Arab Military & Culture

[Philip the Arab]

In short arab armies are only good for killing and keeping their own people in control.

Not surprising.

Depends on who's running the show in the country to be honest. Monarchies(Especially the rich ones) seem somewhat better at conventional battles than dictatorships for a few different reasons.

Mainly training, funding, equipment is a lot better and this directly translates on the air forces mainly which is usually leagues ahead of the ground forces. They are also generally more loyal, especially those who live good lives while their parents or grandparents lived in abject poverty.

 

[Ryder]

Actually we will be more happy if you convert back to your Byzantine roots or tengrism when Anatolia was a Byzantine it was a great civilization if your sultans converted to Catholicism you wouldn’t miss the renaissance and the enlightenment or the industrial revolution but I think your sultans refused because Christianity didn’t allow sex slaves or multiple wives which the sultans and caliphs didn’t like.

Pre Islamic Turks especially Tengrist Turks had multiple wives and concubines.

Whats so bad about having multiple wives???

The Industrial revolution began in the Protestant North. Protestant Work ethic is what began the Industrial revolution. Thats why Protestant Christian countries are more richer than Catholic ones. Only Catholic nation that is rich is France.

Compare Northern and Southern Europe you even see which one is richer.

 

[GoatsMilk]

The real mind boggling defeat for the Arabs was when the Libyans fought chad and were handily defeated by Africans.

 

[Ryder]

The real mind boggling defeat for the Arabs was when the Libyans fought chad and were handily defeated by Africans.

The Libyan army that invaded Chad was led by Haftar himself

In 2020, Haftar even used Chad Mercs and militias to take Tripoli and he still lost

The guy was a born loser. Toyota war is an underrated war a bunch of Chadians with Toyota pickups destroyed a modern Libyan army.

One of the worst defeats in modern warfare history. I can even say that this victory even surpasses Israel's six day war. Israel was much better equipped than the Chadian army.

When we are talking about being under equipped the Chadian army comes to our mind.

 

[dani92]

Pre Islamic Turks especially Tengrist Turks had multiple wives and concubines.

Whats so bad about having multiple wives???

The Industrial revolution began in the Protestant North. Protestant Work ethic is what began the Industrial revolution. Thats why Protestant Christian countries are more richer than Catholic ones. Only Catholic nation that is rich is France.

Compare Northern and Southern Europe you even see which one is richer.

I was replying to his claim of ottomans refusal to convert to Christianity one of many reasons maybe it was Christianity forbidden of multi wives.

 

[Saithan]

If you want to talk about Arabs military culture and turning points etc. post here.

 

[Ryder]

500 years ago there was letters between Sultan Sulieman and Turgut Reis. Turgut was pleading with Sulieman not to send him any more Arab soldiers since they were incapable of fighting modern warfare. He mentioned how they lacked discipline, lacked technical ability and were quick to break their lines in the face of any adversity. That the Arab soldiers were more of a danger then a benefit to the Ottoman forces.

Its Barbarossa that complained.

Barbarossa also complained about French soldiers getting drunk but he also said they can fight.

 

[Ryder]

Khalid Bin Walid is also a top commander. He deserves really good credit I mean he even gave the Muslim Arabs led by the Prophet Muhammed their earliest defeats.

Arabs were at their top under the Rashidun, Ummayads, Abbassids, Al Andalus mainly under the Ummayad led Emirate of Cordoba and the Fatimids.

After that they fell off pretty badly.

 

[Ardabas34]

Khalid Bin Walid is also a top commander. He deserves really good credit I mean he even gave the Muslim Arabs led by the Prophet Muhammed their earliest defeats.

Arabs were at their top under the Rashidun, Ummayads, Abbassids, Al Andalus mainly under the Ummayad led Emirate of Cordoba and the Fatimids.

After that they fell off pretty badly.

Exclude Fatimids.
Fatimids were terrible warriors. They relied on Berbers.
They had shameful defeats against crusaders.

 

[Ryder]

Exclude Fatimids.
Fatimids were terrible warriors. They relied on Berbers.
They had shameful defeats against crusaders.

Thought they were formidable keep on forgetting nearly everybody jumped them.

What i find interesting is how the Seljuks main target was to conquer egypt not anatolia.

History would be so different if the Seljuks took egypt.

 

[Bosanski Vojnik]

In short arab armies are only good for killing and keeping their own people in control.

Not surprising.

To be honest I don't think it's fair of that youtube video to include the Iran-Iraq war or Operation Desert Storm (I'll explain about the events of 1991 later on in another post)

The Iraqis actually performed rather well in the Iran-Iraq war given the circumstances. Whilst Historians like to claim that Iraq had some sort of massive advantage they actually did not. At least not in 1980 anyway.

Iraq launched a surprise attack against Iran in what was essentially a peer to peer conflict. The only advantage the Iraqis had in the beginning was really the factor of surprise and the fact that the Iranians were disorganised after the 1979 revolution. Iran had a better Air Force at the time - F-14, F-5 and F-4 Phantom. The Tomcat at the time was state of the art and the Iranians had enough spare parts in storage to operate these jets for at least 3-4 years. Also numerous state of the art AH-1 attack helicopters were used by the Iranians. Hardly an easy foe.

Also Iraqis invaded mainly using T-55s and T-62s whilst the Iranians had Chieftains and M60s - arguably better tanks.

One of the largest tank battles in the War in 1981 resulted in a massive win for the Iraqis:

Operation Nasr - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Iranians had the advantage of man power - thanks to Revolutionary guards and various militias (the overwhelming numbers from human waves providing a nightmare for static positions such as mortars, artillery, heavy machine guns etc.. Iran also had state of the art weapons such as AGM-65 maverick at the time and armed their F-4 Phantoms and AH-1 attack helicopters with it. The Iraqis had nothing like that in the irArsenal.

in 1980 Iraqi Air Defences where still in a rather "primitive" state so the Iranians already had a massive air advantage from day 1. I believe the Iranians even secretly coordinated air raids with both Israel and Syria into Iraqi territory. Despite that the Iraqis still managed to capture large swathes of Iranian territory in the ground war from 1980-82

The Iranians were covertly supported and re-supplied by United States, Israel & France and had direct support from Syria, Libya and China.

It was only in the later stages of the war. Specifically 1985-1988 when the Iraqis gained the technological advantage in Artillery, Air Power and tanks (thanks to the T-72). However the Iraqis were severely crippled from within due to facing a Kurdish Insurgency in the North and various Shia uprisings throughout Iraq and sabotage by Shia within the actual Iraqi Army itself.

Despite facing all these difficulties - covert and direct support to Iran from various 1st world and Arab countries, deficiency of air power compared to Iran in early stages of the war and slightly less parity in terms of state of battle tanks at their disposal - the Iraqis still managed to capture more Iranian territory throughout the war than the Mullahs did to Iraq.

In fact it's a statement to Iraqi Armed forces in the 1980s that they did not lose any cities like Basrah or Amarah to the Iranians given what they were up against.

 

[Ryder]

To be honest I don't think it's fair of that youtube video to include the Iran-Iraq war or Operation Desert Storm (I'll explain about the events of 1991 later on in another post)

The Iraqis actually performed rather well in the Iran-Iraq war given the circumstances. Whilst Historians like to claim that Iraq had some sort of massive advantage they actually did not. At least not in 1980 anyway.

Iraq launched a surprise attack against Iran in what was essentially a peer to peer conflict. The only advantage the Iraqis had in the beginning was really the factor of surprise and the fact that the Iranians were disorganised after the 1979 revolution. Iran had a better Air Force at the time - F-14, F-5 and F-4 Phantom. The Tomcat at the time was state of the art and the Iranians had enough spare parts in storage to operate these jets for at least 3-4 years. Also numerous state of the art AH-1 attack helicopters were used by the Iranians. Hardly an easy foe.

Also Iraqis invaded mainly using T-55s and T-62s whilst the Iranians had Chieftains and M60s - arguably better tanks.

One of the largest tank battles in the War in 1981 resulted in a massive win for the Iraqis:

Operation Nasr - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Iranians had the advantage of man power - thanks to Revolutionary guards and various militias (the overwhelming numbers from human waves providing a nightmare for static positions such as mortars, artillery, heavy machine guns etc.. Iran also had state of the art weapons such as AGM-65 maverick at the time and armed their F-4 Phantoms and AH-1 attack helicopters with it. The Iraqis had nothing like that in the irArsenal.

in 1980 Iraqi Air Defences where still in a rather "primitive" state so the Iranians already had a massive air advantage from day 1. I believe the Iranians even secretly coordinated air raids with both Israel and Syria into Iraqi territory. Despite that the Iraqis still managed to capture large swathes of Iranian territory in the ground war from 1980-82

The Iranians were covertly supported and re-supplied by United States, Israel & France and had direct support from Syria, Libya and China.

It was only in the later stages of the war. Specifically 1985-1988 when the Iraqis gained the technological advantage in Artillery, Air Power and tanks (thanks to the T-72). However the Iraqis were severely crippled from within due to facing a Kurdish Insurgency in the North and various Shia uprisings throughout Iraq and sabotage by Shia within the actual Iraqi Army itself.

Despite facing all these difficulties - covert and direct support to Iran from various 1st world and Arab countries, deficiency of air power compared to Iran in early stages of the war and slightly less parity in terms of state of battle tanks at their disposal - the Iraqis still managed to capture more Iranian territory throughout the war than the Mullahs did to Iraq.

In fact it's a statement to Iraqi Armed forces in the 1980s that they did not lose any cities like Basrah or Amarah to the Iranians given what they were up against.

Interesting post, im always willing to learn.

 

[dani92]

N

Khalid Bin Walid is also a top commander. He deserves really good credit I mean he even gave the Muslim Arabs led by the Prophet Muhammed their earliest defeats.

Arabs were at their top under the Rashidun, Ummayads, Abbassids, Al Andalus mainly under the Ummayad led Emirate of Cordoba and the Fatimids.

After that they fell off pretty badly.

no he didn’t but they gave him to much credits.

 

[Kaptaan]

Egyptian,

Having read extensively on the Yom Kippur war Egyptian Army performance was more than satisfactory. The tide of battle turned because massive US reinforcements and live intelligence provided to Israel. Egypt was never going to win when the fist inside the Israeli glove was American. This reality dawned on the Egyptian ruling elite and which would lead to US brokerd peace that in the end cost the life of Anwar Sadat.

The Eyptian crossing and breaching of the Israeli Bar Lev line on the Suez Canal would do proud of a WW2 German Panzer Army blitzkreig onslought.

I would also suggest that using the sterile "Arab" nomenclature is a very crude in making sense of a huge demography. What do Saudi's have to share with Algerians other than language and religion? Each of the Arab country brings it's own historical tradition. I personally have very low regard for the combat ability of GCC or oil rich Arab countries. Conversely I have high regard for Egyptians and Algerians.

 

[Kaptaan]

The Iraqis actually performed rather well in the Iran-Iraq war given the circumstances. Whilst Historians like to claim that Iraq had some sort of massive advantage they actually did not. At least not in 1980 anyway.

With respect I disagree. Iraqi's performance was well below par. The Iranian revolution wiped out most of the monarchists and pro Shah officer cadre of the Iranian Army who tended to be secular, educated and often of Azerbaijani extraction. The purge and the collapse of the Imperial Iranian Army had left it rudderless with most of it's officer corp wiped out. The new revolutionery government looked at the Iranian Army as a bulwark of the Imperial Shah order.

In addition 99% of the Iranian military equipment was of US origin who promptly blocked all spares and support leading to most of Iran's defence platforms to come to quick idle including fighters. This desperate shortage of spares led to the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

In this crippled Iran going through throes instability Saddam decided to try his luck. Despite all the advantages the Iranians managed to stop the Iraqi advance which was reminscent of the Turks halting the Greek advance on the Sakarya using desperate tactics. The Iranians literally flung waves of human cannon fodder to bring the Iraqi armoured attacks to a halt. The price Iran paid was millions of dead. But they halted and then pushed Iraq back.

 

[GoatsMilk]

With respect I disagree. Iraqi's performance was well below par. The Iranian revolution wiped out most of the monarchists and pro Shah officer cadre of the Iranian Army who tended to be secular, educated and often of Azerbaijani extraction. The purge and the collapse of the Imperial Iranian Army had left it rudderless with most of it's officer corp wiped out. The new revolutionery government looked at the Iranian Army as a bulwark of the Imperial Shah order.

In addition 99% of the Iranian military equipment was of US origin who promptly blocked all spares and support leading to most of Iran's defence platforms to come to quick idle including fighters. This desperate shortage of spares led to the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

In this crippled Iran going through throes instability Saddam decided to try his luck. Despite all the advantages the Iranians managed to stop the Iraqi advance which was reminscent of the Turks halting the Greek advance on the Sakarya using desperate tactics. The Iranians literally flung waves of human cannon fodder to bring the Iraqi armoured attacks to a halt. The price Iran paid was millions of dead. But they halted and then pushed Iraq back.

Personally i don't see it. Turks just went through world war one fighting Russia, Britain, France, Italy etc. Then the Greeks get armed and trained by the British and are sent to invade Turkey with superior numbers and gear. At this point Greece actually has a bigger population then what the Turks are in control of.

Who did Iran fight before taking mad saddam on? Iran was also much bigger in population then Iraq.

Ataturk was a tactical genius who within a couple of years completely routed the enemies out of Turkey. Iran spent 10 years fighting a poor arab army, lost millions and in the end gained no land, merely stopped an invasion across the hardest land to pass the Zargos mountains.

 

[Ryder]

Personally i don't see it. Turks just went through world war one fighting Russia, Britain, France, Italy etc. Then the Greeks get armed and trained by the British and are sent to invade Turkey with superior numbers and gear. At this point Greece actually has a bigger population then what the Turks are in control of.

Who did Iran fight before taking mad saddam on? Iran was also much bigger in population then Iraq.

Ataturk was a tactical genius who within a couple of years completely routed the enemies out of Turkey. Iran spent 10 years fighting a poor arab army, lost millions and in the end gained no land, merely stopped an invasion across the hardest land to pass the Zargos mountains.

Iran's invasion of Iraq ended up in utter failure.

Lets not forget how they used kids as cannon fodder in the minefields. Khomeini was a psychopath.

 

[Kaptaan]

Ataturk was a tactical genius who within a couple of years completely routed the enemies out of Turkey. Iran spent 10 years fighting a poor arab army, lost millions and in the end gained no land, merely stopped an invasion across the hardest land to pass the Zargos mountains.

My point was not that Iran was a military genius. But that Iraq attacked Iran when it was going through internal instability. As somebody lived through that era I know the Iranian Impeerial Army of the Shah had been emascultated by the new mulah regime. They did not trust it's officer corp and purged it of most of it's experianced officers.

In fact such was the distrust of the new mullah regime that they set up a alternate army of their own made from mobs who had provided the street power to bring about the revolution. That organization today is the backbone of Iran - today known as Iranian Revolutionery Guard. Even today the army is a separate entity but IRGC enjoys the primary loyalty of the mullah regime.

Let us not also forget Iraq started the war with a goal. To capture Iranian Kuzestan and Shat Al Arab waterway along with all the oil region which had Arab majority. In that Iraq failed.

Iran as I said was going through unstability and the mullah had not yet quite consolidated their rule. Kurds, leftist Tudeh Party supported by Moscow had considerable forces and were causing trouble. Inside the army there were groups bitterly opposed to mullahs. The country was on brink of civil war. There was power struggle going on and Iraq War provided the cover under which the mullahs came out on top by wiping out other groups. People don't know how close the communists of Tudeh came to taking over Tehran and placing Iran in the Soviet Camp as a fully fledged communist state.

n April the United States attempted to rescue the hostages by secretly landing aircraft and troops near Tabas, along the Dasht-e Kavir desert in eastern Iran. Two helicopters on the mission failed, however, and when the mission commander decided to abort the mission, a helicopter and a C-130 transport aircraft collided, killing eight United States servicemen.

The failed rescue attempt had negative consequences for the Iranian military. Radical factions in the IRP and left-wing groups charged that Iranian officers opposed to the Revolution had secretly assisted the United States aircraft to escape radar detection. They renewed their demand for a purge of the military command. Bani Sadr was able to prevent such a purge, but he was forced to reshuffle the top military command. In June 1980, the chief judge of the Army Military Revolutionary Tribunal announced the discovery of an antigovernment plot centered on the military base in Piranshahr in Kurdestan. This is typical of what was going on.

Twenty-seven junior and warrant officers were arrested. In July the authorities announced they had uncovered a plot centered on the Shahrokhi Air Base in Hamadan. Six hundred officers and men were implicated. Ten of the alleged plotters were killed when members of the Pasdaran broke into their headquarters. Approximately 300 officers, including two generals, were arrested, and warrants were issued for 300 others. The government charged the accused with plotting to overthrow the state and seize power in the name of exiled leader Bakhtiar. Ayatollah Khomeini ignored Bani Sadr's plea for clemency and said those involved must be executed. As many as 140 officers were shot on orders of the military tribunal; wider purges of the armed forces followed.

 

[mulj]

Arabs are good foot soldiers, maybe one of the bravest and best in the worl, were problem begins is trasnforming that bravery into effective and profesional military force, there comes into the influence rotten social structure with the filling ranks.

 

[Merzifonlu]

I cannot say anything about the Egyptian army. But I can cite an American observation for the remaining Arab armies.

The Americans say that an Arab officer who has experience in combat or attends military courses does not share this knowledge with other officers. He keeps what he knows to himself. He thinks that this will make him indispensable in the army.

Also, tribalism is very common in Arab armies. As a result of these bad habits, shameful defeats are inevitable for the Arab armies.

The Americans were very surprised that tank officers in the Iraqi army did not know anything about Fieldmarshal Rommel.