Monday, April 21, 2014

NEZAJA unveils Sabalan tank and Hoveizeh self-propelled gun

Following Iran Military Day, NEZAJA formally unveiled its Sabalan tank project

Sabalan as seen is based on the M47M "Patton" medium tank 

Sabalan as seen with M68 type 105 mm main armament 

Rightside view of Sabalan and its adapted new turret design

M68 gun mantlet on Sabalan tank turret

NEZAJA also unveiled its Hoveizeh self-propelled 155 mm gun project

The Hoveizeh self-propelled gun project is reportedly built from decommissioned M109 howitzers and recycled M109 related parts

Also seen at the NEZAJA unveiling was this updated M60 type main battle tank

Video, IRIB:

Photos: Mahdi Marizad at Fars News Agency, Amin Khosroshahi at Islamic Students' News Agency, Islamic Republic News Agency

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like something straight out of WW2.

Particularly the gun mantlet.

Anonymous said...

Complete death trap.

Anonymous said...

That's because the M47 was designed in the late 1940s. Do you notice how the poor driver will become trapped inside the tank when hit because of flaw in tank turret design?

Anonymous said...

Unless you are fighting a bunch of Bedouins on camels !

Anonymous said...

Iranian tank crews and commanders/tacticians aren't skilled anyway...as shown by the war against Iraq. They weren't good then and they wouldn't perform any better now in a potential war against the US. During the Iran-Iraq war the faith in armored vehicle crews were so low they put their trust in the crude tactic of having lots of lightly armed infantry charging enemy defenses. They mostly buried their tanks in hull down position in defense of valuable areas. The few times that tanks were used to spearhead an assault it resulted in catastrophy for the Iranian army. No wonder the war took 8 years, with neither side able to score a decisive victory. The manufacturers of Sabalan probably consider the poor crew members as expendable.

Kull said...

Turkey has 'modernized' Leopard 1s...which aren't much better than a M47M...in its inventory.
Iranian M47s were already modernized in the mid-70s putting them on par with an M48A3-A5...this further modernization makes the M47Ms into viable infantry support engines for deling with Jundullah terrorists and Drug traffickers on the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, no-one in Iran is thinking of dealing high-intensity armoured warfare with these...

Anonymous said...

Are you sure if these twice modernized M-47s on par with Leo1s? No, I'm not or, for sure they are not.
uygur

Anonymous said...

Seem's,we have a lot of field marshal Rommel hanging around here.