Shalom fellas! How are you today?
Are you disappointed in the current state of the Israel ground forces? Are you tired of people constantly telling you Israel should have never been added as a full tree? Or maybe you are wondering yourself what kind of unique vehicles Israel can receive in the future. Either way, I've made this fun tech tree to showcase just how big the Israeli ground forces could get if they received any and every vehicle possible to add. As you can see, it is huge. This is less of a "This is how I want Israel to look ingame" tree and more of a giant list of vehicles that Gaijin can pick from and put in the Israel tank tree.
One of the types of proposed nations in the War Thunder forums I dislike the most are the ones that go like "Ok, I know everything until rank VI is copy and paste, and rank VI itself is made out of slight modifications, but look at those few unique vehicles at rank VII and VIII! They definitely justify the addition of a whole new nation!", which is why the Israeli ground forces have unique vehicles right from the first rank. In fact, three of the four reserve tanks are unique vehicles, and the fourth one has a unique shell instead of the usual one. The Israeli ground forces tech tree's niche is modified vehicles with a large focus on tank destroyers of any kind (except superheavies).
I would like Israel to have a subtree like Great Britain, Italy, and Sweden, but Israel does not really have any "closest friend" country that could be added as a subtree: India would more likely be added as a subtree to the USSR, Chile is a cool idea but their potential subtree would have more copy&paste than I'd like to, and if you dare suggest a USA subtree I will fill your mouth with glue. So instead, I decided to make an original idea: A subtree not based on a specific nation, but rather on vehicles created as private ventures of Israeli companies and/or for the general export market. Everyone, I'm glad to introduce the Israeli defense industry subtree! It will include foreign vehicles that did not serve with the IDF but were majorly upgraded and/or had their development co-operated by IMI, Rafael, Elbit, Nimda, or any other Israeli defense company. Most of the vehicles found in this subtree could be added to Israel without the presence of this subtree, however, the existence of the subtree allows some vehicles that would otherwise not be added to Israel to be added anyways, such as the Piranha 6x6 TCM-20, TAM VCLC, T-54M3 production, etc...
I will keep updating the tree and add any vehicles I might have missed. Currently, the tree has 206 vehicles! If there are any mistakes or maybe you just want to discuss the tree and BRs of vehicles in it, you can do so by joining the Israeli tech tree suggestions Discord server.
By the way, for those who wonder, 'Zachlam' (Hebrew: זחל"מ) is an Israeli collective designation for American halftracks (such as the M3, M5, M9, etc...) and is an acronym of 'Zahali Lemehetza' (Hebrew: זחלי למלחצה) which translates to 'Half Tracked'. There's also the 'Zachlad', which is an acronym for 'Zachlam Diesel', which is a Zachlam that got its engine changed to the M113's diesel engine, a new hydraulic steering system, and a synchronized transmission. Most if not all Zachlams were upgraded to the Zachlad standard after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Zachlads are identifiable thanks to their smooth front plate compared to a standard Zachlam's grilled front plate. For example, the ingame 'TCM-20' (Which should be called 'Zachlad TCM-20') has a smooth front plate but is missing all of the Zachlad's upgrades ingame.
Changes to existing vehicles:
- "Sho't" was renamed "Centurion Mk.5": Sho't was a designation for Israeli Centurions fitted with the L7 105mm cannon. Later, when Israel upgraded most of its Sho'ts with Continental diesel engines, the few Sho'ts that did not receive the new diesel engine were renamed "Sho't meteor", named after the British Meteor engine.
- "Tiran 4S" was renamed to "Tiran 4Sh": Every source on the internet says Tiran 4Sh and Tiran 5Sh. I have no idea why Gaijin calls them Tiran 4S and Tiran 5S. The 'Sh' is short for "Sharir", which was the IDF designation for the L7 and M68 105mm cannons in Israeli service, NOT the license-produced version (that's the M64 L71A).
- "Magach 3 (ERA)" was renamed to "Magach 3 Baltan": Blazer ERA was named "Baltan" in Israeli service, so it's fitting to be named as such.
- "Merkava Mk.3C" was renamed to "Merkava Mk.3B Baz": While "Merkava Mk.3C" is indeed a real name, the tank was named by crews who used it "Merkava Mk.3B Baz" so often that with time the unofficial nickname became the official name. Technically, both names are correct, but I feel like "Merkava Mk.3B Baz" would be more authentic.
- "TCM-20" was renamed to "Zachlam TCM-20": The TCM-20 is the turret itself, and the whole vehicle's name is Zachlam TCM-20. No idea how Gaijin messed it up.
- Zachlam TCM-20 moved to rank III: a 4.3 vehicle should be at rank III, not rank IV.
- Magach line re-folded: On update Sons of Atalia, Gaijin reorganized many tech trees and folded a lot of vehicles. Gaijin's choice of folders for the Magach line is quite messy as it has folders of Magachs that are nothing alike, so I re-foldered the vehicles in the line in a more accurate manner keeping together Magachs of similar M60 variant heritage.
- Merkava Mk.1 and Merkava Mk.2 are separated into their own folders: ingame the Merkava Mk.1B and Merkava Mk.2B are folded together, due to my tree containing many subvariants of each of them, I decided to put each variant in their own folder with their own subvariants.
- "Imp.Chaparral" was renamed to "Drakon": The latter was the domestic name given to the system by the IDF, so it is more fitting as Gaijin also seems to prefer domestic names for Israeli vehicles considering the naming scheme in the Israeli air tree.
- Drakon's BR was reduced from 10.3 to 10.0 - In my opinion, the BR of the Drakon is too high, especially when comparing it to the Imp.Chaparral in the US tree which uses the MIM-72E, which is practically the same as the MIM-72G just without IRCCM.
- Machbet folded behind Super Vulcan
- Rochev folded with M109 - It makes a lot of sense to fold these two vehicles, the only practical difference between them is the length of the barrel.
- Giraf moved to rank V - The rank position of the TOW box ingame is quite weird, with the Israeli and Italian TOW boxes being rank VI but the Taiwanese one being rank V. I decided to move the Giraf to rank V in order to fill the 5th rank better and prevent the 6th rank from being too cluttered in the TD/IFV line.
- Sholef V1's BR increased to 8.7 at rank 6 - The current implementation of the Sholef V1 ingame is quite lacking, weighing 15 tons too much and thus suffering from a lower horsepower-to-weight ratio, missing a considerable turret traverse rate speed, and most importantly: missing any form of firing-on-the-move capability. Ingame, vehicles who had no stabilizer IRL but still possessed the capability to fire on the move receive a two-plane stabilizer so the Sholef V1 would too until Gaijin decides to implement this mechanic to the game. The vehicles in my tree are represented by their IRL versions and not the ingame versions, therefore, the Sholef V1 moves to a BR where its missing features are implemented. Same goes for the Sholef V2 although it is not implemented ingame as of yet.
Version 2.0.0 changelog
Release date: November 3rd, 2024
- Vehicle BRs adjusted to match ingame maximum BR and decompression changes in the last year
- Magach 7A (MG253) removed - as it turns out it was a photoshop of a regular Magach 7A, so I removed it.
- TAM 2CIP removed - too little info and present optics from the 2 known images of it contradict the info about it
- Various fixes to missing/corrupted images
- Major info fix on the Sholef SPH
- New vehicle: Sholef V1 (M-71)
- New vehicle: M47RKM
- New vehicle: Super Vulcan (IMI) - Thai army export version added as a premium SPAA
- New vehicle: TAM 2C-A2
- New vehicle: Ra'am Segol
- ZSU-23-4 (EL/M-2026BF): name changed into "SCHILKA" - decided to go with the name mentioned on IAI's website.
- Sabra Mk.1 moved to rank VII
Wow, it has been a looooong while sience I've updated my tree. Turns out becoming an adult means losing all of your free time to full-time jobs and house chores. I'm unsure if I'd be able to update my tree on a regular basis but I will always try to update it to always be relevant to the current state of War Thunder be it if new vehicles are added to the ingame tech tree or if there is a BR balance patch. Anyhow, I've fixed some broken images and fixed some info about the Sholef I was wrong about, it never had a 1200hp engine (or rather, I can't prove it did) and I specified that it can fire on the move thanks to FCS computers that make the gun fire exactly when the barrel is in the right position rather than the barrel being constantly stabilized like I speculated earlier. Removed two problomatic vehicles, added 5 more, and some other smaller changes. I might consider a tech tree description change in the future as I'll likely update the tree when the 5th and final major update of the year will come around.
See you guys next time, ofekk213 out.
