Ed Okun "Modeling Military History": Israeli Army M-48 "Magach 3" tank in 1/35th scale/ Dragon M-48A3

IDF M48-A3 'MAGACH" TANK 1973

The M-48A3 in IDF service (excerpt from Wikipedia)

The M48 tank was sold to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by West Germany and later the United States, during the 1960s and 1970s. Several dozen Jordanian M48 tanks, captured intact during the 1967 Six Day War, were also commissioned into service, adding to Israel's 150 already in service at that time. During the war, the Israeli tanks served in their original (American) configuration.
Following the 1967 war, several modifications were made to improve the tank to M48A3 level, resulting with the Magach 3. These modifications included replacement of the original 90 mm cannon gun with the British 105 mm L7, lowering the command turret's profile, upgraded communication suite, and replacement of the flammable and weak gasoline engine with a 750 hp diesel one.
When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Israel had a total of 540 M48A3 (with 105mm gun) and M60A1 tanks.During the war, the tanks suffered heavy losses. The location of flammable hydraulic fluid at the front of the turret was discovered to be a severe vulnerability. After the war Israel had only about 200 M48A3 and M60A1 tanks, after a large number of Israeli tanks were destroyed or terminally hit during the war, mostly in the Sinai front against entrenched Egyptian infantry armed with AT-3 Sagger anti tank missiles. The war's losses were replaced with new M48A5 (Magach 5) and M60 (Magach 6) during the 1970s.

THE MODEL

The Dragon M-48A3 was a long awaited subject from a model company that initially (25 years ago) started producing Soviet vehicles to fill a much desired void. Scale modelers rejoiced because now all the Soviet types could be added to their armor collections Unfortunately, production costs usually dictate manufacturer's choice of which subject to invest and WW II Germany was always a safe bet. Years pass, and Dragon manufactured nearly every variety (and sub-variety) of German armored vehicle from that conflict. So, imagine everyone's surprise when Dragon announced the release of an M-48. Finally they listened to the scale modeling community and produced one as popular as the M-48 "Patton" tank... My model is converted to an Israeli "Magach-3" from the 1973 Yom Kippur war using new parts supplied in the resin kit by DEF of Korea. Here is a photo of that conversion kit:

Here are a few photos from during the build and of course the completed model. The model was painted with Testors Modelmaster "Israeli Sinai Sand-Grey" and lightened with pastel powders.