1967: Sword of Israel
Scenario Preview, Part 4
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
July 2022

In order to revive Panzer Grenadier (Modern) with new games like Cold War: Fulda Gap 1968, we needed to bring the one existing game in the series up to our current standards.

Panzer Grenadier (Modern): 1967 Sword of Israel’s Playbook edition is a big game: with eight maps and five sheets of pieces, it’s the biggest currently in our inventory. The Playbook edition gives it the story-arc structure, with its chapters each including a battle game to tie the scenarios together and let you measure your performance against your side’s operational goals. The scenarios have been revised too; it’s a very fine game.

Let’s look at the scenarios from Chapter Four. You can see the prior scenarios in Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Chapter Four
Sinai: Phase Three

With the Sinai Field Army descending into chaos, the Israelis raced to stop its remaining units – some of them little more than remnants– from reaching the far bank of the Suez Canal and apparent safety. The Egyptians had sufficient forces on the west bank of the canal to hold that line and allow the shattered brigades to refit there, and Israel had no intention of fighting a long war. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan at first ordered that no Israeli unit would come within 19 kilometers of the canal. Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin insisted that reaching the Suez Canal would be necessary to fulfill the ultimate Israeli objective, the destruction of the Sinai Field Army.

Scenario Seventeen
Road to Ismailia
7 June 1967
Tat Aluf (General) Israel Tal intended for his Ugdah (84th Armored Division) to block the escape of the Egyptian 4th Tank Division from its large camp at Bir Gifgafa. The Israelis placed a blocking force across the western road leading from the camp toward Ismailia and the El Ferdan Bridge across the Suez Canal. Much of the Israeli armored force approaching from the south out of the Wadi Ml’ez made only slow progress toward the Ismailia road west of Bir Gifgafa. Unless the road could be broken, the Egyptians would slip away.

Conclusion
The Egyptians performed well in their escape attempt; twice the Egyptian armor turned and fought off the pursuers, showing an ability to move and fight that had been lacking in the war’s first 48 hours. It was a glimpse of what the Sinai Field Army might have achieved with better leadership, an effort now devoted solely to affecting a retreat. By nightfall the Israelis still had not interdicted the Egyptian retreat, and the bulk of the “Sword” division made it to the El Ferdan Bridge.

Notes
The Egyptians have a long way to go to escape the Israelis, and to make things worse their forces enter play in small groups rather than as one united force. The Israelis likewise show up piecemeal, but they have armor efficiency and the Egyptians do not, so the Sons of Saladin are going to need their superior numbers just to fight off their enemies, but they can put the hurt on the individually-superior Israelis if the Sons of David are careless.

Scenario Eighteen
Breakout at Gifgafa
8 June 1967
In the early morning hours of 8 June, the Egyptians assembled a large force to break out from the Gifgafa camp through the Israeli roadblock to the west and across the Suez Canal. Egyptian T55s had infrared sights which would give them an edge in a night battle; the Egyptians had also seen that the AMX13’s 75mm gun had difficulty penetrating the frontal armor of a T55 except at point-blank range.

Conclusion
The Egyptian attack enjoyed initial success, destroying the Israeli mortars and significant ammunition in a series of catastrophic explosions. The Israelis rallied, flinging their scarce self-propelled divisional artillery into the attack, and hitting the Egyptian flank with a company of Shermans. The Egyptians did not make full use of their superior night sights while the Israelis used illumination rounds from mortars and artillery to good effect. The low pass of a flight of Vautour bombers shook the Egyptians, who retreated and worked their way around the Israeli blocking position under cover of darkness. The Israelis declared this action a victory, but it was the Egyptians who had achieved their objectives.

Notes
This is one of the rare scenarios in this game where the Egyptian player has the burden of action. The Egyptians are cut off from their retreat route, with the Israelis arrayed across their path, and it’s up to the Egyptians to bop their way past and exit a sizeable force off the other side of the map. It’s not a big map, and the Israeli AMX13 light tanks are definitely outgunned by the T55’s of the Egyptians (but their crews are much better). It’s still a tough task for the Egyptians.

Scenario Nineteen
Ambush at Nakhle
8 June 1967
At mid-morning the rear elements of the Egyptian 6th Mechanized Division ran headlong into the recently set up Israeli blocking position across the road at Nakhle. As the front of the Egyptian column recoiled, additional Israeli tanks drove into their flank followed by halftrack-mounted infantry. The well-equipped 6th Mechanized Division had suffered very few losses and kept its cohesion, but now – only halfway to the Suez Canal – the division seemed unlikely to make it safely behind the Suez Canal.

Conclusion
Sixth Mechanized Division had retreated from the front lines before ever facing serious combat with the Israelis, and that seems to have taken the fight out of the Egyptians. By the time they reached the crossroads at Nakhle they had already started to lose unit cohesion. The tankers fought the Israelis for another five hours, but most of the infantry dismounted and ran into the desert. The Israelis captured vast quantities of intact vehicles, weapons and ammunition.

Notes
This time it’s a fairly disorganized brawl, with the Egyptians trying to make their way down a long, narrow corridor with the Israelis trying to hold them back with a pure armor force that grows with reinforcements (some infantry eventually, maybe, will arrive). The Egyptians have terrible morale, leadership and initiative, yet the burden of the attack is on them. It’s another tough one for the boys from Cairo.

Scenario Twenty
Coastal Highway
8 June 1967
Sgan Aluf Yisrael Granit commanded the 84th Armored Division’s reconnaissance battalion, reinforced to form a task force that had isolated the Egyptian defenders of northern Sinai and Gaza. With the Sinai Field Army in full retreat, Granit’s troops sped down the coastal highway toward Kantara and the Suez Canal, 40 kilometers away. At a narrow causeway across a salt marsh, they encountered an Egyptian blocking force.

Conclusion
Trading shots with the Egyptians did not seem to promise victory so the Israeli jeeps mounting recoilless rifles began maneuvering through the marshy ground to turn the Egyptian flanks. The Egyptian T55 tanks tried to react by also moving into marshy terrain but several became mired and had to be abandoned. Eventually, threatened with being surrounded, the Egyptian blocking force pulled out.

Notes
This time the Israelis are on the attack, with a recon force built around fast jeeps (with potent recoilless rifles) and light tanks against some pretty good Egyptian armored infantry with a smattering of tank support. This one’s going to be tough on the Israelis.

Scenario Twenty-One
Unusual Bravery
8 June 1967
As the Israelis pressed closer to the Suez Canal, Egyptian resistance stiffened. Along the road to Qantara East, Granit Force ran into another roadblock. Aluf Mishne Rafael Eitan, Israel’s future Chief of Staff, had joined the force along with a battalion of halftrack-mounted paratroopers plus tank support, and now took command. The Egyptians intended to hold here to allow reserves from the canal’s west bank to deploy.

Conclusion
Eitan sent the Patton tanks right down the road through the Egyptian roadblock, firing as they went. Once the tanks passed through, the Egyptians blocked the road and began fighting in both directions, including using a new weapon against the Pattons, the AT-1 “Snapper” antitank guided missile. Eitan was shot in the face early on which caused the paratroopers’ attack to falter. It was not until the IAF had worked over the Egyptians for over two hours that the ground assault again made any headway. Eitan’s second-in-command praised the Egyptian defenders’ “deeds of unusual bravery and enterprise.”

Notes
This time the Egyptians are pretty tough, with a strong position, good morale and tank support. But they’re badly outnumbered by the Israeli paratroopers, who are pretty tough themselves and have lots of tanks. It’s going to be tough for the Egyptians to hold out here, even if they manage to shoot Eitan in the face (he was not a nice man, and would meet the unusual fate of being swept out to sea while inspecting a breakwater).

Scenario Twenty-Two
Ismailia Pass
8 June 1967
Late in the morning lead elements of the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade encountered a reinforced battalion of cannily dug-in T55s from the Egyptian 4th Tank Division. The Israelis needed to push through the pass rapidly to catch the rest of the fleeing enemy division, but the task would be tough across this sea of undulating sand.

Conclusion
The Egyptian tanks, tucked carefully between the sand ridges with only their gun barrels and the tops of their turrets visible, proved quite a challenge for the advancing Israelis that would only be overcome with frontal assault. While the more heavily-armored Centurions led the charge, the lighter Pattons swept wide to the east and west to take the Egyptians in the flank and rear. In addition, the merciless pounding by IAF aircraft eventually destroyed the Egyptian force that bravely died in place.

Notes
And we finish up the Sinai chapters with a pure armored fight: Egyptian T-55’s with crack crews dug in and waiting for even-cracker Israeli Centurions and Pattons. This is treadhead wargaming in its purest form.

And that wraps Part Four. There’s more to come, with Jordanian and Syrian action.

You can order 1967: Sword of Israel (Playbook edition) right here.
Please allow an extra three weeks for delivery.

1967 Package
      1967: Sword of Israel (Playbook)
      IDF: Israel Defense Forces
Retail Price: $134.98
Package Price: $110
Gold Club Price: $88
You can experience the 1967 Package right here.
Please allow an extra three weeks for delivery.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his new puppy. He misses his Iron Dog, Leopold.

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