The Siavin Plant of Israel Military Industries has been engaged in the design, development and production of passive armour kits for MBTs and other armoured fighting vehicles used by the Israel Defence Force for more than 20 years.

Nearly all of the Israel Defence Force combat proven add-on armour kits have been provided by Israel Military Industries, in most cases the company has acted as the prime contractor.

Armour systems have been provided for the Merkava Mk 2 and Mk 3 MBTs and the upgraded M60 series called MAGACH-7 and MAGACH-8. They also supply the armour package for the 120 mm armed Sabra MBT, based on the M60, which has been developed for the export market.

These add-on passive armour kits comprise detachable modular units of modern passive armour which are installed on the turret and hull, normally over the frontal arc. The units are attached to special mounts that are welded to the turret and hull.

The add-on armour kit must be suitable to the additional weight that can be borne by the turret and hull without diminishing the performance of the turret systems and automative capability.

In its present configuration, the M60 can accommodate up to 2,500 kg of additional armour. This is only sufficient to protect a limited area of the vehicle.

Increased armour weight bearing capacity can be achieved by replacing the existing tracks with new metal tracks such as those installed on the upgraded M60 series MBTs of the Israel Defence Force which offer a weight saving of 1.3 to 2.7 tonnes.

This weight saving can be exploited to accommodate additional protection up to about 4 tonnes. The ballistic protection configuration will be tailored to customer requirements regarding automotive capability and turret system performance as well as to his protection definitions.

According to Israel Military Industries, their passive modular armour system has a number of advantages including:

(1) improved ballistic characteristics and high weight efficiency

(2) ability to withstand a large number of hits with a high structure survivability when compared to explosive reactive armour

(3) the special mounts damp the shock waves created when the tank is hit, preventing injury to the crew and damage to the sensitive tank systems

(4) rapid removal of modules in case of operational damage or to take advantage of future enhancement modules.

In addition to developing passive armour systems for the upgrading of MBTs the company can also supply explosive reactive solutions and details of these systems, called Blazer, are given in an earlier entry.

Production as required. In service with IDF on upgraded M60 series MBTs.