Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan187
I think the big problem is practice. I don't know how much the Israelis practice as far combined arms goes. In the Territories, the tanks act as mobile assault guns, supporting infantry. This is not the same thing as infantry and tanks working together to gain ground. There appears to have been only one regular tank brigade in Lebanon (Ben's brigade, the 401st). While taking nothing away from reservists tankers, their skills are probably a bit rusty... especially their ability to coordinate with infantry. I'm not sure how many combined arms field exercizes the IDF hosts, maybe Druze knows.
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infantry works in tandem with armour and artillery during training. However Israel tends to still spearhead with armour during war which is something that shouldn't have happened. Not all divisions went in with armour directly. Many infantry battalions used their tanks and artillery very effectively. Other times tanks rolled in to far from their infantry support and suffered heavy damages. I think about 90% of casualties were tankers. Coming back across the border we were shocked at the high number of dead tanks being towed back across the border.
Reservist tankers are very well trained and operate very well but I imagine that they inevitably suffer less training in the long run in joint long distance operations. reservist tankers are called up every year to do their time in the West Bank and Gaza but the lack of recent wars to hone skills showed in Lebanon in regards to using infantry deep inside enemy territory. Tank columns are very effective in working jointly with the IAF however that didn't do them much good against Hezbollah. My cousin's tank company is the only one to have reached the Litani which I can't name.
Infantry certainly was the most effective corps of the Lebanon war as tanks simply took ground without doing much to the enemy.