[Panther Al]

Track service life on the Merkava is a good bit longer than most other tracks in the west due to the fact that our track was designed with the idea that it would spend enough time on pavement that the rubber pads are needed to avoid destroying the roads upon which they run on. Now in Europe, this isn't a bad point- the road net is so huge that its actually pretty reasonable that a tank would spend more than half its time on some sort of pavement. Now the Merkava's tracks (And soviet style ones as well to a point) are designed to spend all its life running over rocks: All steel. A lot more durable than the soviet all steel tracks, but they both are designed to take massive amounts of abuse compared to the "softer" rubber padded tracks we use. The doesn side to all steel is that as mentioned, they destroy roads. Also, the ride of the tracks are a lot rougher. But when the ground you are crossing is already rough, it really isn't noticeable.


In regards to the points Dragoon500ly made, he is right: Deciding tomorrow to reengine a tank is far from easy: in the case I mentioned, MTU already did all the work and engineering to make it possible with relatively little pain. Diesel engines have some a long way in the almost 40 years the M1 has been bouncing around (including prototype stage).