Military Agility. Meir Finkel
weapons continued until just before the war. Colonel Haim Bar-Lev, who assumed command of the brigade only in mid-October,29 recalled that “the Super-Shermans arrived a few days before the general mobilization [and] the M-50s two days before the operation.”30
The formation of the 37th Brigade (reservists) began in April 1955. The battalions were being built while the brigade’s headquarters and combat support units were still only partially manned. The brigade assimilated the new tanks and half-tracks only two weeks before the war,31 which had an unfavorable effect on the brigade’s proficiency. When it went into action on November 1, “the brigade had just completed its basic replenishment that morning and still lacked equipment, mainly communications gear.”32
Seven AMX-13 companies were organized on the basis of existing tanks and those that were supposed to arrive. The companies were scheduled to operate within the framework of regional command reconnaissance battalions and a General Headquarters (GHQ) “reserve” battalion. Forming tank crews with troops who lived in the area where the unit was expected to be deployed, and transferring troops from existing units for retraining, encumbered both the companies being established and the units that had lost soldiers for retraining.33
The armored corps was not alone in undergoing organizational change. It was decided to reduce the number of “elder” infantry brigades (six at the time) and raise the proficiency level of those that remained. It was also decided to convert the 202nd Paratroop Battalion into a brigade on the basis of four battalions: the jump-school battalion, the 890th Battalion, the Nachal Airborne Battalion, and a reservist battalion.34 During the reorganization of the regulars’ order of battle, the 5th Brigade (Givati) was disbanded, and two battalions of regulars reinforced the 7th Brigade and Golani (Infantry) Brigade (which consisted of only two regular battalions). Most of the Givati Brigade’s combat support units became the foundation of the new 202nd Brigade.35
Two events related to unit organization stand out as important with regard to risk management in force buildup. The first was the formation of the armored corps in early 1954. This involved the dismantling of the command echelon of the armored brigade as a basic formation and the subordination of armored battalions to the new armored corps, which would allocate them as battle teams to headquarters according to their missions. Amiad Brezner, the corps historian, writes: “The changes that the armored forces underwent cannot be separated from the rosy evaluation that prevailed in late 1953 that chances were slim that war would break out in the coming years. Only an army that is not under the threat of an approaching war can opt for long range preparations instead of maintaining immediate readiness, and embark on deep structural changes that entail dismantling the existing organizational system and building units to be organized and employed in an untested formation.”36 The return to an organization in which the brigade was the basic formation began unofficially in July 1954, a few months after the start of the reorganization, and was officially approved in late April 1955, almost half a year before the IDF began preparations for war.37
The second event was the dismantling of the reconnaissance companies of five-man crews on Staghound armored cars and their conversion to three-man crews on AMX-13s before the tanks arrived. The change required splitting up the crews and the platoons or companies and transforming the machine gunners into the more demanding roles of tank commanders, loaders, and drivers. A worrisome situation was created by the delay in the tanks’ delivery from France. This was not the first time delivery had been held up, but “unlike the other occasions, no preliminary actions that were so comprehensive had been taken that disrupted the existing combat formation.” In this case, “the regional command’s armored battalions, which were supposed to supply armored forces to the commands, were non-operational because the previous organization had been thrown into disarray (the Staghounds could not be used and the crews that had been converted to tanks were still without the AMX-13s). The dismantlement of the Staghound companies that had seemed a calculated risk, turned out to be genuinely unsound.”38 The general staff and the armored corps scrambled to remedy the situation by taking the following steps: the remnants of the Staghound crews in the reconnaissance battalions were mustered into company frameworks, the untrained manpower was channeled to the formation of new companies, and some of the crews that had already undergone retraining on tanks were sent back to the armored cars.
The Rotem event is another example of the problems that can arise when there is no overlap between the removal of outdated equipment from service and the addition of new equipment. In early March 1960 the IDF learned that the Egyptian 4th Division was deployed in forward positions in Sinai. In light of this surprising development, the IDF heightened the level of alert in certain areas. At the same time, it was replacing World War II–era antitank cannons with newer jeep-mounted 106mm recoilless cannons. The transition was taking place without overlap—that is, the old cannons had been withdrawn from the regulars’ units, and the recoilless cannons were only beginning to enter service. The Golani and Nachal infantrymen, however, were unfamiliar with the old weapons and inexperienced in the use of the new ones. Southern Command allocated one week for rapid training exercises.39
Training and Exercises
The new AMX-13 posed a great training challenge to the armor school. New courses had to be developed for tank commanders, drivers, and loaders, and the crews had to undergo intensive training. Many mishaps occurred during training, especially because of the disproportionate number of trainees to available tanks and the lack of sufficient training facilities, such as open-range firing areas. Thus, training was only partially completed. An AMX-13 commander who was sent to France completed a mere two-week crew training course on the new tank, plus an additional two-week instructors’ course. Upon his return to Israel, he was given the responsibility of converting infantrymen into tank crews in a three-week course.40 The first company commanders’ course opened in March 1956. When the Sinai War erupted, the second course was canceled, so the first course was the only training company commanders received before the war.41 The low proficiency of the AMX-13 companies led to the creation of an instruction staff made up of commanders and instructors who had trained on the tank in France. The staff’s goal was to oversee training for autonomous armored units—brigade reconnaissance and AMX tank companies. In reality, due to the delayed delivery of the bulk of the tanks and snags with the existing ones, only one reconnaissance company and two armored car companies had undergone training by the time the war broke out, and an emergency call-up order was sent to reserve officers to act as instructors.42 “As a rule it was decided to train the maximum number of units this year and make sure they familiarized themselves with enemy territory. The task was assigned to the IDF’s head of the instruction branch, Major General Yitzhak Rabin. The emergency mobilization of reservists was meant to continue for half a year.”43
In May 1956 a full armored brigade exercise was carried out for the first time since 1952. During that interval, only battalion formations had been deemed necessary for training exercises.44 But the exercises encountered numerous difficulties (see below). The Merkava exercise for airborne units in March 1956 was also of major importance. This exercise for the remodeled 202nd Airborne Brigade tested its airborne and seaborne capabilities, which would be employed in the war.45
Complicating matters was the need to bolster the units’ readiness through training despite the growing wear and tear on their weapons. The combination of intensive training, relatively new (and more sophisticated) weapons, and limited maintenance experience created a major operational problem in 1956. The number of engine hours in 1956–1957 was more than twice that of the previous year, with the extra hours attributed to the new tanks.46 The May 1956 Pelet exercise that concluded the training of the newly established 27th Brigade (reservists) ended with a crisis in mechanical serviceability. In an attempt to limit damage to the AFVs’ operability, the armored corps’ training AFVs were used in the exercise instead of the brigade’s combat vehicles. The combination of AFVs in need of repair after training, reservists who were generally lax about vehicle maintenance, and a brigade maintenance system that had not been trained to perform under pressure led to the “final undoing of the armored forces’ level of readiness as far as tanks were concerned…. Of the 60 AMXs, about 40 were rendered inoperable; 13 of them from this exercise,” wrote chief of