Osprey - Duel 084 - Sagger Anti-Tank Missile vs M 60 Main Battle Tank. Yom Kippur War 1973.pdf

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SAGGER ANTI-TANK MISSILE
M60 MAIN BATTLE TANK
Yom Kippur War 1973
CHRIS McNAB
SAGGER ANTI-TANK MISSILE
M60 MAIN BATTLE TANK
Yom Kippur War 1973
CHRIS McNAB
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chronology
Design and Development
The Strategic Situation
Technical Specifications
The Combatants
Combat
Analysis
Aftermath
Bibliography
Index
4
7
8
23
28
38
50
69
76
79
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INTRODUCTION
The Yom Kippur War of 1973, also known as the ‘October War’, sits at a special
juncture in Cold War history. From the perspective of our current age that, at least at
the time of writing, is doctrinally dominated by light mobile warfare (counter-
insurgency, rapid deployment, ‘asymmetric’ warfare, etc.), it is easy to forget the rather
different priorities of conventional warfare in the 1960s and 1970s. The strategic and
tactical thinking on both sides of the Iron Curtain was largely focused on the delivery
of nuclear weapons and, on the ground, the movement of armoured forces. This was
the age of the tank. The main battle tank (MBT), fighting in volume, was regarded as
the metal fist of offensive warfare. In war colleges and training grounds around the
world, military commanders spent much of their time thinking about how to use
armour both to defeat the other side’s tanks in open battle, and how to drive deep into
enemy territory with armoured elements.
This was as true in the cauldron of the Middle East as in Central Europe. Since the
establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, and the new nation’s immediate
descent into conflict with its Arab neighbours, the Middle East had become a virtual
test bed for the tactics and technologies of the Cold War. The open ground that
characterized many of the battlefields, especially in the Sinai Desert, meant that
tank-vs-tank combat was common and critical to the outcome of the clash. Israel and
its chief opponents – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran – therefore sank
huge financial investment into purchasing armour in both quantity and quality. Israel
typically went to the United States and the United Kingdom for its armour (and also
utilized plentiful volumes of captured Arab kit), while the Arab nations shopped
principally in the Eastern Bloc.
Yet in the Yom Kippur War, a new and shocking weapon disrupted the tactical
picture of armoured warfare and resulted in what military historian Abraham
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An AT‑3 ‘Sagger’ anti‑tank guided
missile (ATGM) in its classic
‘suitcase’ configuration. Note the
red‑tipped flare mounted
between the two fins angled
towards the viewer. This flare
would ignite when the missile
was launched, providing a visual
tracking aid for the operator
throughout the entire period of
flight. (AirSeaLand Photos/Cody
Images/MoserB)
Rabinovich has called the ‘humbling of the tank’ (Rabinovich 2004: 107). This was
the deployment in mass of the early generations of anti-tank guided weapons
(ATGWs), or anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), most prominently in the form of
the 9M14
Malyutka,
better known in the West by its NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) codename, AT-3 ‘Sagger’. Rather like the disruption caused by the
introduction of hand-held firearms in the medieval period, whereby an ill-trained
footsoldier gained the personal firepower to unseat and kill a powerful knight, the
two- or three-man Arab Sagger teams had the capability of killing any Israeli MBT.
Anti-tank weapons were nothing new – World War II had seen plenty of tank-killing
devices – but the introduction of Sagger batteries en masse, each missile able to destroy
a tank out to a range of 3km, changed the nature of manoeuvre warfare in the
Middle East.
If there is any doubt about the tactical shock unleashed by the advent of the Sagger
missile and its ilk, just consider the 1975 report from the US Army’s Training and
Doctrine Command (TRADOC), entitled
Soviet ATGMs: Capabilities and
Countermeasures.
The meat of the report is largely a sober analysis of the Yom Kippur
War. Here the writers reflect upon how the world of armour had been changed by
the conflict:
All the modern armies of NATO, the Warsaw Pact, the Arab and Israeli nations generally
agree that the main offensive weapon of ground forces is the tank. With its heavy
armament, armor protection, and cross-country mobility, only the tank can break
through an enemy force and engage or defeat it decisively. While the Arab-Israeli War of
October 1973 (The “Yom Kippur War”) reaffirmed the offensive potential of the tank,
it has also dramatized the lethality of modern antitank weapons – particularly the high
velocity tank cannon and the long-range antitank guided missile (ATGM). The effect of
these modern antitank weapons in this war was devastating. Not since the Battle of Kursk
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