Published by Harper & Row at $25. ISBN 0-06-011112-7.
This, the latest and heaviest book on the Arab-Israeli Wars, has the answers within its 669 pages to many of the outstanding historical problems left unsolved by previous books. The difference is that Colonel Dupuy has by some magic been able to enlist the active co-operation of some fifty plus field and general officers of all the armies involved and has meticulously checked their stories and written sources against each other to find out what really happened.
The majority of previous books describe combat between Israeli supermen and Arab born-losers. The Israelis in this book are not supermen, though they are very, very good. They make mistakes, but they are aggressive instead of back-side sitting mistakes, and they repair them with guts and intelligence that any army might envy.
The Arabs are much more competent than has been described elsewhere, with a few exceptions brave, and of at least average training except for irregulars, who put up a pitiful performance in real war. However, they suffer from loud mouthed politicians, political generals of little talent interfering in operations from the rear, lack of coordination between allies, and just plain bad luck.
The book's strength is in its portrayal of the command situation, and it is for this that it should be required reading for all writers of wargames rules for modern combat. The technical aspects of the interrelationships between the differing weapon systems on the two sides are not treated in depth, but as they have already been covered adequately in previous books and this one is already nearly 700 pages, it would be churlish to complain.
I found a few minor errors, mainly on the technical weapons side, and places where accounts of British involvement do not fit what I thought were the facts, but these are not worth mentioning here.
Appendices give a full mathematical analysis by the HERO method of all the principle battles in 1967 and 1973. Game designers will find these especially useful.
More Reviews
Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. 1 #2
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1979 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com