Merkava Tank: A Front-Mounted Engine, a Canceled Chieftain Deal and Trophy

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The Merkava, Hebrew for chariot, is the main battle tank of the Israeli Armored Corps, and it exists because of a broken deal. In the late 1960s Israel worked with Britain on the Chieftain and trialed prototypes for years, expecting to buy it and produce it locally, until Britain canceled and offered the tank to Arab nations instead. After heavy armor losses in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel Tal pushed for a domestic tank, and the Merkava Mark 1 entered service in 1979. Its engine sits at the front, so a shell that gets through the front armor must chew through the transmission and engine block before reaching the four-person crew. The empty rear holds clamshell doors for loading ammunition under fire, carrying troops or evacuating wounded, and the chassis led to the Namer infantry fighting vehicle.

The design accepts more mobility kills to keep trained crews alive. In the 1982 Lebanon War the Mark 1 beat Syrian T-62s, and the Mark 2 moved its 60 mm mortar inside and added rear chain netting against RPGs. The 1989 Mark 3 brought a 1,200 hp engine, a 120 mm smoothbore able to fire guided missiles, and bolt-on modular armor that crews can replace in hours. In 2006 Kornet and RPG-29 tandem warheads destroyed five Merkavas, and the Mark 4 removed the loader's roof hatch, stored rounds in fireproof canisters and added the Windbreaker system, known abroad as Trophy, which proved itself in Operation Protective Edge in 2014. In the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, fighters fired from inside 50 yards, salvoed RPGs and dropped grenades from commercial drones, and the IDF welded slat armor onto turret roofs that October.

• Trophy uses radar to track incoming rockets and fires a directed blast of fragments to destroy them, so nearby infantry must keep a standoff distance.
• Hamas distributed flyers explaining how to defeat Trophy by firing at close range and overwhelming its reload.
• The Merkava IV Barak gives its commander Elbit's Iron Vision helmet, which stitches outside camera feeds into a 360-degree view through the armor.
• The Carmel successor program aims to cut weight from 65 to 35 tons with a two-person crew and a hybrid electric drive for quiet movement.
• Carmel test vehicles run their defense systems and weapons with standard Xbox controllers.