Israel Converted Captured T-55 Tanks Into Heavy Personnel Carriers

In the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War and other conflicts, the Israeli army captured hundreds of Soviet-made T-55 tanks belonging to Arab armies.

Desperate for heavy vehicles to protect their infantry on battlefields teeming with missiles, the Israelis converted some of the old tanks into heavy armored personnel carriers, starting in the late 1980s.

Thirty-five years later, the Israelis still had a hundred of these so-called Achzarits in front-line service. But on the morning of Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists captured around a dozen of them—more than tenth of the overall fleet.

It was one of the worst single-day losses for a particular Israeli vehicle type in decades.

The 40-ton, four-crew T-55—armed with a 100-millimeter rifled main gun and protected by up to 200 millimeters of steel—was a mainstay of Arab armies in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

It made sense that, when Egypt, Syria and Jordan went to war with Israel and lost, they left behind a lot of T-55s: as many as 500, according to some tallies. So many that it was worth it to the Israelis to create whole new vehicle types on the ex-Arab tanks’ chassis.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War taught the Israeli army some hard lessons. Arab teams firing Soviet-made Sagger wire-guided anti-tank missiles damaged or destroyed hundreds of Israeli combat vehicles.

Israeli tankers needed closer protection from infantry, who could screen the tanks from missileers. But the infantry themselves needed closer protection from their own personnel carriers as they dismounted to engage the enemy. And the personnel carriers needed protection in order to survive the very missiles their infantry were fighting to suppress.

The ex-Arab T-55s offered a solution. The Israeli Defense Forces Corps of Ordnance popped off the tanks’ turrets, added layers of composite armor and a rear hatch, and installed seating for seven infantry in addition to the three crew.

The result is a very heavy armored personnel carrier tipping the scales at a whopping 49 tons. An Achzarit actually is heavier than a T-55 is. The vehicle pays for its heavy protection with a low power-to-weight ratio of just 18 horsepower per ton, and a commensurate reduction in mobility compared to a T-55.

The Israelis produced around 300 Achzarits and steadily upgraded them through several major conflicts, including Israeli incursions into Gaza in 2004 and 2008. The latest Achzarit Mark II has a new Detroit Diesel turbocharged diesel engine and a Rafael remotely-controlled turret for its machine gun.

The hundred or so Achzarits that remained in service in 2023 probably all were Mark IIs. At least a dozen of them were at the Israeli army base in Nakhal Oz, in southern Israel, when Hamas terrorists breached the border fence surrounding Gaza on Oct. 7 and began killing and abducting hundreds of Israelis and foreigners.

The terrorists captured the base and the Achzarits, representing as much as 12 percent of the overall fleet of converted T-55s.