Though a training exercise, the demonstration of force, firepower, and meticulous coordination between different arms of the military felt about as real as one can get.
It took around seven minutes of deafening fire and bombardment, often shaking the ground in the area, before IDF forces charged forward to take positions within the “Hamas” village outpost.
Though a training exercise – and the demonstration of force, firepower, and meticulous coordination between different arms of the military – felt about as real as one can get.
Despite visiting battle zones in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank over a dozen times, The Jerusalem Post’s opportunity to watch a special full-on military exercise on Tuesday, along with foreign military officials – including explosions and an assortment of drones, tanks, D9 bulldozers, dozens of ground forces, and a helicopter rescue – was the most comprehensive lay out of the IDF’s new and revolutionary battle tactics observed to date.
Many military officials have spoken to the Post about the spike in the use of drones for even small-scale tactical warfare.
But in this drill, the IDF used no less than four different drones for varied purposes.
What did the IDF’s full-on military drill mean for future of warfare? (credit: YONAH JEREMY BOB)
There was a large one that gave the forces planning to attack the village a bird’s eye view of the entire wider battle zone, before, during, and after the assault.
Another medium-sized drone was used and was available to drop grenades, which could be used to destroy Hamas’s pre-planned improvised explosive devices (IEDS) or could be dropped on Hamas fighters themselves.
Yet, another medium drone was used to fly straight into the second-floor position of a Hamas enemy fighter – “kamikaze” style – in a structure that the IDF forces were having trouble taking because of its elevated position.
A minuscule drone, appearing to be the size of a human hand, snuck into a different multi-story, six-room structure to scan and locate all enemy forces within it as well as all boobytraps set to ambush IDF forces.
This tiny drone was sent back into the structure periodically during and after the fighting to determine how much the battle space had changed and what should be the next steps.
The drill showed off how the IDF brought in a group of tanks along with a D9 bulldozer on one flank of the village to draw the Hamas defenders’ attention, and then sent in other tanks with a different D9 bulldozer from another direction for the true main assault.
This is a maneuver that the Post has published before based on interviews with military officers, but seeing the maneuvers up front was even more impressive.
Accompanying the D9s with the tanks is now a set techniques to quickly clear out potential IEDs before the infantry trickles in, at first two by two, but then eventually rallying together into large numbers at strategic points to put a kind of geographic choke hold on the Hamas defenders, negating any chance to escape.
At one point in the drill, an F-35 aircraft dropped a one-ton bomb on “Hamas” forces with IDF friendly forces standing only 130 meters away – a stunning show of deadly precision and joint army-air force precision.
The goal of the drill was to find two tunnel shafts that were entrances to the underground Hamas headquarters, where the local commander was directing the defense.
Separate IDF infantry teams were tasked to secure each tunnel, after which Yahalom special forces and a variety of special surveillance technologies were brought in to further explore the tunnel.
IDF simulates uncovering new Hamas tunnels in Gaza
During the fighting inside one of the multi-story structures, a surprise third tunnel shaft entrance was uncovered, accurately simulating the experience of IDF forces in Gaza when intelligence knew about some tunnel shafts, but there were always countless others to uncover.
The forces involved flawlessly shifted their focus back and forth between progress above and below ground to reflect the varying goals of the moment, without losing their fighting focus due to the ever-changing terrain.
The drill also included two soldiers being wounded by a two-man guerrilla-style Hamas attack crew who suddenly popped out of nowhere, firing an anti-tank weapon.