Latrun Museum Pictures

Posted on by

Last part (I swear!) :) Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.

Once again, thanks to Gabo from US server :)

ZSU-57-2

These were bought by Egypt in the early 60′s from the USSR and used against Israel in the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War. They did not do very well and several were captured.

20140417_123025

20140417_123032

20140417_123048

T-62

20140417_123056

20140417_123115

T-55, T-54B, T-54C (Tiran 4)

20140417_123138

20140417_123159

20140417_123203

20140417_123213

ISU-152

20140417_123247

20140417_123256

IS-3

These were used by Egypt. While their armor was quite thick (resisting the Patton and Centurion shells), the result of their use was a disaster due to improper use, poor maintenance, breakdowns and overheating. Several were captured by the Israelis, one was used as a tractor after the war.

20140417_123322

20140417_123331

20140417_123409

20140417_123455

SD-100

This is a Czechoslovak-produced copy of the SU-100 with some improvements. The Czechoslovak army tried to get rid of it relatively soon and some were sold to Syria and Egypt, they took part in the Suez, Six Day and Yom Kippur wars.

20140417_123421

20140417_123433

20140417_123445

M47E1/E2 Patton

This is a Spanish upgrade of the M47 Patton, made by the Talbot company. The M48 engine and transmission were implemented and so was the 105mm M68 (L7) gun and a fire control system. Over 400 were made and in case you are wondering, yes, this is a viable tier 10 EU tree Spanish branch candidate.

20140417_123604

20140417_123626

20140417_123638

Charioteer tank destroyer

20140417_123634

StuG III Ausf.G

In case you are wondering, what the hell is a StuG doing in Middle East: after the war, Czechoslovakia was using captured StuG’s as regular tank destroyers due to the lack of vehicles for the army. After we got rid of them (early 50′s), they got sold in large numbers to Syria (another country to sell them to Syria was Spain). They were employed against Israel during the Six Day War, which was probably their last operational use.

20140417_123642

20140417_123703

20140417_123711

20140417_123725

T-40/75 (Panzer IV)

Apart from StuG’s, Czechoslovak army after the war was using Panzer IV’s as well due to the lack of Soviet tanks. They got renamed to T-40/75 and in early 50′s, they were sold to Syria, which used them until the Six Day War. Some were heavily kitbashed, like having an Ausf.D hull and Ausf.G turret.

20140417_123729

20140417_123741

20140417_123750

20140417_123759

62 thoughts on “Latrun Museum Pictures”

    • Yeah and now they have the Merkava, which is pretty much the best defensive tank around. It’s just the result of the constant fighting that’s going on there, the Israelis are some of the best when it comes to urban warfare.

        • Well it’s about defending the crew and in that aspect the engine block definitely counts towards that. You have to take the tank as a whole, IRL the shell hits everything and as long as the turret keeps turning it’s still going strong!

            • If your asking if uses DUP (Depleted Uranium Penetrator’s) the answer is unknown.

              In all only the UK and USA have declared the use of DUP ammunition in there arsenal.
              France, Russia, China, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, Iraq and Taiwan. all manufacture DU weapons and are known to have them but have not declared using them in conflict or in current forces arsenal.

              But my guess is yes it uses DUP or has the ability to use it.
              i know our Leopard 2′s here in canada dont but we dont use Any DUP here all tungsten

              • APU is the Auxilary Power Unit, a backup engine that can generate enough electrical power to run the tank systems when the main engine is offline. Im not sure, but Id hazard a yes.
                Effectively a Tank with no APU would be knocked out instantly by an engine hit (manual control only, no fire control systems). Also, theyre good for decreasing fuel sink while Idling.

              • Germany and other NATO States surely uses Tungstencarbid Penetrators. The effectiviness of them is the same as depletet uranium penetrators (Some sources say they are better then DUP)

    • if you buy a good tank and you train the crews properly, it doesnt matter how old if your country, you will kick their asses quick.

    • you should remember that most of those tanks were captured during the wars that Israeli wages with their neighbours. They are quite famous for “recycling” captured dmg tanks of different origin

    • They have all these bits and pieces *because* they started in ’47. And the neighbours weren’t meaningfully better off. Beggars can’t be choosers, so the wars were fought with whatever was available – hand-me-down antiques included.

    • No need to apologize, any time I see posts of Tanks its all good w/ me. Thank you for taking the time and effort.

      My son would love to climb on those tanks.

      BTW, you guys notice the turret placement from the drivers visors? Pretty close…….

    • *face palm*

      LOL I was thinking the same thing exactly!! And the Russians are SO PROUD of this thing too!

      • Actually, The Soviets wanted to get rid of heavy tanks altogether. But since they were under the Request of Stalin…

        • Eh, pretty sure the heavies were still doctrinally legit by the time the first IS-3s came off the assembly line. By the time Moscow started dumping them onto Third World clients… yeah, not so much.

  4. Nice on the Spanish M47

    However DAMN I wish WarGaming replaced the current M46 with a REAL M47 Patton (slightly better hull slope, slightly better mobility) and just implemented the M46 OR M46 With the prototype M47-esque turret as a tier 8 premium.

  5. How does upgrading an American M47 tank with American M48 parts make that Patton a particularly viable option for a tier10 in the EU tree? Because the Spanish put the parts together and that makes it not an American tank anymore?

    I understand already that there are people that sorely want the EU tree to happen but please admit that even if you consider the standards of tank designs and differentiation currently in the game already lacking, it’s not going to get better by drafting a tree consisting of
    1) Low tier box tanks like the Japanese. We all know how fun those were to drive, right? Do we need more?
    2) Copies or highly derivative tanks. A StuG copy with a different 75mm cannon or another Leopard hightier medium? At least the chinese had differentiating gun choices compared to their Russian idols
    3) Tanks that are used by europeans but in no way designed or implemented by them?

    Why not just admit that the EU tree is a novelty, implement it as high as there are real interesting tanks there and leave the filler out? It’s unlikely there’s going to be all vehicle classes covered up to tier10 anyway

    • 1. I like those tanks
      2. Chinese Tier 10 tanks are much different to Soviet ones, especially gameplay wise.
      3. Gotta admit I dont want a made up EU tree.
      Put the tanks and nations into one big mix-match and release it. Dont got looking for different nation tanks :P

      • “Put the tanks and nations into one big mix-match and release it. Dont got looking for different nation tanks”

        As much as I understand our Czech, Polish and Italian friends “need” for their own full national trees, I see this as the only really viable solution… From everything we’ve seen here, so far, about possible candidates it’s not soo hard to but up 5-8 viable T1-T6 trees. After that it’s maybe 4 trees that can really go further, and about half of those only up to T8. And personally I don’t think there’s something wrong with that. Sure one would need a way to make progressing through the tiers a possibility, but WoT is not only about T10 endgame (at least not for the vast majority of (“casual”) players) I’d just love to play around with a Swedish or Italian tree, going up to T6, keeping fun tanks for playing and then moving up to other trees…

        At least I would much prefer that to “national trees” with three “complete” branches, courtesy of 10 made up or copy-paste filler tanks.

        • I would love to get my hands on italian Leopard1 with autoloader :)

          I see problem in complete trees, not only MT+HT+LT(T8) like china, not to mention japan. only czecho-slovakia has vehicles for full tech tree, from nations not included in game.

    • 1. I like those low tier box tanks. And as such I presume that a substantial part of the WoT player base also likes them as well.

      2. As long as they got something that makes them a bit different gameplay wise, I’m sure they’d be welcomed by the WoT community. Who knows how WG will implement them, maybe they can somehow make them unique (such as possibly deciding to implement the hydraulic suspension system used on the Swedish tanks).

      3. Well, the Germans also kinda did that with the low tiers. Future British tanks (Firefly and others) as well. Oh, and I do believe the EU nations modified their imported tanks is some way.

      • Yea I guess in all honestly I am somewhat far from the average audience in both age and amount of battles. I rarely enjoy gameplay below tier7 myself so I am personally looking forward to tanks that can do well in the higher tiers. I guess that already brings up why I am not excited by the actual EU tanks portrayed up until now and I shouldn’t make it sound like an issue with the EU tanks so much

        Make them fun and non-ugly and I’ll drive them at some point!

    • You look for a problems when there are none.

      WoT already has tanks that are complete BS made up by Wargaming. They’ll just add few more.

  7. I really like the white-ish paintjob, was this an official color or was it applied later? Must have been hard for those Israeli soldiers to encounter German armor, I would’ve shot them to a billion pieces but let’s not get into that discussion, nice pictures!

    • no, no, no.. you worng. you talking bad, and think you “done without any”?
      first of all, wish all gery tanks were Torn to pieces before they even exist.
      second, they make it, so shhh whiner, how easy is say sh1t and “dont let any1 answer”.
      Third and last, great pictures and I was there.. even can see Merkava in one of pictures, dont say the part- looks harder! :)
      @nHenkpas blind colors isn’t?
      what color of Desert, Green? Blue? This called Camoflage.

      • Geezus… what happened to your English? (O_O)
        Sorry, if it is not your native language but seriously, i can’t even get the meaning of the sentences (maybe the last ones)

        Type it in the google translator and translate it to English, then post it, otherwise other people can not communicate with you… :(

        • wait, what so hard (:P)
          just a answer, not need explain so much but…
          cuz I wrote “worng” and not “Wrong” is big deal? ok
          I didnt like what he said about Israeli soldiers that’s it.

          all Because of: ” I would’ve shot them to a billion pieces but let’s not get into that discussion”.
          so said my opinion about gery armor, when you “Angry” sometimes you keep some open words that every1 can finish by them own idea. please, is not that hard….

          you can say anything you want, but people think is bad and not answer for you?
          so you totaly Wrong. (if you dont understand like must of many people, did you “translate” it and read normal? not Rush, you’ll get the point, even if english not the native language mate :\

          • Dear random internet user: I didn’t mean to offend anyone, you’re welcome to respond, I just didn’t want to start a discussion on a blog about the Israeli – Palistine conflict that’s all. What I meant with shoot them to a biliion pieces was that if I were Israeli, and I captures a tank affiliated with nazi Germany, I wouldn’t display it, that’s all

  8. It’s painful to see, that rust is eating them slowly. Anyway, stug keeps it’s shape better than the average user in front of the nyan cat video :)

  9. The Spanish M47 is not only new gun and M48 engine and transmission, if you dont notice it the mg position in the hull was removed, only 4 guys in the crew, the space used for radioman now is used as ammo storage, apart this the variant was used to in Iran army they improve some M47 to this level, if i dont remember bad other nations want improve their M47 but after the fall of the Sha the Iran factory was closed.

    Maybe the problem with EU tree is the great amount of tanks you can use… many served in diferent armies with diferent configurations… i dont see very clear the top tiers, maybe M47E could be a tier 9 med if they cant find something new i here i think in prototipes, i feel we are going to see a lot of prototypes as top tiers in EU tree because the other option is see old tanks with new skins (Leo I, M48…).

    • Well, we Spanish have two Tier X worthy prototypes and one mass-produced version of the AMX-30(AMX-30E), which will be in the French tree someday as far as it’s known. But yes, copying another tank is not too great and would be the boring option.

      • Two? as far as i know (which i admit is pretty little) there is the Lince, but thats a 80s design with smoothbore and composite armor which if i recall are out of limits for WoT

        • Nah, Lince was some sort of Leopard 2-lite that has no place in WoT.

          Search for the “Proyecto Leox” and “El Niño”, they are two prototype frankentanks made from components of the M47/48, M60, AMX-30 and Leopard 1. “Leox” is a very obscure tank, but “El Niño” is currently on display in the Museum of El Goloso.

  10. And here the T-40/75 (Panzer IV) has the doors closed on it’s additional turret (skirts?) armor…
    In-game they are wide open…
    So either WG is doing this for balance reasons, or they are assuming german tankers were idiots >:|

    I really hope it’s the former. :|

  12. Much love for StuG – Best tonk evah!

    but seriously, it was still being used… thats the mark of a great tank (or a really poor country thats mad at someone)

  15. Apart from Merkava, did the israeli build anything original or they just used modified and captured gear?

    • Well, the Merkava had several version:
      1) Mark I from 1978 – also has an upgraded Mark I(b)
      2) Mark II from 1982 – has two improved versions, the Mark II(b) and Mark II(d), which is a b with better armor against AT missiles
      3) Mark III from 1990 – has 4 improved versions. Mark III(b), Mark III(d), Mark III LIC that has better fire control, armor, etc. the last one was designed for urban warfare.
      4) Mark IV from 2003 – has an improved Mark IV(m) from 2012 which is same as the IV but with active shield protection

      • before the Merkava, the IDF had American (lots of Shermans and Pattons), British (Cromwell and Centurion) and French tanks (AMX 13).
        Also there were captured Russian tanks (T-54/T-62)

        these were the ones that they used the most if I remember correctly

  16. I don’t think that the sun and the heat that is there is good for the tanks… I would rather keep them under some roof.

    • Actually, under the sun is right where they should be. It’s very dry and hot, meaning that the water evaporates quickly and so the tanks don’t rust as much as they would in a damp warehouse. The only problem may be the thermal contraction (it’s hot during the day and cold during the night) where the steel streches and retracts making it brittle, but not like these tanks are going anywhere anytime soon.

    • Yaya the Stug Lyfe chooses you!
      (to bring it back on topic, I’m glad to see the Stug in good condition)

  18. These were used by Egypt. While their armor was quite thick (resisting the Patton and Centurion shells)

    Time to buff the IS-3 for historical reasons then, it bounces fuck all nowadays.

    • Common problem for a lot of tanks/guns. For example, the long 88 and the 20pdr both could not penetrate the glacis (100mm version) of the T-54, although they could pen the turret (opposite of in-game).

  19. We need a ZPU-57-2 that fires apcr by default for tier 8 Soviet medium.
    It may have terribad armour but it will have over 11900 dpm.