IDF CENTURION SHOT KAL GIMEL/DALET

The Sho't Kal is a British-made main battle tank operated by Israel during the Cold War and in modern times. The first prototypes of this vehicle were built in the late 1960s and the vehicle entered service in 1970. In the basic version, with additional Blazer armor, the combat weight of the tank was up to 53 tons. The drive was provided by a single diesel engine Continental AVDS-1790-2A with a power of 750 hp. The primary armament was the 105mm Royal Ordonance L7 cannon, and the secondary armament consists of four machine guns: one 12.7 mm and three 7.62 mm. In the 1950s, the Israeli armed forces sought to obtain vehicles to complement the line, and preferably replace the M51 Super Sherman and AMX-13 tanks. Finally, it was possible to establish cooperation with Great Britain, which provided IDF with Centurion vehicles in Mark 3 and 5 versions. The first of these tanks (Centurion Mk. III) received the IDF Sho't Meteor designation, while the second - Sho't Kal , along with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet denoting further (often significant!) modernizations. In these modernizations, first of all, a new drive unit with higher maximum power was used, a significantly modernized drive train system, and the capacity of the fuel tanks was also significantly increased. After 1973 and the experiences of the Yom Kippur war, Blazer reactive armor and a significantly modernized fire control system (SKO for short) were also installed. Ultimately, therefore, after subsequent modernizations, the Sho't Kal cars significantly differed from their British prototypes, possibly presenting a significantly greater combat value. Officially, the Sho't Kal cars were decommissioned from the IDF in 2002.