of the Golan Heights, using the stocked vehicles of the 164th Armoured Brigade. This latter brigade was earmarked for the 240th Ugda, a division to be held in reserve. Assuming that a sustained Syrian offensive would have led to crippling Arab tank losses, 36th Ugda and 240th Ugda were in the prewar planning intended to execute an advance in the direction of Damascus, Operation Ze'ev Aravot ("Desert Wolf"). All remaining stocked Centurions in the north were eventually used to rebuild 7th and 188th AB in the night of October 9/10. The 164th AB was ultimately sent to the Sinai, to activate itself using the old 7th AB matériel. The 679th Armored Brigade was intended to join the 240th Ugda and ordered to mobilise at noon October 6. Reservists of both brigades arriving at the Galilee army depots were quickly assigned to tanks and sent to the front, without waiting for the crews they trained with to arrive, machine guns to be installed, or the tank guns to be calibrated, a time-consuming process known as bore-sighting. Elements of such larger units were during October 7 fed into the battle piece-meal. Collapse of the Israeli 188th Armored Brigade The Syrian first and second wave had in total numbered about six hundred tanks, half of which had been lost by the morning of October 7. By this time, the Israelis had committed about 250 tanks to battle. Of the initially arriving reserves, the 71 MIB was used to block an advance by the westernmost elements of the Syrian 9th Infantry Division towards the Bnot Yaacov Bridge, the crucial connection between Galilee and Nafah. During the late evening of October 6, the NCTB advanced from Nafah towards Hushniya, attempting to seal the breakthrough point. The attack, running into prepared positions occupied by a superior force of T-55s, was a dismal failure, leaving all of its officers dead or wounded. Greengold incorporated the remnants of the unit into his "Force Zvika". By the early morning of October 7, all attempts to patch the breach in the main defensive line of the southern sector became futile because also the center and right flank of the 188th AB had started to collapse. During the night, it had largely managed to hold its ground against continuous attacks, inflicting severe losses on the Syrians with accurate cannon fire, hoping to buy time for reserve forces to reach the front