Centurion vs T-55: Yom Kippur War 1973: No. 21 (Duel)

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a b c Rashba, Gary (October 1998, online June 12, 2006) (12 June 2006). "Yom Kippur War: Sacrificial Stand in the Golan Heights". Military History magazine via HISTORYnet. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)

Dunstan, S., Sarson, P. (2003). Centurion Universal Tank 1943–2003. Osprey. pp. 40. ISBN 0-671-00974-5. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link) Subvariants indicate upgrades received by Sho't Kal tanks during their operational life, including a new turret rotating mechanism, a new gun stabilizer, a new fire-control system and preparations for the installation of the Blazer Reactive armour.After its unhappy debut, and once the problems with the transmission were resolved, the T-54 proved to be a worthy successor to the T-34 series that had been largely instrumental in achieving victory on the Eastern Front and the eventual triumph over the remaining forces of the Third Reich in the battle of Berlin. Starting in 1949, the T54/55 series was built in greater numbers than any other post-war battle tank with over 50,000 rolling off the production lines. The T-54 entered series production in 1953 and the T-54A was introduced in 1955. The T-54A had a revised D-10TG 100mm main armament that featured stabilization in the vertical axis with the STP-1 Gorizont or Horizon system. The D-10TG also had a fume extractor near the muzzle fume, based on the bore evacuator design of captured US M-26 and M-46 Medium Tanks from the Korean War. This model was also manufactured in Czechoslovakia, Poland and in China as the T-59. Two years later, the T-54B appeared with full stabilization for the main armament that was now designated D-10T2S. The system was known as the STP-2 Tsiklon or Cyclone. In April 1959, infrared (IR) night vision and fighting equipment was introduced for the commander, gunner and driver. Intriguingly, the Centurion featured full stabilization from its earliest models in 1947 whereas the T-54/55 series achieved it only in 1957. Conversely, Soviet tanks were fitted with IR night-fighting equipment several years before their NATO counterparts. Total production of the T-54 series was approximately 24,750 in the Soviet Union with 5,465 in Warsaw Pact countries and a further 9,000 in China under the designation T-59. The situation pushed the leaders of the neighboring Arab states to intervene, with the Arab Legion of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I moving tanks and armoured forces into the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. Ostfeld, Zehava (1994). Shoshana Shiftel (ed.). An Army is Born (Vol. 1) (in Hebrew). Israel Ministry of Defense. pp.104–106. ISBN 965-05-0695-0. In what became known as the Water War, tanks were employed to destroy Syrian engineering equipment engaged in the diversion project. In time, the 105mm armed Shots proved capable of hitting targets as small as a bulldozer, at ranges out to 11km. It became the Tal credo of ‘first shot, first kill, one shot, one kill’ using the L7 105mm gun or ‘Sharir’. Such proficiency among the tank crews of the IAC was to prove decisive in the next major Arab-Israeli war as well as the conflict of 1973.

The UN brought about a ceasefire, largely negotiated between the U.S. and Soviet Union, on October 22, but though most heavy fighting ended on October 28, the fighting never stopped until January 18, 1974. Yoav Gelber (January 2006). Palestine, 1948: war, escape and the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem. Sussex Academic Press. pp.98–. ISBN 978-1-84519-075-0 . Retrieved 14 April 2011. Israeli tank gunners were uniformly superior to their Syrian counterparts thanks in part to the superior optical sights of the Centurion as shown here as a T-55 is hit at close range viewed through the gunner’s Sight Periscopic No.30.Both the Centurion and the T-54/55 saw action in the same month of November 1956 when the Soviet army crushed the Hungarian Revolution and an AngloFrench force made an amphibious landing at Port Said to occupy the Suez Canal Zone. Here, Centurion Mk 5s of B Squadron, 6th Royal Tank Regiment, patrol the streets of Port Said after the ceasefire. The Mk 5 was essentially the same as the Mk 3 but had a .30-calibre Browning coaxial machine gun in place of the Besa. Hundreds of T-54/55 tanks have been used in the countless wars that have ravaged the continent of Africa to this day, from Angola to Sudan and from Ethiopia to Eritrea. This T-55A(M) was sold by Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2006 and is being prepared for action on 26 October 2008 against the renegade forces of Laurent Nkunda that had captured the village of Rugari, some 40 kilometres north of the provincial capital of Goma. (Getty Images) determination never to allow British tank crews to enter battle with inferior firepower or armour protection to a potential enemy. To this end, the Centurion had been undergoing many improvements following its entry into service with the British Army. Like the T-54, the Centurion was fitted with a new turret design of improved ballistic protection and better layout for the crew in the Mk II version. More importantly, the revised turret was able to mount the new 20-pounder (83.4mm) gun that was superior in performance to the D-10T 100mm main armament of the T-54, particularly when firing the new APDS or Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot ammunition. Introduced in 1948 as the Centurion Mk III, this was the definitive early model of the Centurion and its technical description is as follows. The Centurion Mk III was of conventional layout with the driving compartment at the front, the driver on the right and the main armament In October 1955, a comprehensive improvement programme for the T-54 was initiated under the designation Obiekt 155. The principal innovation was the introduction of protection against Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) contamination on the nuclear battlefield that was now deemed to be inevitable by Soviet planners in any future conflict. The new design was accepted for service in May 1958 and production ran from June 1958 to July 1962 in the Soviet Union and subsequently in Czechoslovakia and Poland. The T-55 was of conventional layout with a four-man crew. Like the Centurion, the wartime practice of a five-man crew with a hull machine gunner, such as the T-34 or Cromwell tanks, was dispensed with in the interests of extra ammunition stowage, given the increased size of the main armament ammunition. However, the crew positions were reversed to those in the Centurion and, indeed, most Western tanks. The driver was situated in the left-hand side of the hull front while the commander and gunner were positioned to the left of the D-10T gun and the loader to its right. The most striking aspect of the T-55 was its compact dimensions with a height to the turret top of just 2.39m although the loader’s roof-mounted heavy machine gun did somewhat compromise the low profile: in comparison, the M-48 stood 3.13m tall and the Centurion 2.94m. However, the superb shaped turret did markedly reduce the internal volume of the tank and make it extremely cramped for the crew. This inevitably affected their performance when fighting closed down over extended periods of time. It also significantly reduced overall ammunition stowage with just 43 rounds as against 65 for the Centurion. Nevertheless, such a compact tank was difficult to hit and the armour configuration made it more likely for shells to ricochet off the turret or glacis plate without penetrating, while the limited amount of ammunition carried was compensated for by the sheer numbers of Soviet tanks committed to any offensive. For these reasons, Soviet tank crews were chosen on