The Birth Of A Tank (pic too)

IDF Website ^ | November 20th, 2002 | Israel Defense Force

[fso301]

Seems as if the gap between the turet and chassis is some type of modular armor, possibly reactive. More info Press Here

[Consort]

Minister of Defence

[cavtrooper21]

Can we get some of these for the WVDF?

[yonif]

[xm177e2]

It means "Chariot."

[CapandBall]

tank bump

[yonif]

Years out of Israel made me make that error :)

[thatdewd]

The arabs think this design was made specifically for full scale war with the syrians. There's a review of it on www.albawaba.com. Here's some quotes from the article:

"The design features that were reveled show that the Merkava Mk. 4 is specifically intended for full-scale conflict with Syria, and will significantly alter the military balance between Israel and Syria."

"The Israeli media stressed after the unveiling ceremony that the Merkava Mk. 4 was specifically designed for improved performance on the difficult terrain of the Golan Heights...Israel's military planners clearly allotted high importance to possessing a tank capable of traversing the difficult terrain on the road to Damascus."

"The ability of the new Merkava MBT to defend itself against helicopters represents a major shift in the power balance between Israel and Syria."

"The new tank is a clear indication that the Israeli leadership regards war with Syria as a more than likely possibility."

Nice War-Wagon. They only get better and better. That turret gap isn't as big a vulnerability as it may appear. Any ordinance of size would be striking from above or at an angle, and any smaller ordinance fired from close-up wouldn't have enough force to overcome the kewl armor it has. This is definitely a full-scale battle tank with it's armor system and tank-killer cannon, and the mortar system gives it impressive infantry support capabilities. kewl deal.

[pierrem15]

The main gun is a 120mm smoothbore gun developed by Israeli Military Industries.

Ummm, "stolen" by IMI is the proper adjective (from US the ordnance works BTW).

I'm not knocking the Israelis, but that's the truth as far as I recall.

[flamingbug]

If there was a sheild wouldnt the show it at the unveiling?

[RightWhale]

The tank shown would be the clean, basic version. Other stuff would be added [active armor and other accessories] depending on the mission, and could be changed around without having to modify the tank itself.

[rockfish59]

I'm not sure. I just grabbed it from a tank site.

[archy]

...and the mortar system gives it impressive infantry support capabilities. Kewl deal.

Kewl indeed, but not the reason for having a 60mm mortar aboard a tank. White phosphorous rounds fired in advance of a platoon movement burn through the guidance wires of wire-guided antitank missiles, the big killer of Israeli armour during the 1973 war. The Israelis noted their deficiency, licked their wounds, and did something about it.

I bet they've got crowd control chemical rounds for use in the Gaza and Golan Heights, too.

[MonroeDNA]

Outstanding!

Isreal needs independance from fickle countries who have advanced arms.

Under the 'toon administration, this would have been bad (for the toon administration).

[FreedomPoster]

>I guess they are not planning on using it in a MBT roll.

>Considering the number of M1s Egypt has this would seem to be a big oversight.

Yes, but they're crewed by Egyptians.

[thatdewd]

Ummm, "stolen" by IMI is the proper adjective (from US the ordnance works BTW).

Actually, the 120mm cannon on our Abrams was a German Rheinmetall smoothbore cannon, not an original US design. But I don't think we stole it.

[Ford Fairlane]

The 30 cm gun for the BOLO program late 80's to early 90's was better, also developed by Rheinmetall.

To bad the prototype was never finished - had a 4000 to 5000 hp V16 cat diesel, electric drive by GE (basically a locomotive drive)

The program was defunded because it was so big & the Soviet Union didn't exist anymore.

[pierrem15]

Yes, I know the original design was Rheinmetall, but we invented some superior tube fabrication technology in the 80's that was 'acquired' by IMI.

I believe this acquisition was discovered around the same time as Pollard.

[thatdewd]

The 30 cm gun for the BOLO program late 80's to early 90's was better, also developed by Rheinmetall.

That's freakin' BIG. Do you have any links with pics?

[Ford Fairlane]

I don't know of any off the top of my head, I might have some on disk somewhere.

All that was actually assembled was the chassis

The engineers working on it were mostly right out of college & had read all of the BOLO series by Keith Laumer& the Hammer's Slammers books by David Drake, they were a bunch of sci fi junkies

A lot of the development was coordinated by FMC/United Defence, GE & CAT used a bunch of the data to punch the AC locomotives up to 6000 HP

They were also considering a railgun instead of the 30 cm gun.