Merkava: Encyclopedia II - Merkava - History

Merkava - History

Following the Six-Day War and the French embargo on Israel, the UK signed a deal with Israel for joint development of a new main battle tank—the Chieftain tank. In 1969, following Arab pressure, the British cancelled the deal with Israel and expelled them from the Chieftain tank project. Israel realized that it could not rely on other countries to supply it with weapon systems and seriously began to consider self-manufacturing a main battle tank—one of the most crucial elements of ground armoured forces. Although the near-disaster of the 1973 Yom Kippur War had been resolved, in part, with an American delivery of reserve armour, the war brought home the fact that the small nation of Israel could not afford excessive casualties; the Merkava was thus to be designed for crew survival.

The Israeli government decided in 1970 that it needed an indigenous tank-building capacity. General Israel Tal led a development team which took into consideration Israel's unique battlefield characteristics and lessons learned from previous wars, focusing on protection of the crew. The development of the Merkava was formally acknowledged by the Israeli government on May 13, 1977.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki