I jut finished "The Heights of Courage", by an Israeli tank battalion commander in the Golan in 1973. The book was suggested by an earlier thread here.
It's the first account I've read by a leader of a small armored unit and some of the things surprised me.
The Israelis don't like to operate buttoned up – the tank CO is usually looking out of his hatch. The result seems to be lots of officer and NCO casualties in the tanks. Once the tank leader was hors de combat, the crew often bailed. In one case, most the crew bailed right away. The driver continued to the rear for a while until the tank got stuck. Then he bailed, leaving the tank's motor running and the CO's body in the turret. Most times when Syrian tanks got hit, surviving crew took off running.
Tanks that were hit but not knocked out often lit out for the armorer station in the rear to get repairs, like one tank that took a hit where the turret met the hull and could no longer traverse. Most games I've seen tanks are either fully functional or blown up.
Once the Israelis went on the offensive, a good number of tanks threw tracks while advancing, including the battalion CO's.
The battalion operated most of the time with no infantry support, finally being promised a platoon when ordered to attack. Of course, this showed up behind schedule and the attack started without it.
Finally, the Israeli air force bombed the battalion twice, slightly less than the Syrian air force did.
The parts that were not surprising but still worth reading were the constant confusion, the extreme exhaustion of all the troops and the accidents, some fatal.
War makes cracking good reading and is something to avoid in reality.
is painting some ground targets as he needs them.
