"excellent system for its theatre of war."-Invincible
No not really, Israel's theater of war, the main warring factions against Israel are not conventional militaries but militant groups and armed factions such as Hezbollah. "Excellent system" for it's theater of war would be true if the Merkava were used against other conventional armies with tanks. Other than that this Tank would get bogged down and was easily visible and made it a target by Hezbollah.
It's tailored for their terrain and yes the emphasis was put on thick armor and protecting the crew inside.
But understand that during the Israeli-Hezbollah/Lebanon war of summer 2006. The Merkava had a major impairment/weakness that was exposed in the war. It's rear hatch was a soft spot on the tank.
"The legacy of the Merkava series of tanks dates back to the 1960s. Plans were drawn up to isolate Israel's military-industrial complex from foreign reliance. In 1965, Israel's military establishment initiated research and development for a domestically-produced tank. During the design of this platform, Britain approached Israel and requested their assistance in developing the United Kingdom's newest tank, the Chieftain. When two prototypes arrived for field testing in 1967 Israel shelved the Sabra program. As a result of political pressure from the British Foreign Ministry the two prototypes were recalled to England in 1969, and Israel lost five years with which it could have pursued its own development program. Following this incident, Israel Tal—serving as a brigade commander after the Suez Crisis—restarted plans to produce an Israeli-made tank. Tal's mission was furthered by lessons learned in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where the Middle East's Arab nations held significant numerical superiority. Realizing that they could not win wars of attrition, the new tank platform would have heavy requirements for crew survivability and safety. By 1974, initial designs were completed and prototypes were fabricated."
Merkava - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In other words, it was designed to cope with Arab numerical superiority.
The Sinai Campaign of 1956 was characterized by mobile, armored warfare with Israel deploying 200 tanks in Sinai, versus 150 tanks deployed by the Egyptians. Since the Sinai Campaign, the land war between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations has become a war of highly mobile and armored formations. A total of 2,500 tanks were deployed during the 1967 'Six-Day War' by Israel and Arabs combined. Some 6,200 tanks engaged in combat during the 1973 'Yom-Kippur war'.
Israel lacked the strategic depth for allow manouvre warfare within what it considered its own territory. It also lacked the (trained) manpower to allow itself to be drawn into a war of attrition with countries with much much larger populations and armies fielding large numbers of cheap and easy to use Soviet supplied tanks. Hence the Merkava: designed to be qualitatively superior so that it can stand and fight opfor tanks (= emphasis on survivability, hence e.g. engine forward) and beat them at long range (= emphasis on effective firepower > gun+stabilization+firecontrol). Apart from the lack of depth, terrain has little to nothing to do with this design, which employed Centurion track and running gear and (initially) M48/M60 powerpack.
But understand that during the Israeli-Hezbollah/Lebanon war of summer 2006. The Merkava had a major impairment/weakness that was exposed in the war. It's rear hatch was a soft spot on the tank
You see those two air vents, the problem is the Israeli designers did not protect the rear patch/vents well enough which left the tank very vulnerable.
Hezbollah made good use of this weakness and they often hit the rear of the Merkava with AT weapons and RPG's,
these cost-effective weapons like AT and RPG's manage to ruin these million dollar war machines. So much for your comment,
"excellent system for its theatre of war." Excellent for Hezbollah not for the Israelis...
Don't know if you are aware of this but on
all tanks rear armor is weak and frontal armor is strong. That's the nature of tanks. Allround heavy protection weighs down a tanks so much that it becomes barely able to move, in which care a bunker is a cheaper and better solution.
Modern 20-25mm AP cannon rounds can pierce the rear of virtually any modern tanks (i.e. the cannon armament of IFV/ICVs like M2/3 Bradley or BMP3). This applies also to Merkava (though it's rear is probably better protected than most other tanks).
This 'vulnerability' has nothing to do with a rear door, which is quite thick and has a firing port and observation window (no other tank can bring out light arms fire at the rear to actively protect itself).
Problem is using (any!) tanks in a built up areas: these have lots of cover for infantry anti tank teams to hide themselves in, which can then attack the tanks from any/all sides, including top and rear, where armor is thinnest. It's an operational problem to be solved with tactics, not a technical problem to besolved by (re)design. Though technical solutions can help: witness added protective measures on US and UK tanks in Iraq and tanks of NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Air vents? Not only is the engine in front and not in the rear (hence no need for airvents in the rear), I think what you are referring to as air vents are in fact stowage baskets attached to the rear of the tank. These hold crew personal equipment. The rear main armor is behind them. These baskets help trigger the warhead of RPG rounds before they get to the main armor and so add to protection. Their depth/thickness means that in order to get a shot at the rear door (a relative weak area), the shooter has to be straight behind the tank, where he can be engaged however by small arms from within the tank.
And here you are saying, "Its emphasis is protection making it one of the best protected tanks in the world. " -Invincible...
No tank is invulnerable. And, like it or not, the Merkava IS one of the best protected tanks in the world. Especially the Mk4, which remedied deficiencies in the area of in mobility. It is among the best tanks in the world overall.
Only poorly informed people would claim a tank to be invulnerable or invincible. And only poorly informed people would claim the Israeli Merkava tank is a failure because some were destroyed in (urban) combat.
However, so long as some people confuse 'best protected' with 'invincible', and others equally confuse tank vulnerability in urban combat settings in general with Merkava specific design flaws or weaknesses, we shall see silly little discussions like these flaring up occasionally.
Let's not forget how/where the Russian tanks got clobbered in Chechnya and how/where westerns tanks were lost in Iraq: mostly in urban warfare or otherwise confined settings, where tanks operating by themselves, without adequate support by other arms (infantry, helicopters, air support), are at a clear disadvantage. Tanks have the advantage in open terrain.
so please can you tell us what type are they? thanks.
