Training
Another facet that got highlighted were the severe ill effects of cutting costs in training. Alon Ben David writes in the 11th Oct, 06 issue of the Janes Defense Weekly. “it became evident during the war in Lebanon that continual cuts to the IDF budget over the decade, coupled with ongoing low – intensity conflict with the Hamas had led to a deterioration of the forces capabilities.61
Traditionally relying strongly on its reserves, the IDF had sought to reduce operational costs by reducing the numbers of reserve personal and the amount of training they receive.59
Thus the Israeli MOD reduced the number of days reservists serve each year from 30 to 14. In some units the frequency of training went down to once every three years and their level of functioning as an organism were damaged. The Israeli Defence Minister Peretz said “some units had their last full brigade exercise in the year 2000”. “We were wrong with the legislations limiting the reservists service” said Gen Dan Halutz. 75 percent of the reserve Army will now be called again in the next two years for training. The discharge age for reservists is to be raised again from 40 to 45 – which will ensure that some 60,000 reservists are kept in service. 60
Fortunately India has no such problem of a primarily reservists based force structure. However, the axiomatic lesson of the vital need and importance of intensive and realistic training has again been highlighted in this war. The former Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz had proposed in Feb 2006, that mandatory military service be reduced from three to two years by 2010. This idea has been shelved. 62
The need for hard and intensive training gets highlighted after each conflict. It maximises efficiency and reduces casualties in war.
Hezbollah Performance
The Hezbollah had carefully and methodically prepared for this conflict and put in a sterling combat performance. Their employment of Free Rockets as a terror weapon was innovative. However, their anti-tank layered defences and use of Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and RPGs proved to be the most instructive feature of this war. They made excellent use of the terrain and virtually ground all Israeli armoured thrusts to a halt. The Israelis were guilty of hubris and failed to launch concerted and coordinated armoured assaults on a wide front. The Hezbollah tactics and techniques merit detailed study and emulation – in specific their anti-armour tactics and techniques. The military wing of the Hezbollah is called Islamic Resistance. This is further subdivided into two wings:
- Regulars. The first was the full time, uniformed regular force. These were highly experienced and well trained fighters who operated in the bunkers and tunnels in South Lebanon. These were divided into teams of 15-20 each and were very skillful in employing Anti-tank Guided Missiles, RPGs and sniper rifles. The ATGMs used were mostly Sagger (AT-3), AT-4 Spigot, US made TOW, AT-5 Spandrel and AT-13 (Metis M) and AT-14 (Kornet E) third generation ATGMs. These last two and the tandem RPG-29 proved highly effective.
- Village Guards. The Second wing comprised of Village Guard units. Their intimate knowledge of the broken terrain proved to be a great advantage. A noteworthy feature was the Hezbollahs use of fire optic cable for providing robust, reliable and survivable communications that could not be intercepted or jammed by the Israelis. 63
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