Quote:
Originally Posted by zraver
If they knew they were there then why did they fail to take proper measures to supress the anti-tank teams? The goverment might have known, but the knowledge obviously didn't make its way down the chain or wasn't listened too.
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From what I understand, they were so afraid of high casualties on the part of the infantry, that they ended up sending the tanks in unsupported. Classically improper combined arms because of political worries. Well guess what, in the end that tactic resulted in high casualties. As Ralph Peters says, those unwilling to pay the butcher's bill up front will pay it with compound interest in the end.
Part of the problem was also the bad intelligence on quantities. They knew they had advanced ATGMs. What the didn't know was they they had so many, and were willing to piss away 10-15 per tank.
Similarly, the didn't expect Hizballah to use ATGMs against houses taken over by infantry because militarily, these are not high value targets in comparison to tanks. Not something an ordinary enemy would do, expensive ATGMs against houses. Aman (military intel) failed to understand the political-media ramifications of killing a squad of infantry are much heavier than damage/loss of tank. Basically, they didn't grasp onto that out of the box thinking. Though I do think that next time, the Israelis will be much more ready. And next time is coming, there is no doubt.