Bar Lev Line

Bar Lev Line
Sinai Peninsula Egypt
Type	Defensive line
Site information
Controlled by	Israel
Site history
Built	1968–69
In use	1969–73
Materials	Concrete, sand
Battles/wars	Yom Kippur War (October 1973 War)

The Bar Lev Line (Hebrew: קו בר לב, Kav Bar Lev; Arabic: خط برليف, Khaṭṭ Barlīf) was a chain of fortifications built by Israel along the eastern coast of the Suez Canal after it captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Description

The Bar Lev Line evolved from a group of rudimentary fortifications placed along the canal line. In response to Egyptian artillery bombardments during the War of Attrition, the Israelis decided to develop the fortifications into an elaborate defense system spanning 160 kilometers along Suez Canal, with the exception of the Great Bitter Lake (where a canal crossing was unlikely due to the width of the lake). The Bar Lev Line was designed to defend against any major Egyptian assault across the canal, and was expected to function as a "graveyard for Egyptian troops".

The line, costing around 300 million in 1973 dollars (~1.4 billion in 2008 dollars), was named after Israeli Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev. The line was built at the Suez Canal, a unique water barrier, which Moshe Dayan described as "one of the best anti-tank ditches in the world". The line incorporated a massive, continuous sand wall, lining the entire canal (except for the Bitter Lake), and was supported by a concrete wall. The sand wall varied in height from 20-25 meters, at a 45-65 degree incline. The sand wall and its concrete support prevented any armored or amphibious units from landing on the east bank of the Suez Canal without any prior engineering preparations. Israeli planners estimated it would take at least 24 hours, probably a full 48 hours for the Egyptians to breach the sand wall and establish a bridge across the canal.

Immediately behind this sand wall was the front line of Israeli fortifications. Following the War of Attrition the total number of fortifications were 22, and these incorporated 35 strongpoints. The fortifications were designed to be manned by a platoon. The strongpoints, built several stories into the sand, were on average distanced less than five kilometers from each other, but at likely crossing points they were less than 900 meters apart. The strongpoints incorporated trenches, minefields, barbed wire and a sand embankment. Major strongpoints had up to 26 bunkers with medium and heavy machineguns, 24 troop shelters, six mortar positions, four bunkers housing anti-aircraft weapons, and three firing positions for tanks. The strongpoints were surrounded by nearly fifteen circles of barbed wire and minefields to a depth of 200 meters. A strongpoint's perimeter averaged 200 by 350 meters. The bunkers and shelters provided protection against anything under 1,000 pound bombs, and offered luxuries to the defenders such as air conditioning. Between 500-1,000 meters behind the canal were prepared firing positions designed to be occupied by tanks to support the strongpoints. Some of the names of the strongpoints were Tasa, Maftzach, Milano, Mezach, Chizayon, Mifreket, Orcal, Budapest (the largest), Nisan, Lituf, Chashiva.

Behind the forward canal-line of fortifications were eleven strongholds around five to eight kilometers behind the canal, built along sandy hills. Each stronghold was designed to hold a company of troops.

As a final touch to take advantage of the water obstacle, the Israelis installed an underwater pipe system designed to pump flammable crude oil into the Suez Canal to create a sheet of flame. This burning furnace would scorch any Egyptians attempting a crossing. Some Israeli sources claim the system was actually unreliable, and apparently only a couple of taps were operational. Nevertheless, the Egyptians took this threat very seriously, and, on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, during the late evening of 5 October, teams of Egyptian frogmen blocked the underwater openings with concrete.

To support the Bar Lev Line, the Israelis had built an elaborate system of roads. Three main roads ran north-south. The first was Lexicon Road, running along the canal, which allowed the Israelis to move between the fortifications and conduct patrols. The second was Artillery Road, around 10-12 kilometers from the canal. Its name came from the twenty artillery and air defense positions that were located on the road. It also linked armored concentration areas and logistical bases. Lateral Road, thirty kilometers from the canal, was meant to allow the concentration of Israeli operational reserves which, in case of an Egyptian offensive, would counterattack the main Egyptian assault. A number of other roads running east to west were designed to facilitate the movement of Israeli troops towards the canal.

The defense of the Sinai depended upon two plans, Dovecoat (שׁוֹבָךְ יוֹנִים/Shovakh Yonim) and Rock (סֶלַע/Sela). In both plans, the Israeli General Staff expected the Bar-Lev Line to serve as a "stop line" or kav atzira—a defensive line that had to be held at all cost. As noted by an Israeli colonel shortly after the War of Attrition, "The line was created to provide military answers to two basic needs: first, to prevent the possibility of a major Egyptian assault on Sinai with the consequent creation of a bridgehead which could lead to all-out war; and, second, to reduce as much as possible the casualties among the defending troops."

Israeli planning was based on a 48-hour advance warning by intelligence services of any impending Egyptian attack. During these 48-hours, the Israeli Air Force would assault enemy air defense systems while Israeli forces deployed as planned. The Israelis expected an Egyptian attack would be defeated by armored brigades supported by the superior Israeli Air Force.

Dovecoat tasked a regular armored division to the defense of the Sinai. The division was supported by an additional tank battalion, twelve infantry companies and seventeen artillery batteries. This gave a total of over 300 tanks, 70 artillery guns, and 18,000 troops. These forces, which represented the Sinai garrison, were tasked with the mission of defeating an Egyptian crossing at or near the canal line. It called for around 800 soldiers to man the forward fortifications on the canal line. Meanwhile, along Artillery Road, a brigade of 110 tanks was stationed with the objective of advancing and occupying the firing positions and tanks ramparts along the canal in case of an Egyptian attack. There were two additional armored brigades, one to reinforce the forward brigade, and the other to counterattack the main Egyptian attack.

Should the regular armored division proved incapable of repulsing the Egyptian attack, the Israeli Military would activate Rock, mobilizing two reserve armored divisions with support elements; implementation of Rock signified a major war.

History

Despite the reduction in the number of fortifications after the war of attrition, the Bar-Lev Line still presented a formidable barrier, and it saw continuous improvements and modifications. The Egyptian General Staff had to devote a great deal of time, effort, and resources in developing a plan for overcoming the Israeli defenses. While the Bar-Lev Line was not constructed as an absolute defense, the Israeli senior command still came to expect it to function as a graveyard for Egyptian troops, preventing any major Egyptian effort to establish bridgeheads on the east bank.

The line was wildly popular with the Israeli public but some generals, notably Ariel Sharon, were very critical of it.

War and destruction

During the Yom Kippur War (October 1973 War) the Egyptians, under the leadership of Egyptian Chief of staff, Saad El Shazly,were able to easily overrun the Bar Lev Line in less than 2 hours due to the element of surprise and overwhelming fire power. To deal with the massive earthen ramparts, the Egyptians used water cannons fashioned from hoses attached to dredging pumps in the canal. Other methods involving explosives, artillery, and bulldozers were too costly in time and required nearly ideal working conditions. For example, sixty men, 600 pounds of explosives, and one bulldozer required five to six hours, uninterrupted by Israeli fire, to clear 1,500 cubic meters of sand. Employing a bulldozer on the east bank while protecting the congested landing site from Israeli artillery would be nearly impossible during the initial hours of the assault phase. Construction of the much-needed bridges would consequently begin much too late.

At the end of 1971, a young Egyptian officer, Baki Zaki Yousef , suggested a small, light, gasoline-fueled pump as the answer to the crossing dilemma. So, the Egyptian military purchased 300 British-made pumps and found that five such pumps could blast 1,500 cubic meters of sand in three hours. Then, in 1972, the Corps of Engineers acquired 150 more-powerful German pumps. Now a combination of two German and three British pumps would cut the breaching time down to only two hours. This timetable fell far below that predicted by the Israelis, who apparently failed to appreciate the significance of the water cannons used by the Egyptians during their training exercises. These cannons pumped out powerful jets of water creating 81 breaches in the line and removing three million cubic metres of packed dirt on the first day of the war.

The Egyptians assaulted the Bar-Lev Line with two field armies and forces from Port Sa'id and the Red Sea Military District. The Second Field Army covered the area from north of Qantara to south of Deversoir, while the Third Field Army was responsible for the area from Bitter Lakes to south of Port Tawfiq.

The Egyptians began their simultaneous air and artillery attacks by flying 250 Egyptian planes, MiG-21s, MiG-19s, and MiG-17s, attacking their assigned targets in the Sinai. Meanwhile, 2,000 artillery pieces opened fire against all of the strongpoints along the Bar-Lev Line, a barrage that lasted fifty-three minutes and dropped 10,500 shells in the first minute alone, or 175 shells per second.

Within the first hour of the war, the Egyptian Corps of Engineers tackled the sand barrier. Seventy engineer groups, each one responsible for opening a single passage, worked from wooden boats. With hoses attached to water pumps, they began attacking the sand obstacle. Many breaches occurred within two to three hours of the onset of operations — according to schedule; engineers at several places, however, experienced unexpected problems. The sand from the breached openings in the barrier was reduced to mud one meter deep in some areas. This problem required that engineers emplace floors of wood, rails, stone, sandbags, steel plates, or metal nets for the passage of heavy vehicles. The Third Army, in particular, had difficulty in its sector. There, the clay proved resistant to high-water pressure and, consequently, the engineers experienced delays in their breaching. Engineers in the Second Army completed the erection of their bridges and ferries within nine hours, whereas Third Army needed more than sixteen hours.

Remarks

According to the Jewish historian Rabinovich, strategically, the Bar-Lev line was a blunder — too lightly manned to be an effective defensive line and too heavily manned to be an expendable tripwire. Moreover, some say the idea of the line was counter-intuitive to the strengths of Israeli battle tactics which in their core relied on agile mobile forces moving rapidly through the battlefield rather than utilizing a heavy reliance on fixed defenses.

Ariel Sharon, who was appointed in 1969 to the commander of the southern frontier, criticized the static defense of the Bar-Lev line, and proposed an agile and mobile defence, instead. Still, he fortified the line to provide better defense to the IDF troops in the War of Attrition.

According to Lt. General Saad El Shazli's account of the Yom Kippur War, in a book titled The Crossing of the Suez, the plethora of Western military experts who visited the Bar-Lev Line, deemed it insurmountable.

The area of the Bar Lev Line currently falls in a restricted Egyptian Army zone, next to the Suez Canal. Several of the positions have been made available to the public as museums though. They are: Nozel, Lakekan, Notsa and Tzeidar. The best way to get to Nozel and Lakekan is via the No 6 Ferry at Ismailiya. Tzeidar and Notsa can be reached through the car tunnel underneath the Suez Canal at Suez City. The entrance fees are in the 2-3 dollar range.

The area that encompasses the former Bar Lev Line is still filled with old land mines and other UXOs. Visitors are not allowed to pick anything up. A good further source of information on the line is Simon Dunstan's Book "Israeli Fortifications of the 1973 War" by Osprey.

See also

• Maginot Line
• Siegfried Line
• Atlantic Wall
• Taunton Stop Line

References

Bibliography

• The Yom Kippur War : The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich. ISBN 0-8052-4176-0
• The 1973 Arab-Israeli war: The albatross of decisive victory by Dr. George W. Gawrych. Leavenworth papers US ISSN 0195-3451