Quote:
Originally Posted by Cpl. Kalkwarf
What the heck would one need spies for that for. Merkavas maybe?, but the Patton and centurion conversions were well known at that time. Nothing secrete about them at that time.  |
Yes, at least in the '90s and '00s, the Israeli's actively marketted some of their add-on passive armor packages for their M48s, M60s, and Centurions. The Turks almost let the Israelis refurbish their M60s. The Israeli's likely helped the South Africans upgrade their Centurions (the Oliphant, IIRC) in the '80s and '90s and there's no secret about the reactive armor suites the Israelis were putting on their Centurions in the very early '80s.
As tensions rose in Europe after the Soviet invasion of China, the Brits could have done any or all of the above to quickly upgrade any of their remaining operational Centurions.