There’s a joke in military circles: Even if it’s a rock, the Israelis will convert it into a weapon!
Hello, I’m Zi Ding, today we are talking about Israel, the modification maniac, and I’m especially happy to finally talk about Israel.
If you have lived in Western countries, you must have a feeling that Westerners are really good at doing things with their hands, buying a pickup truck, modifying it at will, and repairing everything at Home.
And when it comes to the military world of modification maniacs, we have to mention Israel. In the military world there is a joke: even if it is a stone, the Israelis will convert it into a weapon!
Schott tank: an improved version of the British Centurion tank
We will talk about the famous and powerful Schott tank first today. The Schott tank is actually an improved version of the British Centurion tank, which is actually a very old tank that was developed during World War II, and the first tanks entered service in 1945. Israel bought more than 300 of them from the British only in 1958, 13 years later.
Here first explain a misunderstanding, many people think that Israel has the support of the United States and Britain, how to how. In fact, the United States and Britain did not support Israel at first, Israel could only buy some weapons from Czechoslovakia and France that were not used by others. The British did not like Israel at first, why? Israel was a British colony, to fight for independence, but also often make some armed forces out, of course, the British are not happy. After Israel’s independence, the British attitude is, how do you like to toss and turn, anyway, do not sell you weapons, you are left to fend for themselves.
It was only after the Second Middle East War in the 1960s that Israel and the United States relations improved. This is to buy the centurion tank from the British hands. Israel was happy to usher in the centurion tank, but the results, hey, not suitable for our Israeli use.
After all, the Centurion tank was designed during World War II, and was designed by the British, what do you think about Britain? Cold, plains, Israel what place? Hot, desert, sand and dust everywhere. You fight in the Israeli desert, the cooling system and air filter requirements are very high, the centurion simply does not meet the standard, the cooling system three days out of the accident, more than forty degrees in the desert area air conditioning is broken, you are still nestled in the tank without ventilation, how uncomfortable to be more uncomfortable.
Second, the centurion with the British Meteor engine, low power, high fuel consumption, not long to refuel, which can not stand. And the Centurion tank’s mechanical and electrical systems are very complex, maintenance and troublesome, the main gun in the long-range shooting accuracy is also very poor, how to do? We can not return it, the world was willing to sell us Israeli weapons are not many countries, even if we do not want, there is no better alternative. Israel slaps the table, this can be difficult for us Israel? Not good we can change it, from then on Israel embarked on a modification of the road of no return.
Since Israel got the Centurion tank, it began to change, the main gun does not work, right, we changed it, Israel replaced the tank with an advanced 105mm L7 wire-bore gun. We not only want to change the main gun, let’s change the fire control system as well. The engine is not working, let’s replace it with an American-made AVDS-1790-2A diesel engine. The transmission was not working well, so let’s keep changing it. The Merritt Brown R51Z transmission was replaced with a CD-850-6 automatic transmission. This gave the Centurion a top speed of 50km/h and a maximum travel distance of 500km.
At this Time the Centurion tank was the same except for the shell, the inside had been changed all over, at this time it could not be called Centurion anymore, it had a new name, Schott Main Battle Tank. Israel made many improvements to the centurion tank, the one with 105mm main gun was called Schott, while the tank with replaced engine, transmission and main gun was called Karshott tank. For the sake of convenience, we will use Schott tank as the name here.
As soon as the Schott tank was born, it met the Middle East War. 1967 Six Day War broke out, the IDF had 385 Schott tanks in total, and within six days, it defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Interestingly, the Schott tanks met the Jordanian Centurion tanks, which were all Family, and then Israel easily defeated Jordan, destroying 14 Centurion tanks and capturing 30 of them.
But what made the Schott tanks famous was the Fourth Middle East War six years later, also called the Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria took advantage of Israel’s Yom Kippur to make a surprise attack. Israel was all but defenseless, especially in the Valley of Tears north of the Golan Heights, where the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade fought against a Syrian armored division and a mechanized infantry division with less than 100 Schott tanks, but defeated the Syrian T-55 and T-62 army, which had the superior strength, about 500 of them. Destroying 250 of them, the rest escaped.
This is a classic battle of modern tank combat in which less is better than more. Take a look at the photos, all of them are the wreckage of tanks left behind after the Syrian retreat in the Valley of Tears. You may not expect that this World War II design “Centurion” tank is still in the Israeli army today to play a residual role, with its chassis converted into a 52-ton “Nag Machon” heavy armored personnel carriers in the 2006 Lebanon war, outstanding performance. It was called a “mobile bunker” by the Israeli army.
TI67 tank: modified Soviet tank T-55
Of course, Israel can not only buy the tanks can be modified, the enemy tanks can also be modified. In the Third Middle East War Israel captured a large number of Soviet tanks T-55, the number of about 700. The Israelis took a look, yo, T-55 although the gun is worse, space is smaller, but can be used ah, we can modify ah, so the Israelis began to modify the Soviet T55. first, the gun was replaced, installed our 105mm gun, add their own fire control system and infantry phone.
The Israelis called them Tiran 5 tanks. The NATO countries came up with a model: the TI67 tank, which is a meaningful model. the T refers to the Soviet T series, the I implies Israel, and the 67 means a captured tank from 1967.
There were about 350 of these tanks in service with Israel’s front-line troops. Interestingly, during the Fourth Middle East War, Egypt was also equipped with T55 tanks, and ended up encountering Israeli tanks firing at themselves in the battlefield, thinking they were friendly forces, which caused confusion. Later, Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon commanded a tank brigade equipped with this tank.
As a result of the fourth Middle East war, Israel won a big victory over the Arab countries, this time well, captured more advanced T62 tanks, Israel took a look, a good price, then modified, and converted the Soviet Union’s T62 tanks into Tiran 6 tanks for their own use.
Magach Tank: Conversion of American Patton Tank
Do you think that’s the end of Israel’s conversion history? Israel is now going after American tanks. At that time, Israel wanted to buy M-48 Patton series tanks from the United States, twice the Americans did not sell, and then Israel had no choice but to run to the Germans to buy 40, to the third Middle East War, Israel and captured from the Jordanians the American-made Patton tanks.
Israelis look, French tanks I have modified, British tanks I have modified, the Soviet Union’s tanks I have modified, finally the turn of the United States of America’s tanks, said the U.S. Patton tanks converted into the famous Magach tank, change the main gun, change the engine, change the communication electronics, change the transmission, with the new armor-piercing ammunition, good, can be used.
Then Israel took the new-style Magach tank into battle and beat the Egyptians and Syrians again in the fourth Middle East war. “The Maghazi 3 had advanced M17B1C holographic rangefinders and new tail-stabilized armor-piercing ammunition, and was able to fire accurately at long range against Syrian T-62 tanks.
As a result, dozens of Syrian tanks were often defended and four or five tanks in a row were destroyed by the Magach 3 from a distance of over 2,000 meters, leaving Syrian armored units completely outmatched.
F16-I: Conversion of American F16
The Israeli army is a small modifier, the air force is not bad either. The F16 has a special model called F16-I, I is the first letter of the Israeli English.
Israel purchased more than a hundred F16I, and many Israeli military companies involved in the development of which, such as the Israeli electronics industry, “Elisra Electronic Systems” company contracted 250 million U.S. dollars in electronic combat systems. It was also equipped with Israel’s own 450-gallon, 1,700-liter drop tanks, which increased the range of the F16. The engine and radar were also replaced with the then-advanced AN/APG-68 radar, which increased the F16’s combat capability.
In 2019, Iranian forces in Syria fired missiles at Israel, resulting in the Israeli military taking off the F16I and launching three waves of air strikes against Iranian forces in Syria in response, hitting facilities and military targets near Damascus airport.
Following this series of airstrikes, Israeli satellite companies tweeted satellite photos of the three targets hit. The three targets were a Communist Chinese JY-27 radar, a Russian armored-S1 air defense system and a warehouse. Among them, the JY-27 radar is claimed to have anti-stealth and early warning missile capabilities. The Chinese Communist Party claims that the radar has a maximum detection range of more than 300 kilometers to the air and can detect F-35 fighters of the Israeli Air Force. But it is helpless against the F16I, which has no stealth capability.
F-35I: Retrofitting the U.S. F-35
Israel not only modified the F16, even the latest U.S. warplane F35 does not spare, but also to be modified. Israel applied for the first time in 2008 to the United States to buy F-35 fighter aircraft. Unlike other countries, Israel asked Lockheed Martin to integrate many of Israel’s own technologies into the F-35I.
One of the key technologies is an Israeli-developed command, communications, information and intelligence system. This stand-alone system can work independently, without the involvement of the F-35I’s computers, to obtain information from other aircraft and transmit it to other military equipment, especially other aircraft in the vicinity.
For Israel, which has suffered from rocket attacks, this technology is particularly important. In the event that an enemy such as Hezbollah launches a large number of rockets against Israel, information on the location of the launch must be quickly obtained and processed to quickly produce a prioritized list of targets to provide to the Air Force for attack.
F-35I warplanes are also capable of carrying Israeli-made missiles, such as the SPICE 1000 precision-guided bomb.SPICE uses sophisticated guidance technology, including inertial navigation, satellite positioning and electro-optical sensors, as well as control wings that can turn unguidable conventional bombs into guided bombs that can glide over long distances.
Israel has been acquiring F-35I warplanes since December 2016. The country’s air force announced in May 2018 that its F-35s have participated in combat and claims to be the first military in the world to put the F-35s into action.
The reason for mentioning Israel, I think Israel is a country with a lot to learn, 9 million people, surrounded by enemies, many people on the other side and money, oil moguls. When Israel was founded, others did not dare to sell weapons to Israel, so Israel step by step to today, I think it is worth learning from many countries.
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