/ world today news/ Israel has apparently decided to violate neutrality. He will supply Europe with tanks to kill the soldiers of the country that defeated fascism. However, the possibility of using heavy Israeli equipment in the southern Russian steppes is doubtful. But in terms of their potential, the Israeli machines are significantly superior to both Leopard-1 and Leopard-2
Israel for the first time in its history signed a contract to supply tanks to Europe. This was announced on Thursday, July 15, by the information and news portal Yediot Ahronot, the oldest media of the Jewish state.
The outlet said the deal is currently in the final stages of approval and should close in about three months. The United States must agree to re-export because some of the systems installed on the tanks (notably the engines) are of American origin.
It is clear that the US will not resist and will agree on the supply of Israeli tanks to European buyers. It is equally obvious that Israeli tanks will be in Ukraine quite soon after that.
Making a contract without violating neutrality
According to “Yediot Ahronot”, two European countries are acting as buyers, but it is not announced which ones. At the same time, the author of the Israeli publication does not hide that the interest in their tanks is connected precisely with the events in Ukraine. The buyers are nothing more than countries that, after acquiring Israeli war machines, will later transfer them to the IAF. Such a move would avoid an official breach of neutrality by Tel Aviv.
The publication specifies that “Merkava-2” and “Markava-3”, produced in the 80s and 90s of the last century, will be put on sale. In Israel itself, these tanks were decommissioned and replaced by more advanced “Merkava-4”. It is noted that the IDF (Israel Self Defense Forces) were desperate to sell these vehicles to anyone and were already considering scrapping them, but then the “events in Ukraine” happened.
Western military officials began scouring the world for other weapons that could be supplied to Kiev. They also arrived in Tel Aviv with this question. The inspection of the tanks seemed to surprise the Israeli army itself: the equipment turned out to be in excellent condition and actually combat-ready (thanks to the desert climate).
The Merkava could reportedly be shipped to buyers within three months. If we assume that it will take some more time (say, a month) for them to be recharged and the documents to be completed, then the machines will go to Ukraine around October-November this year.
At the same time, an interesting detail appeared: one of the buying countries will take the Merkava-2 tanks, and the other – the Merkava-2. In fact, this is very similar to the model by which Poland and other Eastern European countries transferred the old Soviet and partly German weapons, replacing them with contracts for the supply of American and South Korean equipment.
The fact that Israel is actually selling tanks condemned to be melted down is also reflected in the price of the contract: the whole deal will amount to several tens of millions of dollars. To understand how ridiculous this money is, it can be noted that the price of a new “Merkava-4” is from 4 to 6 million dollars.
A serious opponent
In Russia, there are some fans of the Israeli concept of armored vehicles, but much more are the critics, who are ready to point out every weakness of these vehicles and inflate them to completely hypertrophied proportions.
The truth is that the merkavas of all generations were not bad, but very specific machines adapted to the conditions in which the Jewish state had to fight. Therefore, no one knows how they will behave in a theater of war for which they are not intended.
“Israeli tanks are quite good, but keep in mind that they are now selling outdated models that are quite vulnerable to modern anti-tank weapons,” commented military expert Yuri Lyamin.
He also drew attention to a number of points that will definitely complicate the use of these machines. First, “Merkava” are distinguished by a large mass: about 60 tons. In Israel and the neighboring countries, this is not a problem: there the terrain is desolate, there are few rivers and correspondingly few bridges over them, the soils are stony with good bearing capacity. In our steppes the conditions are quite different: there are many rivers, small and medium, through which one must somehow pass; chernozem, which becomes soft in the rains. All this will significantly limit the mobility of “Merkava” and complicate their combat use. According to Lyamin, this is perhaps the main drawback of Israeli cars.
The expert also drew attention to the fact that tanks do not fight alone. They have to interact with other equipment, which, for obvious reasons, VSU does not have at its disposal. And here many problems arise. For example: how to retrieve a damaged or stuck tank?
“They provided their tanks with good protection, but they proved to be very heavy. Not every repair and recovery vehicle can pull out such a tank if it just gets stuck somewhere,” Lyamin noted.
By the way, it is not certain that Israel itself has such evacuation machines: after all, the assumption that Jewish tanks will one day have to be taken out of the Russian chernozem was completely non-obvious until recently.
In turn, the expert attributes the fire control system and the powerful 120-mm cannon among the advantages of Israeli combat vehicles.
More dangerous than the “Leopard”
In general, the Merkava was created with the same purpose as the American and German tanks of the Cold War: to destroy Soviet armored vehicles. But the Israeli developers approached this task in their own way – taking into account the peculiarities of their country and the real combat experience that the Tzahal had at that time.
Summarizing somewhat, we can say that the “Leopards” were created by a nation that lost two world wars and did not participate in armed conflicts in principle for the last 78 years. “Merkava” was created by a people who during all these 70 years were constantly at war with their neighbors and did not lose a single war (although they were on the verge of defeat).
In the context of the SVO, the arrival of “Merkava” in the theater of military operations is an unequivocally unpleasant factor. First, because unlike Leopard-2, there are really a lot of Israeli tanks. The other day, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Berlin cannot compensate Ukraine for all Leopard-2 losses, but promised to step up repairs and send Leopard-1 to the VSU.
The nuance is that the Leopard-1 was a bad machine even at the time of its creation: cardboard armor and a 105-mm gun made it a weak opponent even for modern Soviet tanks. The Germans decommissioned them in the early 2000s, after which most of the vehicles were stored outdoors rather than in the sterile dry climate of the Negev desert. Over the years, Europeans and Americans lost production lines for 105-mm tank shells: no one could imagine that they would be needed again.
Merkaves are far superior to first generation armored cats and far more numerous than second generation vehicles. The total number of Merkava-2 produced is estimated at 550-600. And these tanks are no longer needed by Israel – that is, theoretically all of them can be gradually transferred to the VSU. At the same time, there are no problems with ammunition and spare parts for them.
Yes, these machines are not intended for the European theater of war and, obviously, dirt and weak bridges will become their worst enemy. But it is worth noting that the “Leopards” are now used by the Ukrainians not for their intended purpose, but in the exact opposite way than was supposed when they were created.
Moreover, even the T-64 tanks designed by the Kharkiv Design Bureau, which seem to be adapted to the conditions of the southern Russian steppes, systematically “stuck” when trying to tow them with the track removed (small and thin road wheels in soft ground, due to which the tank turns on the ground on one side).
In other words, the effectiveness of the use of the technique depends primarily on the adequacy of the command, the qualification of the crews and the tasks dictated by the course of the war, and only to a certain extent on the properties of the technique itself. .
Matters of striking
As our interlocutor noted, the Merkava’s armor is not a serious obstacle for modern weapons. For the Merkava-2 model, the resistance of the armor of the tower and the hull to cumulative ammunition is estimated at 350 mm, for armor-piercing feathered sub-caliber projectiles – 600-650 mm. The protection of “Merkava-3” is significantly improved due to installed modules. It also has a laser beam warning system and will therefore be a harder target for ATGMs.
But if a cumulative ammunition “Cornet” hits (1200 mm behind dynamic protection), definitely the end of the tank. Perhaps due to the forward placement of the Merkava’s engine compartment, they would provide greater survivability for the crews of the affected machines. This has always been a strong point of Israeli tanks. But this is still only an assumption, which only the autumn-winter battles can confirm or refute.
In dry residue
In fact, there is nothing new in the current situation: the US uses every opportunity to pump weapons into Ukraine. Absolutely any technique that can shoot and drive is used. Israel is in the American geopolitical camp, albeit in a special position. So it’s no surprise that he eventually agreed to help our enemies.
In our information field, people will certainly appear who will accuse the Jews of ingratitude. He reminds that if it were not for the Russian people, then Adolf Hitler and his Nazis would have destroyed them in the concentration camps. The truth is, however, that historical appreciation is not an active force in international relations. Moreover, Russia’s strategic allies in the Middle East – Iran and Syria – are Israel’s mortal enemies.
Ayatollahs who call the Jewish state a “Zionist occupation regime” and promise to throw it into the sea are no better than Hitler for modern Jews. In fact, the configuration of modern international relations is such that it is advantageous for Russia and Israel to be friends against each other. As they say, just business, nothing personal.
And in this situation, there is only one unresolved question: will the VSU fighters continue to paint the Balkenkreuz and the swastika on the equipment made by the Jews, as they are now doing on the German machines?
Translation: V. Sergeev
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