The Egyptians showed an effective maintenance and logistics organization in 1973. Their offensive was well organized and coordinated, and as far as I can tell they were never short of ammunition and fuel. This was of course in a fairly static campaign, where the Egyptians took few risks and made no attempts at substantial operational maneuvers beyond the very short advance over the canal.
The only point which is unknown is whether they could have sustained an offensive that penetrated far from their logistical bases. I doubt they did, and going out on a limb, I would say they probably don’t now.
Arguably, they don’t need this capability to pressure Israel. If they wanted to make a nuisance of themselves they would only need to provoke Israel into an offensive. They have the tools to do that. They have the SAM’s (US Patriots) and aircraft to interdict commercial aviation over much of Israel, to start - they don’t need to intrude far over Israeli airspace for their F16’s to do a hit@run at aircraft approaching Ben Gurion airport.
They can bombard targets all over Israel with a variety of missile systems.
Good point.
The Israelis should have kept the Sinai. It would have made a nice buffer.
I've read an account of the Egyptian Army, that emphasized how it was paralyzed by the fear of loss of face that would arise if a mistake was made. Everything was planned to the smallest detail, so that no one (below the planning level) ever had to make a decision. Ever.
The author described a lecture he was supposed to give, or maybe attend. Anyway, something came up at the last minute, which caused a need to change the class room the lecture was to be given in. In the American Army a trivial decision, like switching the classroom a lecture would be given in, would have been handled at the NCO level. In the Egyptian Army, no one wants to make a decision themselves, less they get blamed if the decision is wrong. So the officers who were supposed to attend the lecture stood around for a couple of hours, while the issue was kicked upstairs for a decision. It had to go up to the post commander, up to his superiors, and finally all the way to the equivalent of the Secretary of the Army's Office, before anyone would approve the change in classrooms.