It was chilly up there on the Golan Heights in late March when I posed beside this Israeli Centurion, a mainstay of the IDF Armored Corps on the Golan in the 1973 war. It was parked at a memorial for the 679 Reserve Armored Brigade which lost 98 men and two score tanks fighting a superior force of Syrians.
The Centurions have been replaced by Merkevas, but the old British tanks are remembered for the accuracy of their 105mm main guns and the way shells from Syria’s Russian T-62s ricocheted off the Centurion plate. Which is why, although the Israeli Armored Corps also purchased U.S. M-48s and M-60s, they bought more of the Centurions and preferred them.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 