Word: armored
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...real and potential conflict have shifted to the Third World. Enormous quantities of arms were required by the fighting in Korea, Indochina and the Middle East, as well as Black Africa. After the wars of 1967 and 1973, both the Arabs and Israelis needed massive resupplies of warplanes, armor, missiles and electronic equipment. In the 1973 war alone, 600 warplanes and 2,700 tanks were destroyed and had to be replaced...
...monotonous rock-strewn desert since the October war as if they intended to remain, transforming the area around the passes into a powerful redoubt. In fact, reports Drooz, the Israeli government has spent $60 million on the Sinai defenses since the end of the October war. Entire battalions of armor have been buried in laagers-scooped-out shelters covered with camouflage nets. It is startling, as Israeli troops run through practice drills, to see an M48 suddenly rear into view, moving from laager to firing platform or swiveling its 105-mm. gun as it goes churning across the dunes...
There is no doubt that the thrust of any battle in another Sinai war will center on the passes. "This chain of mountains is the most important geographic factor in Sinai," explains a senior Israeli commander. "North of the passes is soft sand, which makes hard going for armor. To the south are high granite mountains that make large-scale maneuvers impossible. From here we can defend all of Sinai...
...throw back such a force, the Israeli army in Sinai has switched tactics. There are no more forts like those that dotted the prewar Bar Lev Line along the canal. "We've changed our style," says one army commander. "We're basing our defense now on armor, mechanized troops and self-propelled guns that would move quickly to any trouble spot." Israeli armor is on constant alert. About the only time the engines of the 155-mm. and 175-mm. self-propelled gun carriers are turned off is when Soviet spy satellites are about to pass overhead...
...trap for the Secretary of State is whether he can satisfy all parties with multiple negotiations. The Sinai talks will be relatively easy, but tricky nonetheless. Egypt demands the return of the oilfields at Abu Rudeis and the strategic Mitla and Giddi passes through which Israeli armor has moved three times to fight her. Israel is not prepared to surrender Abu Rudeis until alternate fuel supplies are firmly guaranteed. The form of this guarantee-and of any firm U.S. guarantee of Israel's security-could become sticking points...