A Battlefield Post-Mortem

Every war undergoes an autopsy. Even before the last guns are silenced, military experts start examining each thrust, parry and feint of the armies on the battlefields, hoping to discover a yet unknown tactic or a new strategic wrinkle. Post-mortems on the latest Middle East war have begun. Computers at NATO'S Brussels headquarters, for example, are being fed data from the war that, according to a NATO spokesman, will "test whether the battle effectiveness of some weapons has changed."

Some basic questions have already been raised by experts about conventional ideas of how to deploy armor and airpower on the battlefield. Ian Smart, deputy director of Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs, notes that "Soviet technology in Arab hands has consigned to history" an era in which the "tank and aircraft ruled the battlefield." The introduction of new highly mobile and simply operated antiaircraft and antitank missiles, Smart argues, "marks a transformation that recalls the way in which the longbow enabled the English foot soldier of the 14th century to overcome the mounted knight. The Arab guiding his Snapper [antitank missile] to destroy a 50-ton tank has been refighting the Battle of Crecy." Indeed, for the first time since 1916, when the tank made its combat debut in the Battle of the Somme, a single infantryman armed with an antitank guided weapon was potentially an equal match for the armor-plated behemoth.

Universal Lessons. This could have enormous implications for NATO. The alliance calculates the balance of strength between itself and the Warsaw Pact nations largely in terms of tanks and aircraft. NATO does not seem to have paid as much attention to antitank missiles as has the U.S.S.R. Moreover, it has generally regarded surface-to-air missiles as primarily defensive weapons. The Egyptian thrust across the Suez Canal demonstrated that these missiles can also play an offensive role, enabling an attacking force to establish and hold a beachhead. With the extremely mobile SA-6, beachheads can be expanded by slowly moving the missiles forward, thus increasing the area protected from aerial assault by their umbrella.

Other military experts caution against drawing universal lessons from the war too quickly. Moreover, experts note that advances in weapons technology trigger the development of counter-measures that eventually neutralize the original advantages.

American engineers are already dissecting and studying a Soviet SA-6 antiaircraft missile that was captured intact by the Israelis. Presumably, they will soon be able to develop electronic devices to confuse that missile's targeting mechanism--just as they did with the Soviet SA-2 and SA3 missiles after U.S. pilots encountered them over North Viet Nam.

An electronic antidote may also be found for the new antitank missiles. One U.S. Army systems analyst insists that missiles will no more make the tank obsolete than the invention of the machine gun made the infantryman obsolete. The mechanized unit, which includes tanks, will still be needed to provide armies with speed, firepower and shock action on the ground. "The stakes of armored warfare have merely been raised," this analyst adds. "It will just be a lot more bloody than before."

British tactical experts note that the most likely battlefield for any NATO-Warsaw Pact clash would be the northern part of Germany--a region plagued by terrible weather and heavy clouds. The climate would make it very difficult to employ the umbrella-like missile cover for troops that the Egyptians used so successfully to protect their Sinai beachhead. The new Soviet antitank weapons, which rely on a steering mechanism controlled by a soldier who can see his target, would be less effective on the hilly terrain of Central Europe--which provides natural cover for tanks--than it was on the wide-open stretches of the Sinai desert.

Perhaps the most important military lessons of the war are those reconfirming several orthodox maxims:

> Overconfidence can be an army's own worst enemy. A retired Israeli major general, Matityahu Peled, admitted that "Israel was afflicted by an infirmity derived from an overconfidence from laurel wreaths from the past."

> The best military intelligence is no guarantee against a surprise attack. (Reason: it is easier to measure a foe's capabilities than his intentions.)

> Once a surprise attack is launched, a strategic buffer zone, like the Sinai, enables a nation to abandon its first line of defense (e.g., Israel's Bar-Lev Line) without exposing its major population centers to danger.

But possibly the most significant lesson was that demonstrated by the massive resupply efforts undertaken by both the Soviet Union and the U.S. They proved that an efficient logistics system is the backbone of any sustained conflict. America's airlift capacity showed itself able, on very short notice, to mount an intercontinental round-the-clock schedule.

No Substitute. Finally, there is the lesson to be learned from the Egyptians' failure to exploit their initial advantage in the Sinai by pushing out from their beachhead toward the Mitla Pass, and the Israelis' consequent success in discovering and punching through a soft spot in enemy lines to open a front on the west bank of the Suez Canal. Despite advances in electronics and weapons technology, there is, finally, no substitute for officers who can take advantage of unexpected battlefield opportunities by improvising new tactics.

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