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 The Merkava tank program started in 1970
after the IDF was forced to consider an alternative to the cancelled
project for producing British Chieftain tanks under license, which had
been cancelled by the UK at the start of the 1967 War.
To support development and future production, the Israel Ministry of
Defense invested significant resources to expand existing military
depot facilities as well as local defense industries. These included
significant investments in IMI's Slavin plant and Urdan Metal
Industries.
Although the Merkava tank is produced at a final assembly plant
managed by the IDF logistics and support corps, only 11% of the
program's work is actually performed by the military. "75% of the
vehicle is provided by the local defense industries. An additional 14%
is imported. Only 11% of the work is done here,” says General Amir Nir.
According to the PMO, the development of the tank was significantly
less expensive than any of the alternatives. According to Nir, over
200 industries and 3,000 employees directly support the program.
Furthermore, the income from the export of technologies derived
directly from the program have already exceeded the development costs,
and have consistently covered the annual production costs of the tank.
"We pursue a telescopic process in the development and production of
the tank. We field the early models and use the feedback from the
field to improve the product throughout its life cycle," General Nir
told Defense Update. "This telescopic method has consistently proven
to yield the shortest development cycle in the industry. In specific
cases it takes only days, compared to years, to provide a quick fix
for an urgent operational requirement. We then prepare for a more
comprehensive solution to be introduced on the production line for
subsequent production lots.”
An example of the telescopic development process is the status of the
current Merkava Mk 4. The design of this tank actually began some 15
years ago with small investments in ‘seed’ projects supporting
developments such as the MTU/GD 833 1,500 hp powerpack in Germany, the
transfer of its production to the USA and the development of improved
armor and firepower. When the Merkava Mk 4 tank entered production, it
was already fitted with the load capacity, electrical, and
computational power to support many systems which are currently still
on the drawing board. As the tank entered production in the year 2000,
it met only 60% of its planned development goals. "We found that it
would take us about eight years to stabilize a program and bring it to
its full capability," says Nir. Yet, the first unit was operational in
2003, and full scale production is currently underway with many
improvements received from the field and implemented as retrofits and
on the production line. |
