of firepower plus timing everything to happen when the terrorists attacked me with their missiles.
The IDF is not filled with fools, although they do tend to be a bit over-confident at times. I would rate their combat skills and overall proficiency as being better than mere “conscripts”, mainly because the Israeli system is more akin to the Swiss model than the classic one we think of when someone says “conscript”.
Whatever happens, it’s going to be a shock to someone. Either the Israelis are going to find out in short order that their changes aren’t going to work, or Hezbollah is going to wake up with the Israelis literally operating in their back yards.
I don’t think that the Hezbollah takeover of the Lebanese government is going to count for much. Everyone knows the deal, and that is that Lebanon has been the catspaw for Syria and now Iran for generations. A lot of Lebanese aren’t happy about that, and if Israel destroys Hezbollah and most of Southern Lebanon along with it…? They’re not going to give a rip; so long as Hezbollah is gone.
Jimmy Carter’s betrayal of American interests in Iran continues to bear bitter fruit. 90% of the bad things that happened in the Middle East since his presidency are down to that decision, and it was his decision that allowed it to happen. Iranian generals were prepared to put down the French and Saudi Arabian sponsored “rebellion”, but the Carter Administration told them they would not receive support if they did. As a result, we’ve had decades of terrorism and general unrest throughout the Middle East, killing millions and immisserating far more.
Jimmy Carter truly is history’s greatest monster, and will be remembered as such. Never forget, he was the asshole that certified Chavez’s election in Venezuela and interfered with the North Korean negotiations at a critical moment, which allowed them to continue their nuclear program. The man never met an anti-American interest he couldn’t support, all in the name of “humanity” and “human rights”. Tell me, whose rights were supported during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, again? An entire generation of young Iranians died in the trenches, put there by the inept bumbling 7th Century mullahs that Carter virtually put into power?
Cancer likely chose not to kill him out of professional courtesy and outright admiration. Of all the American presidents in history, only Woodrow Wilson managed to kill more little brown people than Carter did.
Anyone know how well Hezbollah has dug in? They’ve had decades and a lot of incentive. If it’s like North Korea’s southern border, the IDF has a hard nut to crack.
The result being that you need to shoot two, or sometimes even three rockets. You’re lucky if the extra rockets cost 1/10th the price of the anti-rocket system.
Alrenous, the part of the calculus that you’re missing is not that the rockets cost so little, but that the teams firing them are dead once they make their first shot. If the tank survives, and the team gets taken out, it’s worth the exchange–And, that trained team represents a lot more than the cost of the missiles involved.
Once the Hezbollah firing team unmasks itself and gets blasted out of existence, the effect on morale for the rest of the fighters goes down. I’m virtually certain that the Israelis have networked the technology that enables the anti-armor system to backtrack to the firing post, and then communicate that to the various fire support elements working with those tanks. The tanks are basically so much bait, and when the Hezbollah “fighters” start noticing that to use their Iranian-supplied AT systems is to sign their own death-warrants to no real avail, well… I’m thinking the Hezbollah leadership is going to have a problem with them, right along with the issue that the Israelis will be targeting them as individuals, as well. The whole thing is going to be very, very educational.
The Israelis basically have two alternating modes in war: Overwhelmingly competent or arrogantly assumptive of enemy inferiority. The last time they went into Lebanon, it was the latter. This next time, I’m kinda expecting the former.
“The Israelis basically have two alternating modes in war: Overwhelmingly competent or arrogantly assumptive of enemy inferiority. The last time they went into Lebanon, it was the latter. This next time, I’m kinda expecting the former.”
This in spades. The Israelis are not supermen, but they are not stupid either. Sometimes fighting the last war DOES work, if the weapons are likely to be similar, and I don’t see Hezbollah having anything much more sophisticated than last time. Plus ass the losses they have suffered paying their Iranian sponsors in Syria lately.
It is amusing that people are continually predicting the demise of a particular weapons system. I remember in the late ’60′s/early ’70′s how in Canada, the reserve forces infantry was to be re-trained for civil defense because nuclear war had made infantry obsolete.
The demise of the tank has been predicted time and time again, (including in the referenced his), and yet, nobody is getting rid or theirs. Canada started to, and then reversed course, buying more and better tanks than they were getting rid of. Russia is developing (but can’t afford to field in quantity), a brand new tank.
The current talk is the end of the aircraft carrier. How chine is going to use hypersonic missiles to turn the aircraft carrier into an obsolete target. My question is that given this, and that if they can develop such a missile, then so can we, and likely faster and better, why are the Chinese then going full speed ahead with the acquisition of aircraft carriers?
“…Alrenous, the part of the calculus that you’re missing is not that the rockets cost so little, but that the teams firing them are dead once they make their first shot…”
I don’t believe this because of the simple reason that the past has not proven this so. You can popup from a defended tunnel. Fire a round off and scoot back down the tunnel well before anyone can place you. In Vietnam they fired a lot more than tank rounds at tunnel complexes and people survived. The troops would come up be fired on and they would bomb the place to smithereens and then when they moved forward the Vietnamese would pop right back up and smoke the troops again.
The active defense system, a lot of explosives on the outside of the tank, means you can’t have infantry around the tank or they’ll be blown to pieces. I wouldn’t say the tank is of no use but it has seen it’s better days. There’s no tank that can withstand multiple anti-tank weapon shots or really even one if it’s one of the better heavier two man systems.
What we need is a computerized horse but shaped like a mechanical ostrich that has highly sloped bottoms(for mines), like South African troop carriers, has enough intelligence to run about 100 mph on roads, less speed on rough ground and roll bars for crash protection. Maybe a fast third leg in front to arrest it’s fall when it trips, which it will.
The difference between “then” and “now” is that there are precision-guided missiles and bombs to come tap-tapping at the door to your spider-hole. Once you unmask and fire a missile, you’re toast these days.
The tanks are basically bait that can shoot back, and the Israeli Air Force and their forward controllers are going to be raining hell onto whatever firing points they use. Even a soft-launch missile system is going to leave a signature for them to back-track, and I’d bet good money a lot of those positions are already mapped out.
Data point: The Israelis have supposedly militarized autism, in that they’ve drafted high-functioning autistics into their imagery analysis units. Odds are pretty good those guys have spent the last few years mapping out targets down to the millimeter. I think the Hezbollah throat-slitters are in for a bit of a shock, TBH.
“…The difference between “then” and “now” is that there are precision-guided missiles and bombs to come tap-tapping at the door to your spider-hole. Once you unmask and fire a missile, you’re toast these days…”
Even if you’re right, and I dispute that you can immediately find a target and somehow magically suppress it given he runs away down a tunnel, fighting a $1,000 missile by trading tanks and $20,000 missiles is no way to win a war.
You’re not trading tanks, though. The defense systems change that, which is their point. The calculus works out to: “Hezbolloah pops up from (likely already known or suspected) spider hole, fires missile that does not kill tank, drops down into position, followed by 2000lb IAF ground-penetrating bomb, which kills fire team, destroys firing post, and obliterates expensive position which was laboriously constructed…” Rinse, repeat.
The tanks are bait that can shoot back, and which are protected.
I don’t think this is going to go as planned for by anyone, but I think it is very likely to really go against Hezbollah et al more than the IDF.
I wonder if Israel has ground radar capable of mapping tunnels.
If I were the Israelis, development of such technology would have been top priority for the last ten-fifteen years. My guess is that they have something, and that the nice gentlemen from Hamas and Hezbollah who have been digging those tunnels are in for a bit of a nasty, nasty surprise…
One of these days, the Israelis are going to get tired of the tit-for-tat BS, and then it’s going to be game on, “Hama Rules”. For an explanation of that, see here:
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-are-hama-rules-2353561
“…The calculus works out to: “Hezbolloah pops up from (likely already known or suspected) spider hole, fires missile that does not kill tank, drops down into position, followed by 2000lb IAF ground-penetrating bomb, which kills fire team, destroys firing post, and obliterates expensive position which was laboriously constructed…” Rinse, repeat….”
And just a few months ago I was called, essentially, a fool for saying Taiwan could attack invading Chinese boats, in open water no less, with artillery, fiber optic missiles and rockets. Then machine gun them on the beach with remote controlled machine guns in bunkers. But somehow Israelis can magically see tunnels and small concealed tunnel entrances and perfectly bomb them within seconds.
For some reason some people here believe that fancy weapons and aggressive attacks will always succeed. I say defense is much more powerful.
This is simple math. They could fire 5 anti-tank weapons at each tank for $1,000 each or less. If you pay people 24 hours a day $5 an hour so you have people continuously digging tunnels and manning the tunnel post you could have 22.8 Men for each million dollar tank a year. Lets call it 20 Men and lots of anti-tank weapons. It hard to beat this and this is just the cost of the tank. The man power for the tank and support is far higher. At least double but probably more so then you have 40 men to equal each tank and a shit load of tunnels.
And I categorically dispute that every time someone fires a weapon planes can immediately drop expensive bunker busters on the tunnel within 30 seconds or less. I also dispute that this will be effective because 90 degree crooks in tunnels with extensions like this figure following, “L”, see the lower leg how it extends to the left, would vastly reduce the pressure pulse. You can run a long ways in 30 seconds.
By using the exploding tank protectors you now have no infantry to protect the tank. You’ve moved you’re protection farther away to a plane where he can’t see everything on the ground easily. To do so he has to get close. So what if they then start shooting down the planes with anti-aircraft. How will you bomb them then? I know exactly what thermal and other sighting system look from the pilots point of view and skewing those things around while flying a jet…it becomes difficult.
I’m not buying it.
I have a suspicion that the Israeli overthrow of Ukraine is a back up plan so the Jews can haul ass there if it gets too hot in Israel.(It also annoys the Russians).
““L”, see the lower leg how it extends to the left,”
This didn’t work as the font I used to type in the reply had a leg extending to the left on the lower leg of the “L”. You just have to imagine it. The tunnel would go straight and then you would back up a meter or so and dig 90 degrees to the tunnel. It allows the blast to reflect straight back.