Scripture gives me the impression that the Israelites were wandering around in Sinai, along the western shores of the Gulf of Aqaba, staring at apparently uncrossable water, and "looking really lost", like they didn't even know how to escape from Egyptian territory... and that that was what convinced
Pharaoh that the Israelites had no "Divine support" and inspired him to give chase (despite the plagues which had convinced him of "Divine intervention" in the first place).
Of course, it's been said that "war is deception" and Scripture states that "YHWH is a warrior" (Ex 15). God in heaven knew how to escape the Israelites across the Red Sea (Gulf of Aqaba) and lure
Pharaoh into a trap that would demonstrate Divine Power in our Solar System on Earth and "take the Egyptians out of the picture" for 40 years in the Wilderness of Sinai "in Arabia" (Gal 4). Destroying an entire Egyptian army unit prevented the Egyptians from seeking out the Israelites in retaliation for years.
"Wall of water" sounds like a
Tsunami, and "pillar of smoke & fire" sounds like a volcanic eruption. Some sort of seismic event triggering a
Tsunami could have caused water to withdraw for up to 30min, long enough for the Israelites to cross and lure in the Egyptians to get smashed by the returning waves. Inspecting a depth chart of the Gulf of Aqaba, with a low enough tide, you could almost cross at the mouth of the same, at the Strait of Tiran:
Perhaps Moses, according to Divine Guidance & Instruction, led the Israelites more or less south along the western shores of the Gulf of Aqaba, to the Strait of Tiran.
Pharaoh mocked the Israelites for "looking so incredibly stupid", confident that no "God in heaven" could so affect Earth so as to escape them then. He charged his army out just as a major earthquake rocked the region, triggering a Tsunami that exposed a shallow land bridge across the Strait. The Israelites made it across just as (say) some combination of aftershocks & walls of water (say) shifted "Jazirat Tiran (Tiran island?)" which partially collapsed, so severing the land bridge and excavating the Strait of Tiran to its modern depth?
If so, thousands of Egyptian chariot artifacts would be buried in the sediments in the Strait of Tiran. Some may have floated far out to sea, or far up the Gulf of Aqaba, to be found elsewhere also.