troung

Well the losses seem to have been worse among the vanilla Merk-2s (ammo should have cooked off in at least one and the turret came off) without the add on armor then with the Merk-3s or Merk-4s. Looking at the picture coverage as time went on more Merk-3s and Merk-4s were seen as compared to the Merk-2s. That's just going on what is out at the moment.

The Merk-2 can be fitted with add on armor which changes the shape of the turret but not all have ($$$$). The add on armor should add KE protection to the tanks which slat would not.

Where would be the best place to put the slat armor on the Merk tanks?

Hezbollah TV did have a special on the weak points of the Merk, I will probably not post the images without anyone asking.

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

troung

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/08/...hechens_.shtml


Hezbollah Fighters Better Trained, Equipped Than Chechens — Russian-born Israeli Soldiers
Created: 16.08.2006 15:26 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:26 MSK, 19 hours 12 minutes ago


MosNews


The 20 soldiers from Israel’s elite Golani Brigade moved through the darkness over the rocky hills of Lebanon until they arrived at the outskirts of this Shi’ite town that until last month contained 35,000 residents. The unit entered an unfinished house to prepare for combat within a few hours.

The troops, however, never advanced beyond their two-story hideout. Hezbollah gunners, believed to have been hiding in the ruins of Bint Jbail, spotted the Israeli force and directed mortar, anti-tank and machine gun fire that trapped the elite Israeli unit for 36 hours in an area thought to have been cleared of the enemy.

Russian-born Israeli soldiers said Hezbollah fighters were better trained and equipped than the Chechens. They added that Hezbollah’s tactics reminded them of Chechen rebels, The World Tribune daily reported.

“Hezbollah is tougher,” Vladi, an infantry sniper, said.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah escalated ceasefire violations and fired artillery shells toward retreating Israeli soldiers, Middle East Newsline reported. At the same time, parliamentarians called for the resignation of Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, who acknowledged that he sold his investment portfolio hours after the Hezbollah abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

Military sources said numerous Israeli combat units, without effective air or armor support, spent most of their time in Lebanon paralyzed by Hezbollah fire. They said hundreds of soldiers were often overwhelmed by as few as a dozen Hezbollah mortar and anti-tank gunners within sight of the Israeli border.

In all, Israel sent 30,000 soldiers to Lebanon. At least 118 soldiers were killed in the 33-day fighting. The military said 530 Hezbollah operatives were killed.

“From the point of view of the individual soldier, they are better than the Arab armies that surround us,” Col. Omri Bar-David, a reserve battalion commander, said.

In several cases, Israeli commanders, citing Hezbollah squads, dismissed orders to advance. The military reported the detention of five Engineering Corps soldiers, including a reserve company commander, for refusing to embark on a mission in Lebanon.

“There is a lot of confusion,” Anon, a soldier not involved in the courtmartial, said. “We go in, we come out. We go in, we come out.”

The 20-man unit from the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion arrived in Bint Jbail on Aug. 10. Hezbollah first disabled a Merkava Mk-3 main battle tank with an AT-14 Kornet anti-tank missile.

Then, Hezbollah gunners directed anti-tank fire toward the building that contained the Israeli force. The unit, which sustained eight casualties in Bint Jbail on July 26, huddled in a first floor bathroom, deemed the most secure part of the building.

“It’s been ugly,” Dudi Levisohn, a member of the Golani squad, said. “But it’s our job. We have to do it. We suffer so the people in Tel Aviv can enjoy themselves.”

Military sources said Hezbollah also forced Israeli units to turn off their communications and tracking equipment. They said Hezbollah deployed systems designed to identify a range of signals, including those of cell phones.

“During the day, Hezbollah sees us perfectly and we can’t see them,” another officer said. “The only time we conducted operations were at night because we believed our night vision systems were better than theirs.”


In another battle, an infantry battalion fought 24 hours to advance three houses in a Shi’ite village. The soldiers were pinned down by heavy Hezbollah anti-tank fire from a network of tunnels and bunkers.

“You don’t have to worry about bullets,” an officer, identified only as Eyal, said. “It’s the anti-tank missiles.”

Military sources said Hezbollah has been trained in guerrilla tactics by Iranian and Syrian instructors. They said the tactics were developed from lessons learned by the Vietcong in the war with the United States. “They have studied Western armies to see how we make war and they have prepared themselves for six years,” Yossi, an officer, said.

With the onset of the United Nations-arranged ceasefire, Israeli soldiers, particularly reservists, have expressed increasing criticism of senior commanders. On Monday, reservists were angered when Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Udi Adam termed Hezbollah a terrorist group.

“They are professionals,” a soldier who returned from Lebanon said. “They have new weapons. There have been no improvement in our tanks in 10 years. Their mission is clear — to hurt us. And they can do this very well. Don’t say they are not soldiers. They are soldiers.”

troung

Israeli troops criticize army, equipment

By BENJAMIN HARVEY, Associated Press Writer 56 minutes ago

Israeli soldiers returning from the war in Lebanon say the army was slow to rescue wounded comrades and suffered from a lack of supplies so dire that they had to drink water from the canteens of dead Hezbollah guerrillas.
"We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied in no time," said Ilia Marshak, a 22-year-old infantryman who spent a week in Lebanon.
Marshak said his unit was hindered by a lack of information, poor training and untested equipment. In one instance, Israeli troops occupying two houses inadvertently fired at each other because of poor communication between their commanders.
"We almost killed each other," he said. "We shot like blind people. ... We shot sheep and goats."
In a nation mythologized for decisive military victories over Arab foes, the stalemate after a 34-day war in Lebanon has surprised many.
The war was widely seen in Israel as a just response to a July 12 cross-border attack in which Hezbollah gunmen killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two. But the wartime solidarity crumbled after Israel agreed to pull its army from south Lebanon without crushing Hezbollah or rescuing the captured soldiers.
A total of 118 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting, and the army was often caught off guard by a well-trained guerrilla force backed by Iran and Syria that used sophisticated weapons and tactics. Soldiers, for instance, complained that Hezbollah fighters sometimes disguised themselves in Israeli uniforms.
Military experts and commentators have criticized the army for relying too heavily on air power and delaying the start of ground action for too long. They say the army underestimated Hezbollah, and that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set an unrealistic goal by pledging to destroy the guerrilla group.
This week, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz appointed a former army chief to investigate the military's handling of the war.
Some of the harshest criticism has come from reservists, who form the backbone of the army. Israeli men do three years of mandatory service beginning at age 18, but continue to do reserve duty several weeks a year into their 40s.
Israeli newspapers quoted disgruntled reservists as saying they had no provisions in Lebanon, were sent into battle with outdated or faulty equipment and insufficient supplies, and received little or no training.
"I personally haven't thrown a grenade in 15 years, and I thought I'd get a chance to do so before going north," an unidentified reservist in an elite infantry brigade was quoted as telling the Maariv daily.
Israel's largest paper, Yediot Ahronot, quoted one soldier as saying thirsty troops threw chlorine tablets into filthy water in sheep and cow troughs. Another said his unit took canteens from dead guerrillas.
"When you're thirsty and have to keep fighting, you don't think a lot, and there is no time to feel disgusted," the unidentified soldier was quoted as saying.
The newspaper said helicopters were hindered from delivering food supplies or carrying out rescue operations because commanders feared the aircraft would be shot down. In some cases, soldiers bled to death because they were not rescued in time, Yediot Ahronot said.
The Israeli military said it was aware of the complaints, had tried to address them in the course of the fighting and was still looking into them. It had no comment on specific complaints.
Comrades of the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah sent a petition to the prime minister Thursday accusing the government of abandoning the men.
"We went to reserve duty with the certainty that all of Israel's citizens, and the Israeli government, believe in the same value that every combatant learns from his first day in basic training — you don't leave friends behind," the soldiers wrote. "This is a moral low point. The Israeli government has abandoned two IDF (Israeli Defense Force) combatants that it sent on a mission."
The petition was being circulated Friday; it was unclear how many soldiers had signed it.
While such sentiments aren't shared by all soldiers, even some senior commanders acknowledge the army came up short in Lebanon.
When soldier Gil Ovadia returned home, his commander made no mention of victory in an address to their battalion. Instead, the commander told them the war was over, said they did a good job, and advised that they be prepared to come back soon and fight again.
"We'll be back in Lebanon in a few months, maybe years," Ovadia said.

troung

Hezbollah night-vision gear was from Britain, Israel says
It's believed to be an export to Iran in drug-fighting effort

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Sunday, August 20, 2006


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(08-20) 04:00 PDT Kiryat Shemona, Israel -- Israeli intelligence officials have complained to Britain and the United States that sensitive night-vision equipment recovered from Hezbollah fighters during the war in Lebanon had been exported by Britain to Iran. British officials said the equipment had been intended for use in a U.N. anti-narcotics campaign.

Israeli officials say they believe the state-of-the-art equipment, found in Hezbollah command-and-control headquarters in southern Lebanon during the just-concluded war, was part of a British government-approved shipment of 250 pieces of night-vision equipment sent to Iran in 2003.

Israeli military intelligence confirmed that one of the pieces of equipment is a Thermo-vision 1000 LR tactical night-vision system, serial No. 155010, part No. 193960, manufactured by Agema, a high-tech equipment company with branches in Bedfordshire, England, and San Diego. A spokesman for Agema in San Diego denied all knowledge of the system.

The equipment, which needed special export-license approval from the British government, was passed to the Iranians through a program run and administered by the U.N. Drug Control Program. The equipment uses infrared imaging to provide nighttime surveillance that allows the user to detect people and vehicles moving in the dark at a range of several miles.

Use of such equipment would have enabled Hezbollah to detect and record the movements of Israeli forces inside Israel, as well as its military advance into Lebanon.

Britain and Italy both have provided specialized tracking and monitoring equipment over the past decade as part of U.N.-sponsored attempts to stem the flow of heroin and opium into Western Europe from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran is a major route for shipment of narcotics to the West.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office in London said Saturday, "The Israeli Defense Forces have confirmed to us they have found some night-vision equipment in south Lebanon that is apparently made in Britain. We're trying to get further details to see exactly what the equipment is, who made it and who the original buyer is."

The spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Britain participates, through the U.N. drug-fighting agency, in Iran's interception program, which is run by anti-narcotics forces along the country's eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major opium poppy-growing countries.

"We've been encouraging the Iranians as part of their anti-narcotics program, and there was an export in 2003 ... as part of the heroin and opium smuggling program. This is an area where we try not to let the nuclear issue prevent cooperation on countering narcotics," he said, referring to Iran's dispute with the United Nations over its nuclear enrichment program.

The Foreign Office spokesman said officials at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv have requested serial and parts numbers of the seized equipment to try to determine how it ended up in the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas fighting Israeli forces in Lebanon.

The equipment was found by Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese village of Mis-a-Jebel on Aug. 8, in a house belonging to a 60-year-old man whose four sons were all known to be Hezbollah fighters. The discovery was disclosed in a briefing by Lt. Col. Olivier Radowicz, an Israeli army spokesman, and later confirmed in detail by Israeli military intelligence officials, who also provided photographs of the equipment taken in the house where it was discovered.

"These are tactical night-vision systems ... given to Hezbollah by Iran. The Iranians are the 100 percent provider of all the materiel, especially intelligence materiel, to Hezbollah," Radowicz said.

The discovery of the night-vision equipment, together with sophisticated recording and monitoring devices and stashes of antitank missiles and rockets, led the Israelis to believe the five-room house was the command-and-control unit for Hezbollah in the local area, he said.

In the early phases of the Israeli ground advance against Hezbollah positions across the border region, commanders complained to their superiors that nighttime operations had been hampered by the ability of Hezbollah fighters to observe and counter the Israeli moves. In more than six days of bitter fighting around the village of Mis-a-Jebel, the Israeli army lost six soldiers, and more than 20 were injured.

"The night-vision unit was used to observe the movement of troops. It's very close to the border, so it can see Israeli troops. You can also record what you are watching. Then it is connected to computers. You can obtain a perfect intelligence picture in real time about the situation. It is then connected to firing systems or to units that are going to act in accordance with the intelligence they are receiving," Radowicz said during the briefing.

"It is a system that we can find in every serious army in the world. We don't talk here about just a terrorist fantasy. We are talking here about a very serious, high-quality system of a very professional army. We're talking here about hundreds of millions of dollars given by Iran to Hezbollah in the last six years," he said.

"In every village which served as the regional command, you can find the same unit -- intelligence, weapons systems, command and control and connection -- with the units which are firing or using the mobile platforms (for firing rockets) for targeting Israel," he said.

Israeli intelligence officials said they had contacted the British and U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv to pass on information of the discovery of the night-vision equipment, requesting explanations of where the equipment had come from and how it fell into the hands of Hezbollah fighters.

Freelance journalist Bob Graham contributed to this report.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGK9KLVH41.DTL

Anon

You can email me those pix if you like Troung. m21sniper2000@yahoo.com(thanx bro, and no- please i would say don't put them on an open forum- you are not hezbollah TV)

Anyway- where do you put the slats? Everywhere you can. Christ bro, you can use cyclone fence and weld it on in place. We all know the stuff is proven, the Russians have been using it since WWII to deal with the Nazi Panzerfausts, and we see how resistant it's made the Stryker and 113 to RPGs.

Slat armor works, even if you have other add-ons, slat still works. And it's cheaper than any other applique kit on the market. You should literally be able to do a main battle tank in the field(ie your own troops installing it) for under 500 bucks a tank.

troung

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/752774.html

Last update - 04:27 21/08/2006

Outgoing infantry chief says IDF 'guilty of arrogance'

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

The outgoing Chief Infantry and Paratroopers Officer of the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier General Yossi Heiman, Sunday became the first senior officer to concede a degree of failure in the Lebanon war.

"We were guilty of the sin of arrogance," Heiman said at the changing-of-the-guard ceremony at the Kastina base.


He was replaced in the position by Brigadier General Yossi Bachar.

Heiman said that "despite heroic fighting by the soldiers and commanders, especially at the company and battalion level, we all feel a certain sense of failure and missed opportunity ... At times, we were guilty of the sin of arrogance. Everyone tells about his mission, but not what he didn't do and where he went wrong."

He added: "I feel the weighty responsibility on my shoulders. I failed to prepare the infantry better for war. I did not manage to prevent burnout among professional companies and platoons. I feel no relief whatsoever in the face of the array of excuses ... At this time, it is not easy being part of the system. Part of the public, and perhaps also parts of the leadership, is expressing lack of faith in us."

Heiman has always been considered an officer who never hesitates to express his opinion vociferously, a fact that frequently aroused the ire of the military establishment.

At Sunday's ceremony, too, IDF Ground Forces Commander Benny Gantz said that now is the time for the army to move forward, not express remorse.

troung

Any negative features of putting slat armor on a 60 ton tank? Other then red tape and ruining the look?

The Philippine Marines are putting slat armor on vehicles or so I hear to deal with RPG-2s. How would slat as used on a Stryker hold up to a tandem charge RPG-7, RPG-29, AT-3 or TOW-2? Granted stopping one missile makes it worth it.

What is known is these tanks have with their current armor been able to take a hell of a pounding from ATGMs.

Anon

It would be a little wider, and a little heavier. Probably a little more annoying to work on. Beyond that, no, none that i can think of.

If the slats take out the first warhead, then the tandem warhead will only still be hitting the ERA or other applique armor, so it should work like a charm.

Not this time apparently. I also think we should at least design a slat kit for the Abrams(so it can be mass produced in a hurry should it ever be decided we need them in large numbers). I think one already exists for the brad, but i know the Stryker, 113, and LAV-25 all have slat kits available.

troung

It would no longer have the right look...

Ok.

How much would a slat kit for the M-1 wiegh?

One case in Lebanon back in the 1990s had an upgraded M-60 getting hit with 20 AT-3 missiles. Two missiles were hit the top of the tank. So maybe there are other factors at play in the "successes" of Hezbollah units.

Did you get my email?

Anon

Yup, i got it bro, thanx for the pix. I thought i responded back...?

A slat kit on the Abrams could weigh maybe 200lbs if it was hi-speed low drag material, to maybe as much as 600 or so if they use regular old steel.

Itchy Finger

Addition NER-armor will not garantee 100% safety even from old soviet PG-7M and PG-7V AT-greandes with RPG-7V launcher... so the light vehicles still very vulnerable to any AT-fire.

Itchy Finger

...

Attached Images

merk01.bmp (690.0 KB, 44 views)

Anon

Bzzzzzt.

troung

The war's surprises

By Ze'ev Schiff

In its second Lebanon war, Israel was surprised by Hezbollah's anti-tank weapons and the way they used them. The Israel Defense Forces was similarly surprised on the Egyptian front in the Yom Kippur War. At the time, we knew the Arab armies had Russian-made Sagger anti-tank guided missiles, but we did not understand the significance of the mass deployment of these missiles nor how it would affect the IDF's Armored Corps. On the first night of the war, the IDF lost 150 tanks.

This is what happened in the war against Hezbollah. We knew the organization had advanced anti-tank rockets; the IDF's Military Intelligence even acquired one. We also understood that Hezbollah was positioning anti-tank units; however, we failed to understand the significance of the mass deployment of these weapons.

The result: Anti-tank weapons caused most of the IDF casualties in the war - nearly all the Armored Corps' casualties and many from the infantry units. More infantry soldiers were killed by anti-tank weapons than in hand-to-hand combat. Many of the infantry soldiers who lost their lives because of anti-tank weapons entered houses in the villages; the rockets penetrated the walls, killing them.

Missiles have always surprised the IDF. A few months after the June 1967 Six-Day War, Israel was surprised by a Russian-made "Styx" SS-N-2C missile that sank an Israel Navy destroyer, the INS Eilat, causing dozens of crew to drown. The Israel Navy and the Rafael Armament Development Authority probed the problem, arriving at a solution that helped the navy win the Yom Kippur War despite the dozens of similar missiles that were fired at its ships.

In the Yom Kippur War, the Israel Air Force suffered a serious setback because of various Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles. For years afterwards, the IAF made every effort to find operational solutions to this problem. The result could be seen in the Lebanon War of 1982 when the IAF, under Major General David Ivry's command, knocked out 19 anti-aircraft missile batteries in Lebanon's Bekaa within hours. Syria and the Soviet Union, the missile's manufacturer, were dumbfounded.

In the Yom Kippur War, anti-tank rockets surprised the IDF's Armored Corps. Since then, no substantive solution has been found for that problem although the Merkava offers high survivability for the crew of a tank that has been hit. Before the last war, Israel was surprised by its inability - despite its advanced technology - to effectively deal with the primitive Qassam rockets the Palestinians were firing. Prior to the war, MI warned the IAF that the latter would not be able to effectively deal with all the rockets. And that is what happened when Israel had to handle even simpler ones.

This time, the Israel Navy was surprised by a single Chinese-made C-802 Silkworm shore-to-ship cruise missile, which neutralized the navy's flagship, the INS Hanit. According to some reports, an Iranian team fired the missile.

Hezbollah used seven different types of rockets in the war - four of them the most advanced available and all produced by Russia and sold to Syria. The most advanced rockets can penetrate steel armor of 70-centimeter to 1.2-meter thickness. After the armor has been pierced, a second warhead explodes inside the tank. MI acquired one of these rockets and understood that Hezbollah was positioning anti-tank units. However, the IDF was inadequately prepared for this development.

Four Israeli tanks hit large landmines. Three of the tanks, which lacked underbelly protective armor, lost all 12 crew members. The fourth had underbelly protective armor; of its six crew members, only one died.

Anti-tank missiles hit 46 tanks and 14 other armored vehicles. In all these attacks, the tanks sustained only 15 armor penetrations while the other armored vehicles sustained five, with 20 soldiers killed, 15 of them tank crew members. Another two Armored Corps soldiers, whose bodies were exposed, were killed. In another location, Wadi Salouki, Hezbollah carried out a successful anti-tank ambush, hitting 11 tanks. Missiles penetrated the armor of three tanks; in two of them, seven Armored Corps soldiers were killed. Two of the other tanks were immobilized.

The conclusions from this war have yet to be drawn, and we must remember that the enemy draws its own conclusions as well.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/751958.html