Modelling > Land
Merkava Tank Ideas and Inspiration
GTX_Admin:
I like your thinking. Now if only someone would release a kit/conversion for either of those in 1/35...
GTX_Admin:
Actually given the Merkava's heavy armour and Israel's defensive position, I am kind of surprised a Sturmgeschütz or Jagd-Merkava hasn't been looked at...
...another random idea: What if part of the post War reparations were that Germany had to be equipped with Jewish weapons (weak, yeah, I know Israel as a modern state able to do so was decades away in '46...but leaving facts aside for now): Bundesheer Merkavas anyone?
Maverick:
I suppose the only issue with that scenario would be that West Germany would be defenceless for quite some time as Israel didn't have indigenously designed combat aircraft or armour initially.
Regards,
John
GTX_Admin:
I know - one explanation I could think of is that perhaps in the '80s West Germany gets an extremely left wing Govt that adopts an extreme apologist type stance and then starts mandating their armed forces adopt Israeli equipment. This could result not only in Merkava tanks instead of Leopard IIs but also Lavis instead of Eurofighters etc...
Weaver:
What if you had German and French Merk Mk.1s as part of a swap deal whereby the IAF got Alphajets to replace it's Magisters?
As I understand it, one of the obstacles to Merk exports has been the capacity of Israeli industry to build them (i.e. their domestic requirement uses most of the production capacity), so maybe the Franco-German ones would be licence-built in their countries with their own preference in sub-systems. They'd be looking to upgrade to 120mm at that point (late 1970s) so maybe they'd be the ones to lead development of the 120mm Merk with Israel piggy-backing off that with a choice of GIAT or Rheinmetall guns, SACM or MTU engines etc...
As an alternative, what about a British Merk? The Israelis only started the Merkava project after Britain pulled out of the deal whereby they were co-operating on the design of the Chieftain with the intention of ultimately buying them. What if there was a political reprochment over this at the same time as the Chieftain replacement fell through, say because the fall of the Shah of Iran, who'd placed massive orders for Shir 1s (super Chieftains as eventually supplied to Jordan as Khalids) and Shir 2s (Chally Is basically) took ROE Leeds down completely instead of just hurting it?
This version would see a deal done whereby Britain developed and produced the 120mm Merk with an R30 rifled gun (which Israel then benefitted from) for it's own use, in exchange for Hawks to replace Israel's Magisters. You might then see a Namer-like vehicle developed by Britain in the early 1980s (reportedly, the Army wanted something more like that than the Warrior they got) and a Merk hull with an AS-90 turret in place of the Sholef one used by both Britain and Israel.
The AS-90/Sholef is very doable as a model in 1/72nd scale.....
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