AFV
The Merkava Tank Development I
To this day, the Merkava tank is classified as one of Israel’s most top-secret projects. For decades it has been kept under a veil of secrecy, so that on “doomsday” it can be thrown like an iron monster onto the battlefield and defeat Israel’s enemies. Many were involved in the development and production of the Merkava, but one IDF officer…
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Sherman vs. Pershing in Korea
M46 Patton Tank A study conducted after the war counted 119 tank-vs-tank actions during the war, 104 involving US Army tank units and 15 involving the Marine 1st Tank Bn. The M26 and M46 were involved in nearly half of these, the M26 in 38 actions (32%), and the M46…
The Tsar Tank
The Tsar Tank, also known as the Netopyr’ or Lebedenko Tank, was an unusual Russian armored vehicle developed in 1916–1917 by Nikolai Lebedenko, Nikolai Zhukovsky, Boris Stechkin, and Alexander Mikulin. The project was scrapped after initial tests deemed the vehicle to be underpowered and vulnerable to artillery fire. It differed…
THE FIRST T-34s
The heavy tank design bureau In Leningrad had reversed many years of Soviet practice by naming their new tank the Klimenti Voroshilov, or KV after the egregious Defence Commissar. With some courage, Koshkin told Voroshilov that the new tank should not be named after another hero of the Soviet Union;…
Saga of a Tiger Kompanie
The 2./schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502 did not join its parent battalion in the Heeresgruppe Nord area of operations. Instead, it was sent south to the Proletarskaja Sector and allocated to Heeresgruppe Don. This company would later be integrated into schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503. The 2./schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502 is established in Paderborn, using…
The fate of the 17 Tigers on Sicily
Tiger Tank 222 on the ferry crossing the straights of Messina. The evacuation of Sicily by the Germans in August 1943. The fate of the 17 Tigers on Sicily was reported by Major Gierga, commander of Panzer-Abteilung 215, in the following report to the Generalinspekteur der Panzertruppen dated 28 August…
Tank Shock – 1916
September 15, 1916, began as a routine day for the German infantrymen in the forward trenches around Flers on the Somme—as routine as any day was likely to be after two and a half months of vicious, close-gripped fighting that bled divisions white and reduced battalions to the strength of…