The 'Isherman' American Tank That Israel Sent Against Soviet T-55s 2 Decades After WW2

How does a World War Two American Sherman destroy a Soviet T-55 on the Golan Heights in 1973? This is the story of the Israeli M-51 Isherman, Detroit's most improvised killer. By October 1973, the Israeli M-51 Sherman should have been a museum piece. It was twenty eight years past the end of the war it was built for. Its armor was forty years out of date. Its main gun could not even fire kinetic ammunition. And yet on the night of October seven, 1973, a battalion of these tanks stopped a Syrian mechanized brigade cold above Kibbutz El Al and destroyed seventeen T-55s in a single engagement. This is the full story of the M-51 Isherman: how Israel took a World War Two American M4A1 Sherman hull, mated it to a shortened French 105mm cannon from the AMX-30, dropped in a Cummins diesel truck engine from Indiana, and turned it into a Soviet armor killer that fought in two major wars and outlived its retirement by three decades in Chilean service. In this episode of Forgotten Armour, we cover the M-51 program from 1959 through 1965, the gun and ammunition that made the impossible possible, the verified combat record in the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and why the last Isherman in operational service ended its career not in Israel, but on a parade ground in the Atacama Desert. WHAT THIS VIDEO COVERS The Program → Why three Western nations refused to sell Israel modern tanks in the late 1950s, and how the Franco-Israeli partnership at the Atelier de Bourges produced the Sherman M-51 in just three years. The Hardware → The shortened CN 105 D1 cannon, the Obus G spin-compensated HEAT round, the Cummins VT8-460 diesel conversion, the HVSS suspension, and the visual signature of every IDF Sherman thereafter. The Six Day War → Mandler's 8th Brigade on the Golan escarpment at Qala', Bar-Kochva's 45th Brigade ambushing Jordanian M47 Pattons at Burqin Hill, and Zippori's 14th Brigade at Sharon's night assault on Abu Ageila. The Yom Kippur War → The corrected order of battle, the stand of the 377th Battalion at Kibbutz El Al, Laner's ambush of the Iraqi 3rd Armored Division at Tel Shams, and why the Sagger missile finally broke the Sherman in the Sinai. The Comparison → How the M-51 stacked up against the Soviet T-54, T-55, and T-62, against the NATO Centurion and Leopard 1, and against the unmodified American Sherman it was built from. The Legacy → Retirement from IDF service, the Chilean Project T rebuild with Detroit Diesel power, and where the last working examples sit today. MAJOR RESEARCH SOURCES Tank Encyclopedia, M-51 entry and Cold War Israeli Armor archives Tank Historia, M-51 Super Sherman service history Armored Warfare Official Site, Israeli Armor Myths series and M-51 development articles Mike's Research, Israeli Super Shermans technical breakdown HistoryNet, Sacrificial Stand in the Golan Heights Warfare History Network, Sherman Tanks of the Israeli Army and Tank Clash in the Sinai Yad LaShiryon Armor Memorial Site at Latrun, archive material War Thunder Wiki, M-51 technical specifications The Sherman Tank Site Wikipedia entries on Super Sherman, CN 105 F1, Israel Tal, Valley of Tears, Armored Corps Israel FURTHER READING Tom Gannon, Israeli Sherman (Trackpad Publishing, 2nd edition 2017), the definitive English-language monograph on the M-50 and M-51. Moshe Givati, The Armor Craftsmen, The History of the 7100 Restoration and Maintenance Center (IDF MoD, 1998). Avigdor Kahalani, The Heights of Courage, Yom Kippur War memoir from a Centurion crew commander. Avraham Bren Adan, On the Banks of the Suez, the Sinai counter-attacks of 1973. David Eshel, Chariots in the Desert. Simon Dunstan, Centurion vs T-55 Yom Kippur 1973, Osprey Duel series. Trevor N. Dupuy, Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars 1947 to 1974. R.P. Hunnicutt, Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank. ABOUT FORGOTTEN ARMOUR Forgotten Armour is a cinematic military history channel covering American tanks, armored vehicles, trucks, MRAPs, self-propelled artillery, and experimental prototypes from the Cold War through the modern era, with a focus on the vehicles foreign armies adopted, modified, and sent into battles the Pentagon never imagined. Every script is built on verified primary research. Every claim is cited. Subscribe for new episodes on American armor, foreign-operator stories, billion-dollar boondoggles, and forgotten Cold War prototypes. Hit the bell. The next vehicle is already being researched.