Israel had pretty much Super Shermans.
Guess who won that one.
Well...no. Most of the equipment supplied by the Soviets was not at all their first-line equipment, but stripped-down *export models* that were both simpler and less costly for third-world nation recipients to maintain, less expensive for the Soviets to supply, and not as likely to give away the secrets of the best toys in the Soviet toybox if/when captured.
That said, the Soviet T-62s were of great consern, and so were the Soviet wire-guided antitank missiles, which changed the way Israeli tankists did business considerably [all Israeli tanks now have mortars fitted in the turrets now, for instance; WP rounds can burn out the guidance wires from Saggers.] But most of the tanks supplied by the Soviets were T-54s- a very credible fighting vehicle, examples of which remain in Israeli service as Achzaret armoured personnel carriers.
The most common tank in Israeli service was the former British Centurion, usually upgunned with an Israeli-built version of the 105mm L7A1, a version of which also equipped the American M48A5, M60 and M60A1...as well as the first US Abrams M1 tanks and the German Leopard I. There were certainly many Shermans remaining in service, some with the low-pressure French F1 105mm gun, others fitted with a variant of the French AMX-13 75mm, copied from the German Panther's 75. There were also American M48A2cs, some reworked with the Israeli 105mm, some still carrying their original 90mm gun. The best thing about those Israeli Shermans was their reservist crews: Unlike US tank crews, the Israelis trained a crewman in one position [driver/loader/gunner/commander] in one model of tank...and some of those Sherman crews had been serving in their Shermans since they had been obtained, some from the French, some captured from various Arab armies in the 1947 and 1956 wars. They knew exactly what their vehicles and their guns would and would not do, and had previously fired live rounds at captured Arab T-34s [some sources say T-54s, too] in training.
In the IDF, the tank crewman is considered one of the elite, as much as any paratrooper, antiterrorist commando, or fighter pilot. And I know IDF tank crewmen who wouldn't trade their seat in their tin foxhole for the job of the IDF Chief of Staff or the PM. The *boys from Shizafon*, the Heyl Shiryon really are just almosty as good as they think they are.
