Zvi ‘Zvika’ Greengold receives the Medal Of Valor on 8 May 1975 from the President of Israel, Efraim Katzir, with Defense Minister Shimon Peres to the President’s right and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to his left. Lieutenant Greengold was just 21 when he fought his heroic action on the Tapline Road against the Syrian 51st Armoured Brigade as part of Force Zvika. He later rose to the rank of major in the reserves and became the director general of Israel Oil Refineries. He is currently the mayor of Ofakim in the Negev Desert. (IGPO) Israeli M22 Locust tank in Negba, Israel Merkava IV during a training day held in the Golan Heights for the 401st Armored Brigade Dunstan, S., Sarson, P. (2003). Centurion Universal Tank 1943–2003. Osprey. pp. 40. ISBN 0-671-00974-5. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)

At the period right before the 1956 Suez war, the Israelis were also deeply troubled by Egypt’s procurement of large amounts of Soviet weaponry that included 530 armored vehicles, of which 230 were tanks and the influx of this advanced weaponry altered an already shaky balance of power. [36] Additionally, Israel believed Egypt had formed a secret alliance with Jordan and Syria. [37] Damaged Israeli Sherman tank and vehicles, Sinai War, 1956 In what became known as the Water War, tanks were employed to destroy Syrian engineering equipment engaged in the diversion project. In time, the 105mm armed Shots proved capable of hitting targets as small as a bulldozer, at ranges out to 11km. It became the Tal credo of ‘first shot, first kill, one shot, one kill’ using the L7 105mm gun or ‘Sharir’. Such proficiency among the tank crews of the IAC was to prove decisive in the next major Arab-Israeli war as well as the conflict of 1973. So with British and French support, Israel reacted and sent its armoured forces into the Sinai and Gaza Strip in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the IDF's first test of strength after 1949, the new army proved itself by capturing the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. The main IDF tank at the time was the AMX-13 along with some US made World War II armor and faced the Egyptian military well equipped with weapons from the Soviet Union such as T-34 and JS-3 tanks, and self-propelled guns. In the Gaza strip city of Rafah was strategically important to Israel because control of that city would sever the Gaza Strip from the Sinai and provide a way to the main centres of the northern Sinai, al-Arish and al-Qantarah. [38] Holding the forts outside of Rafah were a mixture of Egyptian and Palestinian forces in the 5th Infantry Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Jaafar al-Abd. [38] In Rafah itself the 87th Palestinian Infantry Brigade was stationed. [38] Assigned to capture Rafah were 1st Infantry Brigade led by Colonel Benjamin Givli and 27th Armored Brigade commanded by Colonel Haim Bar-Lev of the IDF. [38] To the south of Rafah were a series of mine-filled sand dunes and to the north were a series of fortified hills. [38] Spare boxes 7.62mm ammunition Loader/operator’s periscope Coaxial machine gun and ammunition box Breech of L7 105mm main armament Elevating handwheel THE SIX DAY WAR The first combat between the Centurion and the T-54/55 occurred during the Six Day War of June 1967. Due to the inept strategy of the Egyptian high command it was hardly a fair comparison between the two tanks, with the Centurion proving vastly superior due largely to the outstanding performance of the L7 105mm gun and the standard of tank gunnery in the Israeli Armored Corps. (IOP)

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Egyptian army 100 hours war 36–38, 37 Six Day War (1967) 40, 40–42 Eitan, BrigGen Raful 56, 67, 68, 73 Eldar, LtCol Yos 69, 71, 72 engines Centurion tanks 19, 20, 21 T-55 tanks 24 The UN brought about a ceasefire, largely negotiated between the U.S. and Soviet Union, on October 22, but though most heavy fighting ended on October 28, the fighting never stopped until January 18, 1974.

From the Mk II onwards, the Centurion featured a cast turret with a welded roofplate. Shown during crew training with the 8th Royal Tank Regiment in Yorkshire during 1948, these are Centurion Mk IIIs with the more powerful 20-pounder gun. A pair of T-55s and a BMP-1 Infantry Fighting Vehicle lie abandoned on the Golan Heights where some 867 Syrian tanks were lost in the fighting out of a total force of 1,400. Many intact T-54/55 tanks were captured by the Israelis and they were modified for service with the Israeli Armored Corps as the Tiran. According to Israeli sources, no BMP-1s managed to cross the Purple Line in the northern sector so this suggests these vehicles were lost to the 188th Barak Brigade. (United Nations) M1919A4 Browning. With this modification, the tank became the Centurion Mk 5. A Mk 4 had been planned, mounting a 95mm close-support howitzer, but it was never produced. Meanwhile, a new turret was under development with a revised mantlet featuring resiliently mounted gun trunnions, improved gun control equipment as well as a new commander’s contra-rotating cupola that allowed faster target acquisition and incorporated a double leaf hatch to give overhead ‘umbrella’ protection to the commander while allowing him direct vision of the battlefield: a device subsequently adopted by the Israelis as the ‘Tal cupola’. When this new turret was eventually mounted on the revised hull with its extended range, the model became the Centurion Mk 8 in 1956. From 1959 onwards, the Centurion underwent an up-armouring and up-gunning programme whereby an extra 2 inches of armour were added to the glacis plate to give greater immunity against the 100mm main armament of the T-55. This involved the substitution of the 83.4mm 20-pounder with the L7 105mm gun that, because of its outstanding performance, became de facto the standard main armament within NATO. When both these modifications were applied retrospectively to previously built models, the Centurion Mk 5 became the Mk 6 while the Mk 7 and the Mk 8 became the Mk 9 and Mk 10 respectively. New-build vehicles had these features incorporated during production. The final two modification programmes for the Centurion in the British Army were the fitting of IR night-fighting equipment and a coaxial-mounted .50-calibre ranging gun together with a thermal sleeve for the 105mm barrel. The Centurion hull also became the basis for a series of special purpose variants to undertake a variety of roles on the battlefield including an armoured recovery vehicle, various bridge layers, an assault vehicle for combat engineers mounting a 165mm demolition gun and a version for use on amphibious beach landings. Together they showed the great versatility of the basic Centurion design but, interestingly, the Israeli Armored Corps did not procure such variants in any quantity as gun tanks were deemed to be paramount and the defence budget did not extend to such luxuries on the battlefield. In 1965, Israel's military establishment began research and development on a domestically produced tank, the "Sabra" [62] [ unreliable source?] (not to be confused with the later model of the same name which is now in service, see: Sabra tank). Initially, Britain and Israel collaborated to adapt the United Kingdom's Chieftain tank that had entered British Army service in 1966. [63] However, in 1969, Britain decided not to sell the tank to Israel for political reasons. [64] The tank was the dominant weapon in land warfare during World War II, supported by a myriad of other Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV) adapted to meet the demands of total war. Together with the essential infantryman, the tank was the basic component of every offensive from the deserts of North Africa and olive groves of Italy to the hedgerows of Normandy and jungles of the Far East. It was however on the Eastern Front that armoured battles occurred on an unprecedented scale between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It was a clash of titans as thousands of tanks and AFVs fought from the gates of Moscow to the heart of Berlin. As the war progressed, the Germans produced a series of outstanding tank designs such as the Tiger and the Panther but they were overly engineered and therefore expensive to produce. As such, they were manufactured in relatively small numbers. The Soviet Union on the other hand produced a series of simple but effective designs that could be produced in vast numbers. Although its tanks destroyed a disproportionate number of Allied AFVs, Nazi Germany was defeated by the mass of war matériel arraigned against it, with the ubiquitous T-34 at the spearhead of every offensive from the East and the American M-4 Sherman from the West. It was a lesson that became ever more significant as the post-war world devolved into mutual mistrust between the antagonistic camps of the Western Powers and the Soviet Union as codified by the North Atlantic Treaty

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military imports of tank equipment or tanks Toggle Foreign military imports of tank equipment or tanks subsection Yoav Gelber (1 January 2006). Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Sussex Academic Press. p.138. ISBN 978-1-84519-075-0 . Retrieved 14 July 2013. A war between Israel and the Arab States broke out immediately, and the Arab armies invaded Palestine. Yom Kippur War 1973 Conceived at the height of World War II, the British Centurion and the Soviet T-55 were initially expected to counter the formidable Panthers and Tigers of Germany. But as the Cold War unfolded, these machines prepared instead for the coming struggle between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Though they never fought in Europe, these two tanks became the mainstay of the Cold War’s proxy forces around the world, no more so than in the Middle East when, in 1973, rival Israeli and Syrian crews battled for control of the Golan Heights. Complete with expert analysis of the machines’ design, development and operational history, this is a fascinating look at a high-stakes duel that would shape the region for years to come. Colour artwork