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Valley Of Tears

batonroundcollector

batonroundcollector

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Watched a couple episodes of this Israeli mini-series depicting the Yom Kippur War:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/valley-of-tears

Weaponry seems spot on, other than tankers (in Sho't Kals - the Israelis' modification of the Centurion) calling for ‘squash head’ (i.e. HESH) ammo against enemy tanks when the rounds then shown look like APFSDS, and calling Syrian T-62s ‘Tirans’ (Tiran was the designation for T-62s captured and modified by the IDF)...

Anyone else seen this/comment on accuracy?
 
batonroundcollector said:
Watched a couple episodes of this Israeli mini-series depicting the Yom Kippur War:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/valley-of-tears

Weaponry seems spot on, other than tankers (in Sho't Kals - the Israelis' modification of the Centurion) calling for ‘squash head’ (i.e. HESH) ammo against enemy tanks when the rounds then shown look like APFSDS, and calling Syrian T-62s ‘Tirans’ (Tiran was the designation for T-62s captured and modified by the IDF)...

Anyone else seen this/comment on accuracy?
Click to expand...

You beat me to it!

Did the Israelis have any 105mm APFSDS ammo in 1973? I thought that came along later.
 
Unsure... 'squash head' was called out but rounds seen, at least projectile, were same shape as Brit drill 105mm APFSDS I've seen (rather than conical profile of a HESH projectile). Interested in what was used in reality - just assumed a T-62 (still a modern tank in 1973) would require use of APFSDS to defeat it, but could be wrong...
 
Israel did have APDS rounds, but not sure about APFSDS. There is a well-known pick where an AP core neatly bisected a T62 gun barrel.
 
Aw crap, you've just spoiled it for me now haha... you wouldn't have thought there was a shortage of the real arms - and knowledge - in Israel to get it right (especially when weapon will be seen in close-up as above)... A friend was selling me 'Generation War' recently and I had to confess that after the appearance of a knocked out T-34/85 (introduced 1944) in a scene depicting Operation Barbarossa (1941) I just couldn't watch any further!
 
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How good is "Generation War"? I understand the tank inconsistency, but I in general forgive such inaccuracies if the rest of the effort is in earnest.
 
I just watched the first episode and it's pretty good. They did screw up the "Squash Head" APDS scene, but the version I watched is dubbed in English. I'll have to find a Hebrew version to see if it's just a bad translation.
Interesting that they only had 3 Centurions on-screen, but they might be the only running examples in the country. I recall one at the Latrun Museum, and another at the IDF Collection, but other than those I've only seen Centurion-based APCs. We had a couple of those on an Engineer base I was on for Demo School.
 
version I've been watching is subtitled so they got it wrong one way or the other (either they meant HESH and showed wrong type round or in actuality they used APFSDS/APDS and they incorrectly referred to HESH in the show).
 
I remember Yom Kippur War vaguely, I was 15 year old at the time, and living in the USSR, geographically far away. Officially the Soviet Union was on the side of Egypt and Syria. So the Soviet Jews had a joke: "Ours are beating ours" meaning Israeli Jews are killing MISR soldiers.
 
jonnyc said:
Israel did have APDS rounds, but not sure about APFSDS. There is a well-known pick where an AP core neatly bisected a T62 gun barrel.
Click to expand...
Must be APDS, the APFSDS is from the late 70's of the last century. I think it became popular only just after the yom kippur war
 
Ok, brain just awoke! The Hebrew designation for AP is "chodare shiriyon", which is usually abbreviated to Cha'ash, with the "ch" having the gutteral/throat-clearing sound. That could easily have been mis-translated by a non-military translator or subtitlist for HESH.
 
I must ask a question, but before, I must describe what's happening in the movie for those who have not watched it.
The war has started. An older French Jew now living in Israel gets a call from his ex-wife in Paris. They speak in French. She tells him that their son, being under his influence, moved to Israel and joint IDF. Their son is being sent to the front to fight. Ex-wife blames the man for causing all of this and tells him to go find their son at the battle field and arrange for him to fly back to Paris to safety, immediately. They curse at each other, but after that the man jumps into his car and actually goes to the front to find their son.
Does this look realistic to anyone?
 
No. The father can't just go and withdraw his son...especially during a war. The mother sounded like a nut to me.
 
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