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Saturday, January 11, 2014

Syrian T-55 in 1973 Yom Kippur War

On Saturday Oct. 06, 1973 at 2:00pm in the afternoon the Yom Kippur War began. The Syrian Army positioned thousands of main battle tanks, artillery pieces, mobile anti-air vehicles and armored troop carriers and were now advancing west into the Israeli controlled Golan Heights. The main battle tanks spearheading the opening phase of the Syrian attack were T-54/55 and T-62s.

Here are some examples of Syrian Army divisional tank markings.

Here are some examples of individual tank numbers. Many tanks had the 3 digit numbers within a surrounding white rectangular stenciled-box. Sometimes not.

Here is an example of the vehicles individual registration number and the word "Al-Gaish" (Army). This appears on the forward glacis and rear hull plate.



The model showcased in this post is the Tamiya T-55. One of the joys of scale-model armor kits of the last decade. The actual tank was built in the 10s of thousands and deserved such a fine model. Tamiya stepped up to the challenge. There are some minor detail issues that are easily attended to to make this a prize winning model wherever it appears. This model is marked in Syrian 1973 Grey/ Green/Sand camouflage colors typical for the Yom Kippur war. The figures are from "Warriors" and the metal tracks are from "Friul". I would highly recommend replacing the vinyl kit tracks with these.

The Model:





















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