Development of tanks and other armoured vehicles may have been dominated after the Second World War by the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, France and Germany, but several other countries have also made significant if mostly intermittent contributions to it.
An early example of this was the development of tanks in Switzerland. It started virtually without the benefit of any earlier experience, as all the armoured vehicles the Swiss Army had before the war were four two-man light tanks purchased in Britain from Vickers Armstrongs and LTH light tanks, which were ordered from Czechoslovakia in 1936 and assembled in Switzerland as Pz.39 using Saurer diesel engines and 24mm Oerlikon guns. However, only 24 were built when the flow of components from Czechoslovakia stopped in 1939 after it came under German control.
Once the Second World War broke out, Switzerland’s geopolitical position prevented it from procuring tanks from other countries. At the same time it was not in a position to produce them then on its own. It was only in 1942 that the first step was taken towards remedying the situation with the building by the Federal Construction Works (K+W) in Thun of a partially armoured self-propelled 75mm anti-tank gun called NK-I. A year later another step was taken with the construction of NK-II, a well-armoured 75mm assault gun. But by the time this prototype was built, the war in Europe was coming to a close and its development was discontinued. However, the Swiss Army recognized the need to provide itself with some armoured vehicles and in 1946 took advantage of an opportunity to purchase from Czechoslovakia 158 assault guns from a stock of Jagdpanzer 38(t) originally produced for the German Army. The last of them was delivered in 1952 and they were allocated as G 13 Panzerjager to three specially created tank destroyer battalions.1
G 13 was a 16-tonne low silhouette turretless vehicle armed with what was still a relatively potent 75mm L/48 gun, which in its German guise proved very effective in the later stages of the Second World War. In consequence it met the most urgent need of the Swiss Army for a counter to hostile tanks. The need to go further and to acquire battle tanks was not accepted until 1951, when the international situation had clearly deteriorated following the outbreak of the war in Korea. But battle tanks could not be procured from Britain or the United States, which were the only countries producing them at the time outside the Soviet bloc. The only opportunity left open to the Swiss Army was to go to France and to order 200 AMX 13s in 1951, which were beginning to be produced. It was actually the first of several armies to procure this light tank, which provided it with an armoured vehicle armed with a 75mm gun considerably more effective than that of the G 13.
Nevertheless, the need for more powerful tanks remained, and in 1955 it became possible to place an order in Britain for 100 Centurion tanks. This was followed a year later by a second order for 100 Centurions, all of which were delivered between 1956 and 1960, when 100 more were purchased from South Africa where the government of the day decided that they were no longer needed – a decision which the South African Army came to regret 20 years later when it had to fight the Marxist forces in Angola. On the other hand, this decision enabled the Swiss Army to build its fleet of Centurions to 300 tanks, which were later made more effective by being re-armed with the much more powerful 105mm L7 guns instead of their original 83.8mm 20-pounders.
Thanks to their armament, the Centurions met the Swiss Army’s need for well-armed battle tanks, but in other respects they were not what it wanted. In particular, it wanted lighter tanks, of about 30 rather than 50 tonnes, and not wider than 3.06m, which would keep them within the Berne International Load Gauge and therefore allow them to be transported without restrictions by rail, as well as making them better able to operate along narrow roads and village streets. Such considerations reinforced the case for the development of an indigenous tank, which the Technical Section of the Swiss General Staff began to study as early as 1951. In addition to being better suited to Swiss conditions, an indigenous tank also had the attractions of making the Swiss Army independent of foreign sources and, although it was likely to cost more than an imported tank, most of the money would be spent on it within the country.
The characteristics of an indigenous tank were established in 1953 and the task of designing one was entrusted to K+W Thun, the principal Swiss ordnance establishment, which had produced and overhauled military equipment for more than one hundred years. In spite of being new to it, K+W Thun designed and produced a tank that was not only the first ever made in Switzerland but which was on a par with other contemporary tanks.
The first prototype completed in 1958 was armed with a version of a Swiss 90mm anti-tank gun, and so was a pre-production series of ten tanks that were designated Pz.58. However, the Swiss General Staff decided against the production of the Pz.58 and opted instead for a version of it armed with the British 105mm L7 gun. This gun was produced in Switzerland under licence and was the only major component of the Pz.61 that was not Swiss, except for the German Daimler Benz MB 837 V-8 diesel.
Production of 150 Pz.61s was ordered in 1961 and the first was delivered in 1964. It had a conventional configuration but its weight of 38 tonnes put it among the lightest of its generation of battle tanks. One of its unusual features was a hull cast in one piece, which until then had only been produced for the US M48 tank. The production of such a hull was a considerable achievement on the part of Swiss foundrymen and eliminated the need to import thick armour plate, which was not produced in Switzerland. Pz.61 also incorporated the second tank transmission ever to be produced with a progressive hydraulically controlled steering drive and a unique independent suspension with conical plate springs instead of coil springs or torsion bars.
Two years after the last Pz.61 was completed in 1966, the Swiss Army ordered a new version of it called Pz.68. Initially 170 were ordered but this was followed by two further orders for a total of 160 tanks, the last of which was delivered in 1979 when the Swiss tank fleet reached 780 tanks, all armed with the 105mm L7 gun.
However, Pz.68 proved troublesome, particularly where the various new features incorporated in it were concerned, and its procurement became the subject of controversy that led to it being investigated in 1979 by a committee of the Swiss Federal Council. In the course of the investigations the committee interviewed many people, including the writer, and concluded that the shortcomings of Pz.68 could be rectified. When this was done, it was decided that the fourth and final series of 60 tanks should be completed, but the committee endorsed the view that the Pz.68 was not fit to engage in duels with the latest of the contemporary battle tanks.2
The shortcomings of the Pz.68 had an important bearing on the next stage of the development of tanks in Switzerland, which was entrusted in 1978 to the Contraves company. The tank, called NKPz, which was designed by this company was no longer constrained by the 3.06m rail gauge width limitation that had handicapped Pz.61 and Pz.68, and its weight was allowed to rise to 50 tonnes. Moreover, it was provided with an unconventional configuration that was superior in several respects to that of other contemporary tanks. This included the location of the engine compartment at the front of the hull, a two-man turret and the best possible position for the ammunition in the rear of the hull from where it was fed automatically round-by-round to below the turret and then swung up into the breech of the 120mm smooth bore gun.3
For all that, the NKPz was never built. Bearing in mind the history of the Pz.68, Swiss authorities came to the conclusion that Switzerland lacked the infrastructure necessary for the successful development of a modern battle tank and that it would have to procure a proven foreign tank, which many Swiss Army officers favoured anyway.4 This led to competitive trials of two German Leopard 2s and two US M1 tanks in 1981 and 1982, which resulted in the selection of the former, and in 1983 the Swiss Federal Council authorized the procurement of 380 of the German model.
The first 35 Leopard 2s came directly from Germany, but the remainder were built at K+W Thun, which had previously produced Pz.61s and Pz.68s, and the last of them, called Pz.87s in Switzerland, was delivered in 1993. Their production under licence in Switzerland accounted for much of their cost and ensured the retention in the country of production skills and facilities as well as saving foreign exchange.
While it preserved manufacturing skills, the adoption of the Leopard 2 put an end to the design of tanks in Switzerland, but did not prevent some other indigenous development. This included further improvements to some of the Pz.68s and the development for them of a much more effective composite armour, which was not, however, put into production. By 1988 K+W Thun had also developed a 120mm smooth bore compact tank gun with a smaller external diameter than all the earlier guns of its calibre so that it could be retrofitted if required in the relatively small turret of the Pz.68. In keeping with the developments in other countries, K+W Thun had also developed a 140mm smooth bore tank gun. This was installed in a Leopard 2, from which it was fired for the first time in 1989, and its APFSDS projectiles proved capable of penetrating about 1,000mm of steel armour. But, like that of the other 140mm guns, its development was not pursued beyond trials.
Further development was confined to modifications to Leopard 2s. Centurions and then Pz.61s and Pz.68s were disposed of by 2008 and the number of Leopard 2s maintained by the Swiss Army was reduced to 224.
Unlike Switzerland, Sweden became involved with the development of tanks well before the Second World War, mainly as a result of the connections of some of its companies with German industry. Although it remained neutral, by the middle of the war Sweden built up its fleet to 436 tanks of 8.5 to 11 tonnes, all armed with 37mm Bofors guns mounted in two man turrets. They consisted of 216 tanks built by the Landsverk company and 220 Czech-designed TNH tanks built under licence as Strv m/41.
Czech built TNHs served the German Army well as PzKpfw 38(t)s in the 1940 campaign in France and in the early stages of the invasion of the Soviet Union. But in 1941 they began to lose their effectiveness, like other tanks of their kind. In consequence the Swedish Army decided that it needed a more powerful type of tank. The only way open to it of acquiring such a tank proved to be the adoption of one called Lago, which Landsverk had began to develop for Hungary.5 This led to the Strv m/42, which was in effect a stretched version of the earlier Landsverk light tank but designed not to exceed 2.35m in width in order to meet the limitations of the Swedish transportation system. It weighed 22 tonnes and was armed with a short-barrelled 75mm gun mounted in a three-man turret, all of which made it comparable with the original version of the German PzKpfw IV.
The first Strv m/42 was produced in 1943 and the last in 1945, when 282 had been completed. They were the most powerful tanks the Swedish Army had at the end of the Second World War and they retained that position for several years after it. During this period the Swedish Army evaluated several wartime German vehicles, including the Tiger and the Panther, as well as US M4 Shermans, but did not take any steps towards acquiring new tanks until after the outbreak of the war in Korea in 1950 and the general revival of interest in tanks that followed. The initial steps took the form of negotiations with Britain about the purchase of Centurion tanks, which was agreed to in 1952 and led to the delivery a year later of the first of 80 Centurions armed with 83.8mm guns. More were ordered in 1954, bringing the total of Centurions to 240 tanks that were designated Strv 81.
Between 1952 and 1953 the Swedish Army also considered procuring the French AMX 13 light tank. One was brought to Sweden for trials and at one time the acquisition of 300 to 400 was considered, but in the end the idea of purchasing AMX 13 was rejected. Instead it was proposed in 1953 to retrofit the available but by then obsolete Strv m/42 with a new turret and a version of a pre-war 75mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun, which made it comparable in terms of gun power to AMX 13. The proposal was accepted and two prototypes were built in 1954, followed by a conversion of 225 Strv m/42s into Strv 74s, which remained in service until 1984.
In addition to this and the procurement of the Centurions, the Swedish Army began to study a heavy indigenous tank in the early 1950s. This came to be known as the KRV and consisted of a novel Bofors turret mounted on a chassis with a hull front like that of the Soviet IS-3. It was to be armed with a smooth bore 155mm gun firing fin-stabilized shaped charge projectiles that were automatically loaded from a magazine attached to the gun, so that they moved together like the gun and the magazine of the AMX 13. However, only two chassis were built by 1957 when the whole project was abandoned.6 Instead the army ordered 110 additional Centurions in 1958, which were delivered during the following two years. This time they were armed with 105mm L7 guns, and by the mid-1960s Centurions received earlier were re-armed with this gun. As a result, by 1966 the Swedish Army had 350 tanks armed as well as any in the Western world except for the new British Chieftain.
In the meantime, the head of the tank design section of the Swedish Army ordnance, Sven Berge, put forward in 1956 the idea of a radically new type of turretless tank with a gun fixed in the hull and elevated and depressed by altering its pitch and traversed by turning the whole vehicle.7 The idea of such a tank was inspired in part by AMX 13, which Berge studied when it was being considered by the Swedish Army and in particular by its relatively simple combination of a gun with an automatic loading system that resulted from the gun and the ammunition magazine being fixed in the upper part of the oscillating turret. In consequence, what Berge proposed was in principle putting the upper part of an oscillating turret directly on a tracked chassis.
As he told the writer, Berge was also impressed by the wartime record of the turretless German Sturmgeschutz, which not only enjoyed the advantage of a low silhouette but could be swung round rapidly if required to face a target. However, it was not evident that a vehicle could be turned sufficiently smoothly for tracking targets. This question was resolved by a series of tests with different vehicles that were carried out between 1957 and 1959, which led to the adoption of a two-stage steering system operating in a clutch-and-brake mode for rapid turns and as hydrostatically driven double differential for slower but smooth turns.
By 1959 the development of Berge’s ideas had advanced sufficiently for an order to be given to Bofors for the construction of two prototypes, which were completed two years later. They were followed by the construction of ten pre-production vehicles and then by full scale production, from which the first tank was delivered in 1967 and the last in 1971, when a total of 290 had been completed.
The tank that was produced has been commonly known as the S-tank but was officially designated Strv 103. It was armed with a longer barrelled version of the 105mm L7 gun, which was fed automatically from a magazine containing 50 rounds and ideally situated in the rear of the hull. The front of the hull housed a unique power plant consisting of a diesel engine and a gas turbine. At the cost of some complication, this offered the potential advantage of the fuel economy of a moderately sized diesel that powered the tank by itself most of the time, and the small size of the gas turbine in relation to the additional power that it delivered but that was only required occasionally. The gas turbine also ensured starting under extreme cold weather conditions, and either engine could drive the tank by itself, which halved the common risk of the tank being immobilized by an engine failure. As in the case of the Swiss Pz.61 and Pz.68, the engines of the S-tank were the only major components that were imported, the diesels coming at first from Rolls-Royce in Britain and then from Detroit Diesel in the United States, while the gas turbines were originally of Boeing and then of Caterpillar origin.
The S-tank had a crew of three, two of whom sat abreast in the centre of the hull and were provided with identical sets of integrated steering, suspension and gun controls, which made either of them capable of fully operating the tank by himself: the first and still the only time that this could be done by one man in any tank. The S-tank also offered its crewmen a high degree of ballistic protection, not only because of its steeply sloped frontal armour but also because of the location of the engines and transmission in front of them.
However, there was also a major disadvantage to the S-tank, which was its inability to engage targets on the move unless they happened to be straight ahead of it. This was not a critical issue when tanks had to stop to fire accurately, because the S-tank could stop and fire as quickly as other tanks. But when further development of stabilized gun controls made tanks capable of firing accurately on the move, the S-tank became seriously handicapped by its inability to compete in this respect.
Nevertheless, the approach it represented was included in a comprehensive series of studies carried out by the Swedish Army of a possible lighter follow-on to the S-tank, which came to weigh 42.3 tonnes in its final version, having started at 37.7 tonnes. Studies of lighter vehicles began in 1972 and continued for about ten years. Like similar studies in Britain and Germany, they included the concepts of vehicles with a gun mounted externally on a pedestal instead of a turret, which was put to the test by installing a 105mm gun on a Marder infantry fighting vehicle borrowed from Germany. The studies led eventually to another very original vehicle, the 26-tonne UDES XX 20, which was built in 1982. This was an articulated vehicle with a front part containing a crew of three and a 120mm tank gun mounted on a pedestal, and a rear part containing the engine and the ammunition. The development of the UDES XX 20 by the Hagglunds company was encouraged by the success achieved by its Bv 206 articulated unarmoured all-terrain tracked carriers, 11,000 of which have been acquired by about 15 different countries. Like the latter, UDES XX 20 was inherently superior to conventional tracked vehicles in terms of its performance over soft ground and in crossing ditches and similar obstacles. But it was more complicated and more expensive to build. The 120mm gun was fired from it, but its development did not proceed beyond the tests of its prototype in 1984, when a system of loading its gun still had to be devised.8
Termination of the work on UDES XX 20 marked the end of attempts to develop well-armed but relatively light-tracked armoured fighting vehicles. Instead, the focus of attention in Sweden turned to the development of heavier vehicles, which would ultimately replace the Centurions and the S-tanks. Studies of possible alternatives included, once again, a tank with a pedestal mounted gun as well as a more conventional tank with a low profile turret. What was eventually adopted in 1991 and designated Strv 2000 was an original design with a cleft two-man turret mounting a 140mm gun that was to be provided only with APFSDS ammunition against enemy tanks side-by-side with a 40mm Bofors automatic gun for the engagement of all other targets. In these respects Strv 2000 differed from all other contemporary tanks, and it also differed from all but two of them in having its engine at the front of the hull. It was to have been well armoured and this would have made it weigh more than 50 tonnes.9 However, its development did not advance beyond a full size mock-up because its cost was considered to be high and could be avoided by the adoption of a tank already produced elsewhere.
The alternative of adopting a foreign tank was pursued concurrently with the work on Strv 2000. It involved preliminary trials in 1989 and 1990 of a German Leopard 2A4 and a US M1A1, which were followed in 1992 to 1993 by the trials of an improved Leopard 2, an M1A2, and a French Leclerc, and in 1993 to 1994 a Russian T-80U. The trials led to the adoption of the Leopard and an agreement with its German manufacturers, the Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann company, for the partial production in Sweden of the Leopard 2S, which was a further improvement of the latest Leopard 2A5 incorporating considerably enhanced ballistic and mine protection that increased its weight to 62.5 tonnes. A total of 120 was ordered by the Swedish Army, the first 29 of which were built in Germany while the remainder were assembled in Sweden from Swedish and German components. They entered service in 1997 as Strv 122 and production of them was completed in 2002.10
In addition to the agreement for the production in Sweden of Strv 122, the Swedish Army also arranged in 1994 to lease 160 Leopard 2A4s from the German Army, which were designated Strv 121. As they and the Strv 122 came into service they replaced the Centurions and then the S-tanks, the last of which was retired in 2001. In 2006 Strv 121 was also phased out, leaving the Swedish Army with a small but highly effective fleet of tanks composed solely of Strv 122.
While Sweden as well as Switzerland gave up tanks they had developed in favour of tanks designed elsewhere, a very different course was pursued by Israel, which was forced by circumstances to use at first a mixture of such foreign tanks as it could acquire but eventually built a formidable force of indigenous tanks.
In fact, when the state of Israel was born in 1948, its tank force consisted of two Cromwell tanks spirited from the British forces as they were withdrawing from Palestine and ten Hotchkiss H.39 light tanks, which the German Army had captured in 1940 and the French Army recovered in 1945 and which the Israeli underground purchased from France in 1948. Within a year Israel managed to create, mainly by purchases from foreign scrapyards, a force of 30-odd obsolescent M4 Sherman tanks armed with their original 75mm guns. Some more were acquired later, but more effective tanks were not obtained until 1955 from France. They included 60 AMX 13 light tanks and 100 or so ex-French Army Shermans armed with 76mm guns, which were renamed M1 or Super Shermans. They were followed by Shermans that were re-armed in Israel with the same high-velocity 75mm gun as that mounted in the AMX 13. A company of these M50 Shermans was completed in time to be used in the 1956 Israeli offensive called Operation Kadesh, which preceded the ill-fated Anglo-French Suez Canal campaign and swept the Egyptian forces out of the Sinai. Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) lost 30 tanks in this operation but inflicted a loss of 150 tanks on the Egyptian Army, most of which were Soviet-built T-34-85.11
Although the AMX 13 and the Shermans re-armed with the latter’s 75mm gun proved effective in 1956, they were no longer so 11 years later during the Six Day War, when the Egyptian Army had acquired from the Soviet Union the more heavily armoured T-54 tanks. The IDF therefore needed tanks with more powerful armament. To meet this need, the IDF developed yet another version of the Sherman tank called the M51, which was armed with a somewhat less powerful version of the 105mm gun developed for the new French AMX 30 battle tank that relied on the shaped charge Obus G for the defeat of enemy tanks. A total of 200 Shermans was converted into M51s and they began to come into use in 1960.
In 1960 the IDF took another and much more important step forward by purchasing from Britain 30 Centurion tanks, some of which were new and some had been used. They were still armed with the 83.8mm 20-pounders, but other Centurions purchased from Britain in 1962 were already armed with the 105mm L7 gun and those delivered earlier were re-armed with it. Thus by the outbreak of the Six Day War in 1967 the IDF had acquired a total of 385 Centurions and they became the most important part of its tank fleet.
The IDF had also ordered 150 US-built M48 tanks from Germany, where they had become surplus to its army’s requirements, but because of Arab pressure only 40 were delivered. However, in 1965 the IDF received the first M48 tanks directly from the United States and by the outbreak of the war in 1967 it had 250 of them, all still armed with 90mm guns.
In consequence, when the IDF delivered their pre-emptive strike in 1967 against the Egyptian forces, their tank fleet consisted of several different types. Nevertheless, in spite of the tactical and logistics handicaps that the mix of tanks entailed, the IDF routed the Egyptian Army in four days and inflicted on it a loss of about 820 tanks out of the 935 it deployed. The tanks that the Egyptian Army lost included 373 T-54s and T-55s, many of which were taken into Israeli service, meaning that there were enough of them to equip one Israeli armoured brigade. The IDF also captured about 100 M48s that were used by the Jordanian forces and that were quickly integrated into their own M48 tank units.12
The riposte of Egypt and Syria came six years later when they launched a co-ordinated attack on Israel that resulted in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Egyptian and Syrian armies had been furnished since 1967 with large quantities of Soviet equipment and their tank strength had risen to an estimated total of 2,200 and 1,820 tanks respectively. Most of the tanks were T-54s and T-55s, but they also included a number of the relatively new T-62s armed with smooth bore 115mm guns instead of the 100mm rifled guns of the other Soviet tanks. Moreover, the Syrian Army was supported by contingents from Iraq and Jordan, which committed 450 tanks out of their total of 1,740 tanks.13
To oppose this potential total of almost 6,000 tanks, Israel had about 2,000. They included 540 M48s and M60A1s, the first 150 of the latter having been received from the United States in 1971. The rest were for the most part Centurions, but they also included captured T-54s and T-55s and still some M51s and even M50 Shermans armed with the obsolete 75mm guns. However, except for the last two, all the other tanks were now armed or re-armed with 105mm L7 guns or their US equivalent.
The war was waged on two fronts and on both the scale of tank battles was comparable to the biggest tank battles of the Second World War. On the northern or Golan Heights front the Syrian Army had concentrated three infantry divisions, each containing a tank brigade, backed by two armoured divisions that had an estimated total of as many as 1,260 tanks.14 Facing them initially were two Israeli tank brigades with a total of 177 Centurions, these being considered more suitable for employment in the rocky terrain of the Golan Heights because of their rugged suspensions and all-steel tracks than the M48s and M60s, which were employed in the Sinai.
In spite of the numerical inferiority, the Israeli 7th Armoured Brigade successfully fought off repeated Syrian attacks against the northern sector of the Golan Heights in an epic defensive battle that left 260 Syrian tanks destroyed or abandoned in front of its positions on what came to be called the Valley of Tears.15 The 7th Armoured Brigade also suffered heavy losses and was reduced to seven tanks by the time reinforcements arrived, when the Israeli forces began to counter-attack, which eventually brought them within artillery range of Damascus. All the fighting on the Golan plateau cost the Syrian Army a loss of 867 tanks and in total it is estimated to have lost 1,150.16
On the Sinai front, the successful assault crossing of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian forces was followed immediately by counter-attacks by the Israeli 252nd Division, which ran into Egyptian infantry equipped with an exceptionally large number of Soviet-made Sagger anti-tank guided missiles and failed, losing 165 of its 268 tanks. This immediately led to worldwide rumours that tanks were no longer effective and it took some time for these to be disproved by the evidence provided by the rest of the Yom Kippur War, in which many more tanks were destroyed by the guns of the opposing tanks than by guided missiles. This was shown to be the case on the Syrian front and was demonstrated on an even larger scale on the Sinai front when the Egyptian forces tried to break out of the bridgehead they established after the crossing of the Suez Canal. Their offensive carried out on either side of the Great Bitter Lake involved up to 1,000 tanks and precipitated the largest tank battle since the Second World War, in which the Egyptian tanks were defeated by the superior gunnery and manoeuvring skill of the defending Israeli tank units. The latter had about 750 tanks, of which they lost 20, while they managed to destroy 260 Egyptian tanks.17 The total number of tanks lost by the IDF on both fronts is estimated to have been 840, but as they were left in control of most of the battlefield they might have recovered about 400 of the tanks that were put out of action.18
To make up for their losses, the IDF received more M48 and M60 tanks from the United States, which restored the size of their tank fleet to 2,000 or more. With their arrival the M48 and the M60 outnumbered the Centurions, which had been the principal tanks of the IDF and which continued to be used until 1992. While they were still in use the Centurions as well as the M60s were fitted with explosive reactive armour, with which they took part in the 1982 invasion of the Lebanon and which greatly improved their protection against RPG-7 rocket propelled grenades and other shaped charge anti-tank weapons. Subsequently, while the Centurions were being retired, the M60s were extensively modified by the addition of a considerable amount of passive armour to their turrets and hulls, increasing their weight by 6.5 to 7 tonnes, and in the up-armoured form they were designated Magach 7.
The modifications that the IDF made to the various tanks it acquired from Britain, the United States and elsewhere improved them considerably and they undoubtedly proved effective. Nevertheless, since the 1960s the IDF hankered after a modern tank of its own, to be sure of having one when it was needed and that it was up to date. This prompted the idea of producing a foreign-designed tank under licence in Israel, which coincided in 1966 with a proposal by the British Ministry of Defence for the joint development and co-production of the new British Chieftain tank. The proposal was eagerly accepted by the IDF and in 1967 two Chieftains were sent for trials in Israel.19 The writer may have unwittingly contributed to this in a small way by lecturing in Tel Aviv on the Chieftain to an audience that included General I. Rabin, the IDF Chief of Staff, and other senior officers two years before the British offer!
Two more Chieftains were sent to Israel in 1968 to replace the original pair, but a year later, under pressure from Arab countries, the British government reneged on its agreement with Israel.20 This confirmed the IDF in its belief that it could not depend on foreign sources for tanks, and within eight months of the Chieftains being returned to Britain a decision was taken to produce an indigenous tank in Israel.
The direction of the design and the development of the tank, which was called Merkava or Chariot, was entrusted to General Israel Tal, who led one of the three Israeli armoured thrusts in the Sinai in 1967 and who, as commander of the Armoured Corps, inspired it to achieve a high level of proficiency in long-range tank gunnery. Tal took the view that survivability should be the basic feature of the Merkava and in particular that it should offer a high level of protection for its two most vulnerable components, which are the crew and the ammunition. To this end, Tal departed from convention and had Merkava’s engine and transmission located at the front of the hull so that they would contribute to the protection of the crew against the most common frontal direction of attacks. Only the Swedish S-tank also made use of the power pack to augment its frontal protection, but this was inseparable from its whole concept rather than a deliberate choice. Otherwise, Merkava was protected by spaced armour, which until the advent in Britain of Chobham armour represented the most advanced form of protection used in Western tanks, and by making as many as possible of the mechanical components contribute to it.21
The designers of the Merkava had little choice when they adopted the US-made AVDS-1790 diesel and CD-850 transmission, which were already well known in Israel not only because they were used in the M60 tanks but also because the IDF used them to re-power the Centurions. The choice of the main armament was also restricted, being confined to the Israeli version of the US 105mm M68 gun, derived from the British L7, which was already produced in Israel and was used by the IDF to re-arm most of its other tanks as well as being similar to guns widely used throughout the Western world.
The location of the engine and transmission at the front meant that the ammunition could be located at the rear of the hull, where it was least vulnerable. It also made possible the provision of a unique rear access door, which made entry and exit much easier and safer than in all other tanks. Moreover, the combination of the rear access door with removable ammunition racks made it possible to convert the rear of the hull into a compartment that could, among other things, accommodate six infantrymen.
This led to a lot of nonsense being written about Merkava being a novel type of tank-cum-infantry carrier. In fact, it was only expected to carry infantrymen or casualties in emergencies and could only do so when most of its 50 rounds of ammunition had been unloaded.
The first prototype of the Merkava began to be tested in December 1974, and five years later the first were delivered to the Israeli Armoured Corps. This represented a remarkable achievement bearing in mind that Israel had no previously established tank manufacturing facilities and put to shame the time taken to produce new tanks in other countries where such facilities were well established.
Merkava received its baptism of fire during the 1982 Israeli invasion of the Lebanon, where it performed with credit. In particular, although the armour of some was inevitably pierced by anti-tank weapons, no crewman was burnt. This attested to the effectiveness of the measures taken against the common threat of tanks catching fire when hit, which included stowing the ammunition in a unique system of heat resistant containers. Merkava Mark 1 was followed in 1983 by the Mark 2, which was provided with even better, composite armour and a more efficient Israeli-produced automatic transmission, and in 1990 by the Mark 3, which was armed with an Israeli version of the 120mm smooth bore gun mounted in the German Leopard 2 and the US M1A1. Further development resulted in the appearance in 1992 of the Mark 3 Baz with a fire control system incorporating automatic target tracking, which put it ahead in this respect of other tanks except for the Japanese Type 90. Its inclusion increased very considerably the probability of hitting targets on the move, which was demonstrated to the writer when he was given an opportunity to fire from a Mark 3 Baz during a visit to the IDF Armour School and hit a target every time.22
In 2002 Israeli tank units began to receive Merkava Mark 4, which incorporated further major improvements, particularly in mobility and survivability. The former involved the replacement of the AVDS-1790 diesel, although its output had been gradually increased to 1,200hp, by the German 1,500hp MTU MT 883 diesel, which was not only more powerful but was the best available tank engine. The advances in survivability included the use of a combination of passive and reactive armour and reshaping of the turret, which made Merkava Mark 4 one of the best protected tanks in the world. In spite of this its weight had only risen to 65 tonnes, compared with 60 tonnes of the Mark 1 and 2. Moreover, from Mark 3 onwards much of the armour became modular, so that it could be easily changed to meet changing threats by taking advantage of advances in protection technology.
The need for further improvements was shown when a Merkava Mark 3 was destroyed in 2002 on the border of the Gaza Strip by a mine containing almost 100kg of explosive.23 No tank could be expected to withstand the explosion of such a heavy mine, but to increase their protection against other mines Merkava Mark 4s were fitted with an additional thick steel belly plate, which proved so effective that at least one of them survived the blast of a mine containing 150kg of explosive during the 2006 war in the Lebanon with only one of its crew being killed.24
The 2006 war against the Hezbollah also brought out the threat of the new generation of anti-tank guided missiles and in particular of the Russian-made laser beam riding Kornet, which is claimed to be capable of penetrating 1,000 to 1,200mm of steel armour even when the latter is protected by explosive reactive armour. The missiles took their toll of the Merkavas, about 50 being hit, of which according to the IDF 14 were destroyed by missiles and six by mines. Fewer might have been lost if the IDF high command had employed tanks more decisively from the start, instead of adopting as the dominant tactic the use of stand-off fire power delivered mainly by aircraft, which was popular at the time in air force circles not only in Israel but also in the United States although it only delivered partial success.25
In response to the threat of missiles, the IDF accelerated the development of active protection systems on which the Israeli industry had been working since the mid-1990s. The initial outcome of this was a system called Trophy produced by the Rafael organization, which was adopted for use on the Merkava Mark 4 in 2009. In the following year, the Merkava Mark 4 fitted with the Trophy system was deployed with an IDF tank battalion, which made it the first tank to go into service with an active protection system since the introduction of the Soviet T-55AD of 1983.
By 2010, the number of the Merkavas available to the IDF is estimated to have reached a total of about 1,600 and they had almost completely replaced the M60 and Magach 7 that in the 1990s constituted the bulk of the IDF tank fleet, although some Magach 7 have been kept in the reserve.
Israeli armoured forces were not the only ones to start with second hand tanks, as the Italian armoured forces did the same when they were re-created after the Second World War, although they did so on a larger scale. The number of tanks they could have was restricted at first by the terms of the peace treaty imposed on Italy and in 1948 they had only 99 armoured vehicles. But by 1952 the peace treaty restrictions were lifted and Italy received tanks under the US military aid programmes, which raised the number of armoured vehicles in its possession to 521. At the same time, the Ariete and Centauro armoured divisions were re-created and were followed in 1953 by the formation of a third division, each of which had a nominal strength of 250 tanks. Most tanks were initially US M4 Shermans armed with their original 75mm guns, but some were armed with the 76mm 17-pounders when they came from British Army stocks. However, in 1953 the Ariete already had US M46 and the Centauro had M47 tanks.26
In 1958 Italy joined France and Germany in drawing up the requirements for what was intended to be a standard European tank, but while these led to the French AMX 30 and the German Leopard 1 tanks, it took no steps to implement them. Instead it acquired 100 M60A1 tanks from the United States and obtained a licence to build 200 more, which became the first tanks to be produced in Italy since the Second World War.
In the meantime pre-production Leopard 1 tanks had been built in Germany, and the Italian Army tested one of them in 1964. It took six more years for a decision to be taken to adopt the Leopard, but when it was finally taken an order was placed for 800. The first 200 were built in Germany and were delivered in 1971 and 1972. The remaining 600 were produced under licence in Italy, the first being completed in 1974 and the last in 1978.27 Subsequently an order was placed for 120 more tanks, which by 1983 brought the Italian fleet of Leopard 1 tanks to be the second largest after Germany and made it comparable to the tank fleets of Britain and France. Leopard 1 became the mainstay of the Italian armoured forces during the 1980s and 1990s, displacing the M47s and then the M60A1s, and the last were only withdrawn from service in 2009.28
Having acquired considerable experience with the Leopard 1, the Italian Oto Melara and Iveco companies developed from its basis a more powerful tank called the Ariete, just as the German industry developed Leopard 2 from its basis. The requirement for the new tank was issued by the Italian Army in 1982 and two years later its specification was agreed with industry, which worked with commendable speed producing the first of six prototypes in 1986. But the first tank of the production order for 200 placed by the Italian Army was not completed until 1995, while the last was only delivered in 2002.
Ariete turned out to be a well-designed tank of 54 tonnes, comparable in general terms to the German Leopard 2A4. It had the same conventional configuration and was armed with a 120mm smooth bore gun similar to the Rheinmetall 120mm gun of the Leopard 2. It was powered by a 1,300hp Iveco (originally Fiat) diesel coupled to a German ZF transmission produced under licence. All this implies that although Italian armoured forces were reduced by 2009 to four tank regiments with 200 Ariete, they were well equipped.
Like Italy after the Second World War, almost all Latin American countries have provided their armies with tanks originally built for other armies and previously used by them. An exception to this was Argentina, which produced, albeit in small numbers, Latin America’s first indigenous tank.
The tank was the DL 43 Nahuel, or Tiger. Its development is believed to have begun in 1942 when Argentina was still maintaining diplomatic relations with Germany and was unable therefore to obtain tanks from the United States as Brazil did. Nevertheless, Nahuel resembled the contemporary US M4 Sherman medium tank. In particular it had a comparable weight of 35 tonnes and a similar armament of a medium-velocity 75mm L/30 gun, albeit of 1909 vintage, and it was powered by a French 450hp aircraft engine that was produced under licence in Argentina.
Nahuel began to be produced in 1944 but only 16 were completed, as with the ending of the Second World War and changes in the political situation Argentina was able to procure tanks from abroad. It took advantage of this by purchasing from Britain in 1946 ex-British Army M4 Shermans, which began to be delivered a year later. Most were armed with the original medium-velocity 75mm guns, but they included a number that had been re-armed with the 76mm 17-pounders and that became, for a number of years, Latin American’s most potent tanks.
It was only in 1973 that the Argentinian Army issued a requirement for a tank to replace the Shermans. It was to be a medium tank of not more than 30 tonnes, to be compatible with Argentina’s transportation infrastructure, and as well armed as most other contemporary Western tanks, which meant having a 105mm gun of L7 type. The German Thyssen Henschel company that responded was awarded a contract to design such a tank in 1974, and two years later delivered two prototypes of what came to be called Tanque Argentino Mediano or TAM.
The design of TAM was based on the chassis of the German Marder infantry fighting vehicle, and this as well as the 30-tonne limit placed on its weight meant that it was not heavily armoured. But in other respects it was a well-designed tank that compared favourably with other contemporary medium tanks. It began to be assembled in Argentina in 1979 in a purpose built factory, but its production was interrupted in 1983 by the repercussions of the Falklands or Malvinas War and was not resumed until 1994. It was therefore only a year later that the order for 230 was completed in full.
In contrast to at least four other Latin American countries Argentina has made no attempt to procure more powerful tanks. But in the 1960s, in an initial attempt to replace its Shermans, the Argentinian Army procured from France 58 AMX 13 light tanks and had 40 more of them produced at home. In 1981 it followed a similar policy and purchased from the Austrian Stey-Daimler-Puch company 118 SK 105 light tanks or tank destroyers, which consisted of an oscillating turret similar to that of the AMX 13 and were armed with a 105mm gun mounted on the chassis of a Saurer armoured infantry carrier.
Brazil, Argentina’s traditional rival, might have equipped its army with an indigenous tank, but like other Latin American countries it has relied instead on tanks produced elsewhere.
As an ally of the United States, Brazil received during the latter part of the Second World War 104 M3 Lee and 53 M4 Sherman medium tanks as well as about 200 M3 Stuart light tanks. The Shermans and the Stuarts continued to be used into the 1970s when the latter served as a model for the X1A2, which was armed with a 90mm medium-velocity gun made popular by the Panhard AML armoured cars and of which about 30 were built.
A more significant move towards modernizing the Brazilian tank fleet took place in 1960 with the arrival of the first of 386 ex-US Army M41 light tanks. They became the principal tanks of the Brazilian Army and some continued to be used into the 21st century after almost all were modified in the 1980s. The principal features of their modification were a replacement of the original petrol engine by a diesel and of their 76mm gun by a 90mm gun firing fin-stabilized shaped charge projectiles, which was either of the type manufactured in Brazil for the Engesa armoured cars or produced by boring out the original 76mm gun to 90mm.
The Bernardini company that modified the M41 tanks designed, around 1981, a very similar but heavier tank, the MB-3 Tamoyo. Three prototypes of it were built by 1988, but it was not adopted by the Brazilian Army. The same thing happened to Tamoyo III, which had a more powerful engine and was armed with a 105mm L7 type gun, only one prototype of which was built in 1987.
A much more serious proposition was represented by the Osorio medium tank designed on its own initiative by Engesa, a private engineering company that became involved with armoured vehicles when it took over the development of the Carro de Reconhecimento sobre Rodas or CRR, a wheeled reconnaissance vehicle that the Brazilian Army was trying to develop around 1970 to replace the obsolete Second World War US-built M8 6x6 armoured cars that it was still using.29 The CRR evolved into Engesa’s EE-9 Cascavel, a 6x6 armoured car armed at first with a 37mm gun and then fitted with a French turret with a 90mm gun similar to that of the Panhard AML, and eventually with an Engesa turret with a Belgian 90mm Cockerill gun produced under licence. Cascavel was designed and built in prototype form in 1970 at the same time as the EE-11 Urutu, a 6x6 amphibious personnel carrier which shared with it many components. The two vehicles began to be produced in 1974 and quickly proved very successful, being procured not only by the Brazilian Army but also by about 20 different countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. By the time their production ceased, a total of 2,767 of the two vehicles had been built.
Emboldened by the success of its wheeled armoured vehicles and enticed by the prospect of orders from the Brazilian Army and even more from Saudi Arabia, Engesa decided in 1982 to develop a battle tank. Work on it started a year later and exactly one year after it began the first prototype of the tank, which was called Osorio, was rolled out. This was a remarkable achievement that showed the speed with which Engesa worked, untrammelled by the usual military bureaucracy, and which the writer witnessed as an adviser to it from 1972 onwards.
It is only fair to add that the record speed with which Engesa designed and built the first Osorio prototype was helped by the fortuitous existence on the international market of a number of suitable components. Thus its turret with a 105mm L7 gun came from Vickers Defence Systems in Britain and was very similar to that of the Vickers Valiant.30 For financial reasons Osorio was powered by a German MWM industrial diesel of 1,000hp instead of a proven tank engine, but nevertheless this proved very successful. The German ZF transmission of the Osorio had already been developed for other tanks and its Dunlop hydropneumatic suspension was the unsuccessful contender for the suspension of the British Challenger tank. However, the hull still had to be designed and built by Engesa and all the many components that make up a modern tank had to be successfully integrated, which they were as was shown when the Osorio prototype was sent in 1985 to Saudi Arabia for preliminary trials and outperformed a British Challenger.
A second Osorio prototype was completed in 1986. It also had a Vickers turret but it was a further and much more sophisticated development of the Valiant’s turret designed for Vickers’ Mark 7 tank, and it mounted a French Giat 120mm smooth bore gun comparable to that of the German Leopard 2. In 1987 the second prototype took part in extensive competitive trials in Saudi Arabia in which it outperformed the Challenger as well as the French AMX 40 and proved at least as good as the US M1Al. This led Saudi authorities to indicate an interest in procuring 316 Osorios, but they did not follow it with an order. Instead, on the eve of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Saudi government decided to order 315 US M1A1 tanks, and Engesa, which had already exhausted its financial resources in developing the Osorio, became bankrupt.
In consequence, Brazil lost an opportunity of producing a modern tank of its own and a valuable industrial asset, which Engesa had come to represent. This was all the more regrettable in view of the fact that five years after Engesa filed for bankruptcy the Brazilian Army declared its intention to procure Leopard 1 tanks, which were similar to the first prototype of the Osorio and not as advanced as the second, although admittedly they were well proven and required no investment in production facilities.
Leopard 1s were originally ordered from Belgium and the first of 128 of them arrived in 1997, but 80 were then declared unfit for use. Subsequently 250 modernized Leopard 1A5s were ordered from Germany, with the first being handed over to the Brazilian Army in 2009. In addition, in 1997 the Brazilian Army received, somewhat against its wishes, the first of 91 M60A3 tanks from the United States, originally on lease but then converted into a donation.
All these acquisitions provided the Brazilian Army with a sizeable force of relatively modern tanks that were a very considerable advance on the M41 light tanks on which it had previously relied. They also put it ahead of Argentina. However, both countries were overtaken by Chile, which has acquired the most modern and powerful tank force in Latin America.
Like Argentina and Brazil, Chile started after the Second World War with M4 Sherman tanks, having acquired 76 of them from the United States and elsewhere. It made little further progress until the 1960s, when it received 60 M41 light tanks from the United States, but during the following two decades it found it almost impossible to acquire other more powerful tanks because of the hostility to its government headed by General Pinochet. In fact, during this period Chile was only able to obtain 150 M51 and M50 Sherman tanks from Israel and about 20 AMX 30s from France. It was not until 1998, well after General Pinochet relinquished power, that Chile was able to order from the Netherlands 202 ex-Dutch Army Leopard 1 tanks. Eight years later it took an even greater step forward by ordering from Germany 140 of an upgraded version of the Leopard 2A4. The latter was comparable in several respects to the latest Leopard 2A6 and became Latin America’s most powerful tank. With its entry into service Chile’s Leopard 1 fleet was reduced to 120, with 30 being sold to Ecuador.
Chile’s Pacific coast neighbour, Peru, has been the only other Latin American country with a sizeable force of tanks as a result of purchasing in the mid-1970s 300 T-55 tanks from the Soviet Union. By the turn of the century these tanks had become obsolescent, and in 2009 the Peruvian government turned to China for new tanks. In consequence five MBT 2000 tanks were sent by China to Peru for evaluation, but the possibility of purchasing them collapsed as a result of objections from the Ukraine to their export because they were powered by engines that it produced.
Elsewhere in the Southern hemisphere, Australia made a brave attempt to produce a medium tank during the Second World War. Its development was hampered by a lack of suitable components, such as engines, which resulted in it having to be powered by a combination of three Cadillac car engines. In spite of the difficulties, about 69 were built as the Australian cruiser tank Sentinel and proved mechanically successful, but none was used in battle.31 After the war the Australian Army used British-built Centurion tanks, which were replaced in the 1980s by 90 German-built Leopard 1 tanks and these were succeeded in turn by 59 US M1A1s.
Apart from the Australian Sentinel, the Argentinian Nahuel and the Brazilian Osorio, the only indigenous battle tank designed in the Southern hemisphere has been a South African vehicle called the Tank Test Bed. Its development was preceded by a somewhat fitful use of armoured vehicles by the South African Army, which for many years before the Second World War had the only two tanks in the whole of Southern Africa. During the war South Africa concentrated on the production of armoured cars, of which it built no fewer than 5,746, using chassis imported from the United States, for its own and other forces of the British Empire. It also mustered an armoured division that fought in Europe as part of the British Eighth Army.
When the war ended, South Africa retained three regiments of M4 Shermans, which were reinforced in 1953 by the purchase from Britain of 200 Centurions. The latter were regarded as part of the strategic reserve of the British Commonwealth, but when South Africa left the Commonwealth its government saw no further need for tanks and sold 100 of the Centurions to Switzerland.
Instead of tanks, the South African Army concentrated for a time on armoured cars and in particular on the light, 4x4 Panhard AMLs of 4.8 to 5.5 tonnes, which were armed either with 60mm mortars or 90mm guns capable of firing fin-stabilized shaped charge anti-tank projectiles. The first 100 were ordered directly from France in 1961 and 500 more were assembled in South Africa, where they were subsequently produced in a modified form as Eland armoured cars. Production of the Elands continued until 1986, by which time a total of 1,300 vehicles had been built.
Elands were still the only armoured vehicles being produced in South Africa when the writer visited their factory in 1974, and a year later they were successfully used when the South African forces intervened for the first time in the Angolan Civil War in what was called Operation Savannah.32 In later operations, Elands were combined with South African-produced six-wheeled infantry fighting vehicles called Ratels, which began to be developed in 1968 and entered service in 1977. Ratels eventually became the principal armoured vehicles of the South African forces, and when their production ended in 1987 more than 1,200 had been built.
Some of the Ratels were armed with the same 90mm gun as the Elands, and in that form proved capable of destroying T-54 or T-55 tanks operated by the Cuban-backed Angolan Marxist forces by outmanoeuvring them in the dense vegetation of southern Angola, which lessened the disparity between them by reducing the range of engagements. However, in the end the Soviet-supplied tanks used by the Angolan forces, which by late 1985 were estimated to number about 350 T-55s and 150 T-34-85s, had to be countered with tanks.33 In consequence, in 1987 the South African Army deployed tanks in Angola. They amounted to only a squadron of 16 and in the following year the number of South African tanks in Angola rose to no more than two squadrons. But they proved more than a match for the Angolan T-55, and as a deterrent to further offensive action by the latter contributed to the cessation of hostilities in 1988.
The tanks were Olifants 1A, which were much modified British Centurions. The South African Army made an initial attempt in 1972 to improve some of the Centurions it was left with after the sales of one half of its original fleet to Switzerland by retrofitting them with the engines and transmissions of US M48 tanks. This was followed in 1974 by further modifications and the eventual transformation of the Centurions into Olifants, which began to be implemented in 1983. During this period South Africa managed to rebuild its stock by the purchase of a number of them, in various states of repair, from Jordan and India, despite the embargo on the sale of military equipment to South Africa imposed by the United Nations in 1976. As a result the South African Army acquired enough Centurions to transform them into more than 200 Olifants.
In spite of the embargo, Olifant 1A, which was accepted by the South African Armoured Corps in 1985, was powered by the same diesel engine and had the same transmission as the US M60 tanks and was armed with a South African version of the 105mm L7 gun instead of its original 83.8mm 20-pounder. In all these respects it closely resembled the Centurions modified a decade earlier by the Israeli forces and, on a much smaller scale, proved as successful. Olifant 1A was followed by the 1B version (also known as the Olifant 2), which incorporated major improvements in armour protection as well as a more powerful version of the V-12 diesel engine, a more effective transmission, a double floor for better protection against mines and, somewhat unnecessarily, a torsion bar suspension instead of the original rugged coil spring suspension of the Centurions.34
Although the Olifants proved an effective counter to the T-54s and T-55s, the use by the Angolan Marxist forces of Soviet tanks, which were encountered as early as 1981, raised the prospect of South African forces having to fight more modern and more powerful tanks, such as the T-72. This led to a decision in 1983 to develop a modern indigenous tank, but before it could be implemented the war in Angola came to an end in 1988–89. As a result of this, development was restricted to the construction of a single prototype thatwas called the Tank Technology Demonstrator, or TTD, which was unveiled in 1993.
TTD had a conventional configuration and outwardly resembled the German Leopard 2A4. It was initially armed with a 105mm L7 gun but was designed to mount instead a South African developed GT6 120mm smooth bore gun, which could, if required, be fitted with a 140mm smooth bore barrel. It was well armoured, which was reflected in its combat loaded weight of 58.3 tonnes, but in spite of this it was relatively agile due to it being powered by a 1,200hp V-8 diesel.35
In general, TTD compared favourably with other contemporary battle tanks and represented a considerable achievement, particularly as it was the first tank ever to be designed in Africa and as its development was handicapped by the sanctions imposed at the time on South Africa.