THE SUITCASE MISSILE AND THE 1973 WAR

______In a series of Middle East Wars fought in the middle of the 20th Century the Arabs were consistently beaten by the Israelis. In 1949, 1956 and 1967 the various Arab participants (depending on who showed up) got their clock cleaned by the superior strategy and elan of their foes.

______Egypt got tired of this state of affairs and decided to do some planning of its own. Egyptian forces were reorganized, a new sense of purpose instilled in its soldiers. Egypt demanded and got new weapons from its patron, the USSR, and received enough surface-to-air missiles and other antiaircraft weapons to build a "wall" to protect Egypt from another devastating air attack like the one Israel hit Egypt with in 1967. New model T-72 tanks arrived, the best the Soviets had. And when the Egyptians and the Syrian forces launched a surprise attack on Israel in October 1973 they also had what would became known as the "suitcase missile."
______Known to NATO as the AT3 "Sagger" and called by the Soviets the 9M14 "Maljutka" this missile was one of many surprises the Egyptians threw at Israel. The self-contained unit was transported by a single soldier carrying it by its handled case. When the soldier wanted to set it up he opened the case. The lid served as the missile's launcher once it was removed from the case's interior. The bottom of the case served as the controller.

______When fired the missile was guided to its target by the articulated eyepiece sticking up out of the case. All the sagger gunner had to do was keep the target in the crosshairs; the controller sent corrects to the missile by means of a wire that trailed from behind it. When the missile struck its target the shaped warhead could penetrate the armor of just about any tank in the world at ranges up to 4,000m.
______The Israelis took heavy losses at first but quickly learned to fire at the gunner, if they could see him. It wasn't necessary to HIT the gunner, only to place bullets close enough to him to make him flinch. When that happened the missile responded by flying wildly off-course.
______In the end the Israelis won, despite the best showing yet from the Arab forces.

WHAT MILITARY MISSION DID THE EIFFEL TOWER SERVE IN WORLD WAR II?

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