Yom Kippur War, What If

I haven't seen this question up before, anywhere, so might as well ask!  After the near debacle of the first two weeks of the Yom Kippur War, where Soviet SA-2s under Egyptian use managed to clear the IAF from the skies [the IAF could not preform its usual role of flying artiller, given the heavy concentration of surface to air missiles], the Israelis were able to stop a later Egyptian offensive and turn the odds around and cross the Suez Canal.  During the final days of the war the Israelis were able to sorround the Egyptian 3rd Army [IIRC] and position itself behind the 2nd Army, leaving a small corridor to the 3rd Army to keep it fed so that it would not fall [the United States did not want to totally destroy the Egyptian Army, knowing that Egypt was slowly moving out of Soviet zone of influence and into the United State's]. 

What do you think would have happened had Israel refused the UN's request for the humanitarian corridor, and instead totally trapped the 3rd Army on the other side of the Suez canal, and continued to tear up the rear of the 2nd Army, thus depriving the Egyptians of over 350,000 of their troops?

What could have they done without their two largest and most experienced armies?  I don't think Israel had plans to actually occupy anything West of the Suez Canal, and so I don't think Sadat would have been able to implement his 'house to house' fighting directive, given that I don't think Israel planned to enter any cities.

Very interesting, but what does this have to do with what would have happened had Israel cut off the 3rd Army entirely and destroyed it?

Originally posted by Sparten Israel did not have that capbility.

Sparten, the Israeli Third Army was perfectly capable of completely cutting off the Egyptian 3rd Army.  The corridor they opened was just that - they opened it, meaning they already had sorrounded the 3rd Army completely.  Furthermore, Egyptian SA-2 SAMs had for the most part been destroyed by the advancing Israeli armour, and there were deep raids by Israeli armour units to specifically destroy SA-2s and other surface to air missile launchers that were within range to hit Israeli close air support.  In other words, by the time the Israeli counterstroke was halfway completed the Israeli Air Force could operate unmolested once again, given that the Egyptians could not replace their SA-2s as fast as they were getting knocked out - the same with all their other weapons, as well.

Prior to the Israeli counterstroke the IDF was down to 2 weeks supply in the Sinai, but after the beginning of the American rearmament a week and a half into the war they were getting enough to serve them for months. 

Israel was very capable of destroying the 3rd Egyptian Army, and had the 2nd Army kept its pattern then it would have been destroyed as well, given that it failed to retreat across the Suez fast enough. 

Sparten, the American airlift to Israel brought up to M48 tanks!  A large part was, yes, air to air missiles and F-4 Phantoms, but the majority was artillery munitions, rifle munitions, fuel et cetera! 

A book I would suggest that has a good description of the war, but focuses on the airlift is:  The Yom Kippur War: The Airlift that Saved Israel, by Walter J. Boyne. 

An attack to destroy SA-2 sites with tanks would have been a disaster.

Well, apparently not.  The principle way of knocking out SAM sites was during the advance across the Sinai and across the Suez.  In fact, the majority of the SA-2s were knocked out in that manner, and there were several deep operation raids towards Cairo to knock out close proximity SA-2s to allow Israeli CAS to function properly.  The Israelis were also able to knock out a large number of SA-2s using the American supplied AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile.

The EAF was still functional and the Israelis would have been slaughtered if the attacked with armour only like they were on the first days attack.

IDF armour was disfunctional during the first weeks of the war because the IDF had not properly designed combined operations between infantry and armour, meaning that Egyptian infantry teams with cheap Soviet anti-tank missiles and rockets could pulverize Israeli tanks.  However, the IDF was quick to learn and was able to cooperate APCs with armour in order to knock out Egyptian anti-tank teams and SAM teams.

A good book dealing with this in a general overview is: Combined Arms in Warfare Since 1939, by Jonathan M. House.

By late Octover the Egyptian Army was a shadow of its former self.