A Newbie does 1973 Arab-Israeli War

[incbob]

My Background.
I am old enough to remember when TOAW I originally came out. I never really got into it though. I skipped all the way until several weeks ago I purchased TOAW IV after hearing some really good things about it. I am not a Grognard. I do enjoy my wargames though, but usually find that the AI's can give me a good enough run for my money that I do not need to go looking for someone to kick my butt.

I RTFM, yeah I am one of those kind of people, read a bunch of AARs, absorbed all the info I could, but did not actually play any tutorials as they seemed little more than playing a scenario while reading an article. I did at least read the article.


The Scenario
So, for my first ever load up I decided to go with the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. I am taking the place of the Israeli commander, poor Israel. The game starts the morning of Oct 06, 1973. 10KM per hex/Brigade Level.

One thing I did note in the briefing was that as Israel I should not get within 3 hexes of Damascus and 5 hexes of Cairo, like we have to worry about any of that.


My overall strategic plan is simple, survive. I plan on using the IDF air force the grasp and maintain air superiority. In fact, my plan is to keep them attacking the Syrian and Egyptian air forces for the first day or so. I figure Golan Heights will take my main focus for the first couple of days until I know that it is stable, then I will counterattack the Egyptians in the Sinai.

Turn 1 October 6, 1973 AM
The Egyptians start their attack with a bombardment and a crossing of the Suez Canal, while the Syrians start the Golan Heights off with just bombardments. (The Syrians not attacking really surprises me).

The IDF air force shows well for itself, but I note that despite having air superiority and the Arabs losing 88 planes to my 16, my 4th Fighter/Bomber group is already having to reorganize.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: incbob
My Background.
I am old enough to remember when TOAW I originally came out. I never really got into it though. I skipped all the way until several weeks ago I purchased TOAW IV after hearing some really good things about it. I am not a Grognard. I do enjoy my wargames though, but usually find that the AI's can give me a good enough run for my money that I don't need to find a human to kick my butt.

I RTFM, yeah I am one of those kind of people, read a bunch of AAR and absorbed all the info I could, but did not actually play any of the tutorials as it seemed to be doing nothing more than playing the game while reading an article. (At least I did read the article).

The Scenario
So, for my first ever load up I decide to go with the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. I am taking the place of the Israeli commander, poor Israel.

The game starts the morning of Oct 06, 1973. 10KM per hex/Brigade Level.


One thing I did note in the briefing was that as Israel I should not get within 3 hexes of Damascus and 5 hexes of Cairo. Like we have to worry about any of that.


My overall strategic plan is simple, survive.

I plan on using the IDF air force the grasp and maintain air superiority. In fact, my plan is to keep them attacking the Syrian and Egyptian air forces for the first day or so. I figure Golan Heights will take my main focus for the first couple of days until I know that it is stable, then I will counterattack the Egyptians in the Sinai.

The AI is default and everything else is set to advanced.

Hey there Bobby dude. You've chosen one of the better scenarios and you're in for a treat with that game. Please keep us informed about what happens in your game. I'm subscribed. Is this the situation where Isreal has to defend against four or five Arib nations? I'll have to google this battle to learn more about it. Find out what in the world the real life Isreal did. Maybe you could form a mobile defense group to be able to defend places quickly. Once the brushfire is out at one place it can move to another place and defend there, etc. Isreal is roughly in the middle of it's enemies, giving them interior lines, enabling movement of of your reserves to hot spots quickly. That's a plus. You are correct in planning on taking out the enemy air forces first thing. Air superiority will grant you the ability to move troops by helicopter without getting shot out of the air. Dropping paratroops or special forces into deep DZ's is possible. You can fly all the INT you can without worrying about horrendous losses. Your CS missions will be a little bit more effective. Other than that I'm fresh out of advice. I can hardly wait to see what you decide to do.

[incbob]

Turn 1 AM 10/6/1973

I am really surprised by what I felt was weak Arab first turn attack. With surprise, I would have thought they would have attacked a lot more especially in the Golan Heights.
IRL Both Israel and the USA had some warning that there might be an attack. Both ignored it thinking that there was no way Egypt would be able to cross the Suez Canal.

[incbob]

T1 AM Sinai Sector
Start with the Sinai I see that the Egyptians have crossed the Suez just as they did IRL. Looking over the situation I see that they have three possible means of advancement.

1) North along the coast road.
2) Center going from Lake Timsah or a little south from Little Bitter Lake into Tasa or Bir Gifgafa. Both leade to the major crossroads of Bir Gifgafa so I immediately recognize it needs to be held.
3) Through the Mitla Pass, which the Egyptians took in the morning.

I move the 460th Armor Bgd/252 Division to Bir Gifgafa and order it to dig in. I also order the 217th Armor Bgd/162 Division to move along the coastal road. As it does it causes the Egyptian Special Forces on the road to retreat. I order other units to move toward the front.

[incbob]

Turn 1 AM Golan

I am rather happy to do nothing, but advance units towards the front lines. I specifically strengthen the north flank and the south flank of the front line. (Perhaps I could roll one back). In fact, I did not plan to make any attacks as I was unsure of how wise they were. However, looking I notice what I feel are weak elements of the Syrian 9th division right in the middle of the Syrian line.

The planner gave me dismal odds. Something like 1.2 to 1. As this is my first time playing I figure why not see what happens.



Surprises really do happen on the battlefield and my units advance?

Is there a way to load more than one picture on a post?

[incbob]

Golan End Turn 1

Note that this picture is taken at the beginning of turn 2 with reinforcements on the board, but with no movement.

[incbob]

Turn 2 Oct 6, 1973 PM

I immediately get to start turn two and go first (this actually worries me since I wonder will the Arabs get back-to-back turns).

I continue to pour units into the Golan Front. Again I have initially no plans to attack, especially considering it is night, but after reviewing my units I decide to make a couple of attacks to hit weak Syrian forces and hopefully degrade a couple of their more powerful formations.

I had more information on the attacks, unit names etc, but I lost that information. Remember, hit the save button.

[incbob]

My air force continues to degrade the Arab air forces and my attacks don't do as well as I had hoped. They are disasters, but other than hitting the 20/2 formation good my attacks are ineffective.

[incbob]

My T2 10/6/1973 PM Sinai

On the Sinai Front I do nothing but continue to advance my units toward defensive positions.

[incbob]

Golan Arab Turn 2 10/6/1973 PM

Please note that I had unit names and more information, but again lost it while trying to upload to the forum.

The Syrians strike with a vengeance against my units that had advanced inflicting heavy casualties while the Arab air forces attacked the IDF airfields. Though the land losses are heavy the I only lose 3 planes to their 63 and maintain air superiority.

[incbob]

Golan Heights end turn 2

[incbob]

End of Turn 2 Egyptian Front.

On the 2nd turn there is some activity on the Egyptian front as they continue to drive the forces of the Bar Lev line off the Suez Canal and make small advances. No real major combats though.

[incbob]

Posting this AAR to this forum is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I have been on forums before, but the difficulty in posting pictures is very trying. When I initially started I thought it would be like many other forums. This led to me making several errors which included losing some information on units that had performed some attacks. I find that I am going to have to re-think how I have done my AAR and saved my information.

It has though made me admire more those that have done AARs and posted them with pictures.

[larryfulkerson]

Please note that I had unit names and more information, but again lost it while trying to upload to the forum.

I too have lost text when trying to post something. I learned to type my text beforehand using Notepad or some other text editor
and then doing a copy / paste when attempting to post it. I have never lost what I spent a lot of time typing any longer.

[incbob]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
I too have lost text when trying to post something. I learned to type my text beforehand using Notepad or some other text editor
and then doing a copy / paste when attempting to post it. I have never lost what I spent a lot of time typing any longer.

Just to let you know how dumb I am. I did type it into MS Word in fact. However, when I went to post I cut instead of copy. I then got lost in trying to figure out how to post a picture and the post I was making got exited out of...there goes the info.

I have switched a little how I am doing things and hope to do better going forward.

[larryfulkerson]

Is there a way to load more than one picture on a post?

There's a limit on the forum that you can load only a single image but I've seen other gamers upload their images, 4 or 5 images, to a file server on the web and then in their post they use the [ image ] URL_to_NameOfImage [ / image] tags to embed their image in the post. I've looked for file servers that will supply you with only the image file instead of sending a web page with ads and a download button that you have to click on, and I haven't be able to find such a file server site yet. Your mileage may vary.

[incbob]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
There's a limit on the forum that you can load only a single image but I've seen other gamers upload their images, 4 or 5 images, to a file server on the web and then in their post they use the [ image ] URL_to_NameOfImage [ / image] tags to embed their image in the post. I've looked for file servers that will supply you with only the image file instead of sending a web page with ads and a download button that you have to click on, and I haven't been able to find such a file server site yet. Your mileage may vary.

Thank you for your reply. I am trying to figure the best way to post this information. I do have some webspace, but know that it will not last a long time, I will end up deleting the pictures, and therefore after being embedded in the post they will disappear at some point.

[MikeJ19]

incbob,

Welcome to the Forum and I'm enjoying your AAR. Good luck!

[Curtis Lemay]

Nice to see an AAR using the Stack Counter Values!

[incbob]

FYI

I have completed turn 3 and 4. Even written them up. I am working on a better way to post them. Would love to just put a link to a webpage (I could easily do that), but fear that is not what people would want. Will post something tomorrow March 13th. (To late in day now.)