Brigadier. Salahadden Abobaker Al-Zedani
The deception plan adopted by the Egyptian leadership in the period preceding the 1973 war had a direct impact on the historical victory it achieved. By tracking the course of events, the plan proved its great success in deceiving the leaders of the Zionist enemy and its intelligence services until the zero hour struck and the Egyptian and Syrian army units and the participating Arab military units set off With it to accurately implement.
military operations plans to complement the efforts of the planners of the strategic deception plan at all levels, The plan played a prominent, influential and decisive role in the conduct of military operations, and came out with impressive results that had a great impact on its achievement. Victory, raising morale, deceiving and defeating the enemy.
Military deception is defined as a set of coordinated and carefully planned actions and activities with the aim of concealing facts that would affect the course of war and prevent them from reaching hostile and cooperative intelligence services, directing and supporting their estimates and efforts in achieving their goals and making them adopt directives that lead to making wrong decisions that serve the goal of the planner, by deceiving them and concealing the idea of managing armed conflict and its nature.
The foundations of the deception plan.
1- Working to put the enemy intelligence services and those cooperating with them in a state of persuasion and belief in apparent and clearly visible false news and information, while working to continuously measure the enemy’s reactions and analyze them on an ongoing basis.
2- Ensuring the achievement of results from the comprehensive deception plan drawn up. The deception plan is usually organized and managed by the state’s senior military and political leadership through its various agencies (security, military, civil), and its procedures are implemented at all levels simultaneously within a specific time, and in all methods Deception and all available.
During the decisive historical confrontation with the Zionist enemy in the October War in 1973, the Egyptian leadership had to prepare a strategic deception plan to convince the Zionist enemy that the Egyptian forces are still unable to fight the battle with him, and the procedures followed in the strategic deception plan had a great impact on achieving victory, as the Zionist enemy was deceived by the procedures followed by the Egyptian leadership, and he had no idea when the actual strike in the war would be made, despite the strength of his intelligence services. And his advanced spies, thus achieving surprise and initiative, which is considered one of the most important factors for achieving victory and managing the battle.
In July 1972, Egyptian President Sadat met with the head of General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, National Security, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to develop a strategic deception plan at the level of the state and the armed forces that would allow for superiority and concealment of any signs of preparation for war, so that the enemy would not launch a pre-emptive strike that would abort Egyptian preparations for war.
In this regard, we commend the prominent and effective role of the Egyptian military and security leaders from various competent authorities who contributed with great precision in planning the strategic deception plan.
The strategic deception plan included several aspects as follows:
Economic deception:
By showing Egypt’s economic weakness and inability to attack, and demonstrating its keenness that the solution to the crisis must be peaceful.
Political deception:
By showing acceptance of the state of neither peace nor war, declaring indecisiveness more than once, and the decision to remove Russian advisors.
Strategic and tactical media deception:
Such as the decision of the Minister of War to visit Libya at a specific time while the plans for training officers and soldiers continue as they are until the last moment before zero hour, the announcement of the demobilization of reserve forces, the announcement of some military personnel traveling to perform Umrah, and the exaggeration in the media of the impossibility of crossing the canal due to the dangers and burdens it contains Obstacles that are difficult to pass.
The most important provisions of the strategic deception plan that was activated were the following:
1.The fake air strike:
Although the Israeli aviation has been on maximum readiness since Friday afternoon, October 5, and despite the fact that…Israeli warning centers and radars in Sinai monitored all Egyptian aircraft sorties at noon on October 6. However, they were completely surprised due to the deception methods that were successfully planned by the Egyptian Air Force leadership, the most brilliant of which was undoubtedly raising the level of maximum readiness and declaring a state of alert at all airports. And the Egyptian air bases in the period from September 22 to 25. During that period before zero hour, the departure of sorties from the Delta and Upper Egypt airports continued continuously, which caused the Israelis the most confusion and confusion. They were forced to launch their planes into the air whenever an Egyptian plane took off, and when it did not happen. Any attacks, as the Israelis expected, filled them with calm and reassurance, and they became certain that the Egyptian aircraft sorties were merely for training.
Therefore, when the Egyptian planes were spotted in the afternoon of October 6, despite them flying at very low altitudes that did not exceed a few meters above the ground, the enemy thought that they were training sorties like their predecessors. During those crucial hours, just before zero hour, Major General Hosni Mubarak added another method of camouflage. He made careful arrangements. In Cairo and urgent communications with Tripoli on the afternoon of Friday, October 5, to prepare for a visit that he made those around him believe that he would make to Libya, accompanied by some senior officers, on an urgent mission lasting 24 hours. The closer the plane’s take-off date, which was set at six o’clock on the evening of October 5, approached, Major General Hosni was Mubarak postponed the date time after time until it was finally set at two in the afternoon on October 6, which is the real and actual date for the start of the first air strike.
2. Satellite spoofing:
This step is considered one of the most cunning steps taken by the army in its terrible deception plan. The army was very familiar with aerial reconnaissance devices that are used to capture images and transmit them efficiently, especially satellites equipped with thermal imaging equipment that can capture clear images of equipment movements even after they leave their locations. With extreme accuracy, and there was no way to hide the columns of vehicles, tanks, and artillery pieces from the lenses of these satellites that never stop revolving around the Earth in many regular paths However, with careful research and study, it was found that they could be deceived.
It was known to Egyptian aerial reconnaissance experts that these satellites analyze colors into 32 colors, ranging from bright white to pitch black, and then send their observations in the form of numbers, each of which expresses the color of the clear square in the image, and in ground reception centers the numbers are replaced with their squares. The same shade of color, so the image is true again. The problem of satellites was discussed early after the decision to go to war was taken, and the opinion was settled on forming a research group to study means of misleading satellites, and the fruit of its work was a real miracle, as the research group took into account the road network Leading to the battle front and its specifications, then the orbits of the satellites and their launch times in the second. After that, the group set a number of very complex and precise timetables. The schedules showed the times of movement of the trains transporting the soldiers, their places of stopping, and the duration of the stop in the second, while issuing strict orders to follow these schedules with the utmost precision. On this basis, the columns moved to the front in small groups over carefully selected roads, and then the empty vehicles returned in large groups at an appropriate time for the information-seeking satellite to pass over them. Thus, the centers for studying aerial photographs received many images, but they lead to a conclusion that is the opposite of the truth. This was the desired goal, and the movements seemed to be completely counterproductive, and the units were mobilized in their positions, awaiting the zero hour.
3. Preparing hospitals to receive the wounded:
A number of hospitals had to be evacuated and equipped to receive the wounded who would arrive at the beginning of the battle, and this was considered one of the most important principles of war preparation, and since an action of this magnitude would certainly have been and the intelligence service had to find a solution to evacuate the required number of hospitals without raising any doubt. A precise plan was prepared within the deception plan, as the army dismissed a senior medical officer who had been called for military service, and this doctor was returned to civilian life, and immediately after assuming his previous job in the Ministry of Health, he was sent to work at Demerdash Hospital of Ain Shams University, which was chosen for its large size to be at the top of the list of hospitals.
According to the plan, the doctor discovered after his arrival at the hospital that the tetanus microbe was contaminating the main wards for patients, and because this doctor was upset and worried about this microbe that threatened the lives of patients, and after wasting two days of messages exchanged between the hospital and the Ministry of Health with some of the routine necessary to formulate the plan and the doctors’ discussions and notes… etc. The Ministry of Health ordered the hospital to be completely evacuated of patients and disinfected, and the doctor was assigned to visit the rest of the hospitals to discover the degree of their contamination. Newspapers published investigative reports on polluted hospitals and published pictures of disinfection workers spraying pesticides for disinfection in hospital wards. As soon as the first day of October came,The necessary number of hospitals had been completely evacuated, and were fully prepared to receive the wounded and injured as an important precaution.
4. Arrangement of lighting lamps:
The plan left nothing but clarification. The intelligence men expected a problem that would occur at the beginning of the battle, which was a crisis of light bulbs (batteries). This is because their quantities in the markets are not sufficient in the event of the outbreak of war, with the increased demand for them due to war conditions, where lighting is prohibited to protect against hostile air raids. It was not easy to arrange the required quantity of these lamps without attracting the attention of Israeli intelligence, which will monitor the matter abroad before the shipments arrive. Imported from abroad.
The solution came at the hands of one of the competent officers three months before the battle, as he sent a trained agent to a car parts smuggler, and told him that he had great knowledge of the desert paths and had friendships with customs men, and they agreed to smuggle a large deal of these lamps of different sizes. After the arrival of the last shipment, the border guards were waiting for them and seized what they had and what was in their stores. The entire quantity was confiscated and offered for sale in consumer malls at cheap prices. The matter seemed completely normal and did not pay attention to its true meaning and what was behind it, and the people used it during the days of battle.
5. Equipment transportation:
Orders were issued to the army to move repair and maintenance workshops to advanced locations behind the front, so that the answer to any experienced spy when standing on the road to ask tank or armored vehicle drivers about their destination would be the normal answer that would not raise any suspicions that they were on their way to the workshop.
Intelligence was also able to hide the crossing equipment, which is the primary target of the spies, as Egypt purchased twice the equipment needed for the crossing and transported half of it openly from the port of Alexandria to a desert area in Helwan. It was piled up in plain sight near a paved road and left in its place, never used. The other half, which was used for transit during the war, was transported to the front under the utmost secrecy.
The Egyptian army’s technical affairs teams also manufactured a large number of tanks and structural radar vehicles and hid these wooden structures inside holes similar to the holes for real equipment. The Zionist enemy leaders must have been mocking the naivety of the Egyptians for using outdated camouflage methods that they did not realize until it was too late. The time was that it was hiding rubber boats and some supplies that were actually used in the crossing.
6. Corruption of napalm pumping pipes:
One of the most important parts of the plan was related to disrupting the pipelines for pumping flammable materials (napalm) that the Zionist enemy had established on the shore of the canal. These devices were designed to pump onto the surface of the water along the canal a mixture of napalm and highly flammable oils with a large amount of gasoline to form a terrible barrier from fire. Like hell, it is impossible to penetrate.
The Egyptian forces conducted similar experiments carried out by the heroes of the Egyptian army. A small stream with the same specifications as a section of the Suez Canal was dug somewhere in the Egyptian desert, and an amount of napalm was pumped onto the surface of this stream. The heroes experimented with crossing through this fire to determine the percentage of losses that the forces would suffer. If you crossed the middle of this hell, the results were frightening and disappointing, as the temperature on the surface of the water during the ignition of the substance reached 700 degrees Celsius. A number of these heroes were martyred without succeeding in crossing the experimental waterway, so they were actually the first martyrs of the war before it began.
Instructions were issued on the necessity of stopping the pumping of this hideous substance, otherwise the losses would be huge. Intelligence continued its prominent role in exploiting and harnessing every possible information and succeeded in obtaining important and valuable information that was successfully exploited and had a major impact in disabling the napalm tubes. Egypt began broadcasting successive details about the napalm openings that It turned the canal’s waters into a raging inferno, and Israeli intelligence was certain that implementing the idea, despite the high costs, had created in the Egyptians a feeling of the impossibility of crossing the canal. Twelve hours before the start of the attack, and under the cover of darkness, two trained groups of Egyptian special forces crossed, and sabotaged the pumps and pipes carrying napalm after they Blocked Launch hatches.
7. Arranging for a British princess to visit Cairo on October 7:
It was announced in Cairo and Romania that Field Marshal Ahmed Ismail would receive the Romanian Minister of Defense on October 8 upon his arrival at Cairo International Airport. Egypt also notified the British Embassy of its readiness to receive the Princess on October 7, and the Princess flew from London to Rome in preparation for the visit, but this visit did not take place. Due to the closure of Cairo Airport After zero hour.
8. Moshe Dayan information:
The Zionist enemy’s Defense Minister Moshe Dayan – without knowing it, of course – made great contributions to gathering information, when he gave a comprehensive statement before the Knesset about the downing of the Libyan civilian passenger plane, which was shot down by Zionist Phantom fighters seven months before the war, and whose downing caused angry reactions and denunciations in the country. All over the world, Egyptian intelligence personnel concluded from Dayan’s speech, in which he explained the time the plane was spotted and the time instructions were issued to the pilots to shoot at it, that the Israeli radar takes two minutes to determine the path of a plane traveling at a speed of 750 km/hour, and that the Israeli Air Force command issues orders to take the appropriate action after three days. Full minutes. With this calculation, the Egyptian Air Force was able to establish a fixed schedule for the Israeli radar monitoring process, which benefited Air Force operations in determining the dates of sorties and instructing pilots in their tasks accurately.
9. Demobilization of soldiers:
In July 1972, the army issued its decision to demobilize 30,000 conscripts, a decision that constituted an important stage in the preparation stages insofar as it helped deceive the enemy and establish feelings of reassurance in the thoughts and conscience of its leaders. In fact, dispensing with this large number of conscripts was part of the development of the general mobilization plan. In Egypt, after the decision to stop transferring soldiers to the reserve, which was issued in 1967, had an impact on the morale of individuals after they had been conscripted for nearly six years. It also constituted a large financial burden to no avail because most of them were outside the combat formations, and in rear positions within Large numbers were allocated to protect the depth and guard vital installations. The decision made the enemy believe that the Egyptian army did not intend to fight any battle at the present time. Because things usually happened in a completely different way than what happened, the reserve soldiers were called immediately instead of demobilizing them and by all possible means to support the forces and mobilize combat personnel.
10. A year before the battle
The Egyptian government established a radio station that broadcasted in the Hebrew language and operated 12 hours a day. This station was directed to Israel and broadcast light Western music, interspersed with news bulletins and comments calling for peace.
The strategic deception plan was accompanied by an operational deception plan on the battlefront and along the canal.
and the acts of deception on the battlefront can be summarized as follows:
1. The trick of repeating the training maneuver:
Throughout the summer of 1972, the Egyptian forces were training to cross the canal under the nose and eyes of the enemy forces. In the face of the Israeli cameras, the Egyptians prepared beaches to land on, built bridges, and films taken that day were shown on Israeli television. The Egyptians did so at least once in 1973. By representing the crossing process in the least possible details, the Egyptian newspapers reported the progress of this process, which the enemy soldiers witnessed in their trenches on the eastern bank of the waterway. This repetition of training for the crossing process is the enemy’s biggest deception. It only aroused in them laughter and mockery of the inability of the Egyptian forces to do so and cross the largest defensive line in history. The interesting thing is that the crossing of the Egyptian forces on October 6 was exactly the same as what had happened before, with all its precise details, and thus the enemy believed that it was a training exercise. Ordinary lay before his eyes, and it really was, while at the same time it was a practical exercise in the crossing plan.
2. Deliberately repeating the procedure of general mobilization, summoning, and then demobilizing the forces, which made the Israeli leadership very hesitant to declare a state of maximum readiness regarding every mobilization carried out by Egypt and to carry out a complete mobilization of the forces before the start of the war.
3. The plan of attack included extensive deception of the enemy; In order not to discover the direction of the main attack early, the attack was carried out along the front, in the depths of Sinai, and across Lake Timsah, with the aim of confusing and deceiving the enemy.
4. Continuing the normal daily activities along the front and avoiding taking any action that could indicate a change in the course of normal life. Orders were issued to a group of soldiers to suck canes and eat oranges to confront the enemy while they were in a state of sluggishness and lethargy as a camouflage.
5. Orders were issued not to inflate rubber boats intended for crossing before the start of the air strike. Because experiments have shown that the sound of soldiers blowing air in these boats can be heard at a distance of 800 meters.
6. Orders were issued not to break the fasting soldiers during Ramadan until the start of the operation.
7. Repeatedly occupying Egyptian command centers on the front. Many experiments were conducted to occupy and operate in these centers until this process became a familiar routine that does not raise any suspicions or fears.
8. The Egyptian army established an earthen berm on the western bank of the canal facing the enemy forces’ concentration areas to conceal military movements. It also created a number of berms in depth at different inclination angles for the same purpose. These berms achieved their goals as they made the enemy convinced that the Egyptian army had resorted to a strategy Defensively, these barriers were protected. They also helped hide the movements of Egyptian armored forces towards the canal shore to take attack positions when the war began.
9. Moving Egyptian forces in different and secondary directions, and conducting occasional movements within the front and reverse movements to and from the front under the guise of training, with constant change in the size and conditions of the ground forces and the locations of naval vessels in ports and anchorages inside and outside the Republic.
10. It took a period of 3 to 4 months to gather forces for the attack by pushing the units into small detachments, and accumulating supplies successively on the front three weeks before the start of the attack, under the guise of carrying out engineering work to conduct a major joint maneuver under the name (Liberation 23), and the fighting actually began during this period. The maneuver, and the training maps were raised to be replaced by maps of the offensive operation (Badr), and Operation Badr began at two o’clock by launching an air strike that broke the back of the enemy forces and achieved the principle of surprise, which completely changed the plans towards achieving victory.
11. Setting the start time for combat operations at two o’clock in the afternoon and crossing the fortified Bar Lev line is considered an unexpected surprise for the enemy. It is known that the start time for military operations is usually at first light or last light, but the genius of the Egyptian leadership and military changed the scales and timings and demonstrated the organizational ability, precision and commitment of the army.
The great support provided by the Arab armies had a great impact in achieving victory and destroying the myth of the invincible army in that historical war. Although many media outlets no longer mention that role of the participating Arab forces, we emphasize that the Libyan army in turn contributed to the 1973 war and participated in The Obour Epic carried out its duty in supplying the Egyptian forces with many weapons, weapons, and military equipment that were actually used in the war by the ground and air forces, which included large numbers of armored personnel carriers, reconnaissance vehicles, transport vehicles, mortars, mortars of various calibres, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and ammunition, and supported Libya in particular. The Egyptian Air Force has a large number of Mirage aircraft, MiG-21 aircraft, and helicopters with their own air ammunition and missiles, in addition to air reconnaissance equipment and air defense equipment that contributed significantly to the battle, including portable missiles, Shilka vehicles, and M/T cannons, as well as naval equipment, including Rubber boats, devices, equipment, marine radars, and mobile wireless stations. The Libyan pilots also participated side by side with their brothers in the Battle of Pride and Dignity, in addition to what was provided by the Arab units participating in the war out of their belief in their duty towards Egypt, the land of the Canaan, and to avenge the blood of the martyrs in the wars of 1948 and 1967 and to participate in the war. Arab dignity and enhancing the status of Egypt, which we always and forever consider the beating heart of Arabism.
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