Eye on the Enemy: "Israeli" army investigating: What disrupts the Merkava tank engine?
"Israeli" army investigating: What disrupts the Merkava tank engine?
Ynet - Yoav Zitun
"Guest House" plan is supposed to provide solutions for the terror scenario in which all the settlements have to be evacuated because of rocket attacks. According to the plan, entire cities will be moved to southern "Israel" around Eilat and the Arava area.
The Ministerial Committee is set to discuss a plan for a mass evacuation which also states that t owns near Ariel may also serve as temporary evacuation centers.
The plan also applies to cases of natural disasters at the national level and is a reworking of one of "Israel's" contingency plans. The old housing plan, in which Home Front Protection Minister, Matan Vilnai, participated in, is renewed in the wake of the new threats in the Middle East. The plan is named "Guest House".
According to the plan, housings will be in schools, educational establishments and even boarding schools, dorms and hotels.
The Housing Ministry will prepare a plan for the establishment of temporary housing facilities including tents and caravans. Local Host councils will provide for the evacuees for one week an allowance of NIS 150 from the Finance Ministry.
Evacuees will also receive transportation and toilet stall. They will also receive laundry services and each child will be given NIS 100 for school supplies.
Home Front Protection Minister Matan Vilnai said that after a briefing from the national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the green light to implement the plan. It will also be introduced at various government ministries.
An initial amount of NIS 2 million was allocated for that plan, but then the plan was estimated to cost hundreds of millions of shekels. This amount will be fully transferred to the Treasury after the approval on the evacuation plan.
"I have spoken to council heads in the Eilat district and they appreciate the importance of hosting residents of central and northern "Israel" at times of emergency," Vilnai told Ynet. "One must keep in mind that countries will agree to help us and send portable housing units at times of massive natural disasters such as earthquakes or fires but I doubt this will be the case during a war."
"It is a plan that should exhibit our skills and give solutions in case of emergency. The plan will be applied at all the government ministries, as it includes necessary elements to be addressed when needed," Alon Rosen, general director of home front protection ministry stated.
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Maariv - Hanan Greenberg
The "Israeli" military is investigating the defect affecting the engines of the Merkava tanks. This defect issue is not new, in fact, it was revealed shortly after the staffing of the tank in the "Israeli" army in 2003. A malfunction in the system of throttles caused the tank to stop moving after 250-200 hours of work, thus the engine was removed and taken away to be repaired. A former senior officer in the armored corps admitted that during the first years of operation, the tanks' problem was classified as "serious". According to him, they had to keep a lot of tanks without engines and wait for their repairing to end. Recently, and as the data given to watchdog Harare showed, this failure will continue to damage the capabilities of these formations, especially the reserve brigade, which was equipped about two years ago with this mighty tank.
In addition, as a result of the failures, the military doesn't have sufficient quantities of tank engines to use in case of emergency. In the mainland arm they are well aware of the ever-increasing gaps accompanied by the increasing size of Merkava 4 tanks. Its data were provided to the Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, and his deputy, Major General Yair Neve. Each engine will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to be repaired, which means that they require a huge budget, thus additional tanks cannot be purchased for the cases of emergency.
Sources familiar with the case claim that the defect, which was almost discovered in 2003 is still preoccupying the "Israeli" army and the Ministry of Defense until these days. "It is not possible not to find a solution to this, it will harm the capabilities of an important brigade," one of the sources added. "This will cost us a lot of money, so we must make sure that we were already doing what should be done so that during war we won't be suffering from a shortage in these tanks."
In the scope of the investigation prepared by the "Israeli" military observer, a team of reserve officers specialized in this domain was formed. After it was revealed that not only the army units are being monitored, but also different committees in the Department of "Defense" that are responsible for the project, the team of officers was authorized to monitor the security establishment in full. According to various estimates, the monitoring process will seemingly reveal a series of defects in the decision-making process related to the follow-up of buying the engine from the German company and the recommendation on a new mechanism to address the issue.
The spokesman of the "Israeli" army said, "At the beginning stage of manufacturing the Merkava 4, nine years ago, simple defects were found in the engines. The issue has been solved few years ago, and the majority of the manufactured Merkavas were fixed. At this time, a limited number of engines (which were made in the beginning) are being repaired. The "Israeli" army continues to process the formation of armored tanks Merkava4 without affecting the plan of equipments and the building of a multi-year power. "
The Ministry of "Defense" announced, "The new engines that were purchased certainly suit the Merkava 4. All the enhancements are being added to these engines. We do not buy faulty engines. Contrary to the claim, the brigade mentioned in your review is convenient to operate. The "Israeli" army possesses the appropriate number of engines to implement the routine and emergency plan. The procurement process that we launched earlier is designed to further in strengthen the Merkava 4 in the future."
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Russia to sell a hiding-trace system technology
"Israel" Defense - Arie Egozi
Foreign sources are stating that Russia will soon add mobile launchers to its ballistic missile system to hide the traces left by the remnants of the ejector on the ground. These traces help intelligence sensors, such as spy satellites, to locate the rockets' bunker and target it quickly.
The Russian missile base "Tekopo" in "Ivanovo" in Russia, will be the first base supplied with this new system. In this base, there are intercontinental missiles of the type SS-27 (Topol) and RS-24. While other Russian missile bases will be provided with the trace-hiding system within the next months. Russians did not give accurate details about how to hide the effects of wheels launchers, but they seem to use it on other missiles such as Scud missiles that are available, inter alia, in the hands of the Syrian army.
This system is likely to be sold to Iran, which will install it on a series of in-use mobile launchers. These launchers are used in a missile like "Shehab 3" that's capable of hitting "Israel". "The trace-hiding system as we mentioned before can block the enemy from exposing the bunker thus scoring a pre-emptive strike against the enemy."
Source: Hebrew Newspapers, Translated by moqawama.org
