Quote:
Originally Posted by L'arbalette  Zahle, the syrians could not defeat 100 Bachir fighters
Souk El Ghareb / other mountain fronts: They could not defeat a weakened and ill equipped Lebanese army. Check the news from 1980 to 1990 |
The stories about those battles are not consistent, depending on what side you talk to. But those are not good indicators of the fighting ability of the Syrian Army.
A better indicator is the Syrian division which violated orders and decided to engage the Israeli Army in 1982. By all military accounts their performance was very impressive, as they defeated the Israelis in several battles, causing them to even capture many Israeli Abrams tanks, which they later handed to the Soviet Union in exchange for more Soviet tanks.
Also, in 1973, the Syrian Army made major advances against the Israelis in the Golan, as they had even reached Lake Tiberias, but the change in plans from the Egyptian sides allowed Israel, with the help of the US, to focus all its bombardment on the Syrians, thereby pushing back the Syrian Army.