Lookie at
this article. See the first picture, the one oriented vertically - with all the "tanks"? Click on it, you get
this.
First off, there is not a single tank in that picture. The heaviest weapons any of those vehicles carry is perhaps a 0.5" Browning (the kind I was carrying in my Serious Sandwich pic - click on my avatar's pic for it), and that can only be mounted on the M113 APC towards the top of the picture. But not even that one has a 0.5" - it carries the number 9, which is the IDF number assigned to the support/mechanics units. They have a bunch of engine grease, oil, spare tread tracks, and stuff like that in there, but they're pretty light on the weapons.
So, above the APC we have an "Achzarit" (feminine form of the word "Meany", actually), which is the retarded ancestor of the "tanks" in the rest of the picture - a tank hull with the turret removed and some personnel hatches installed. Achzariot (plural) were used by infantry brigades (primarily Golani, if that tells you anything) to protect them in Southern Lebanon, and are now serving the same purpose in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
Above that we have what looks to be either a couple of supply trucks or a big D9 armored dozer - it's hard to tell.
Below the APC is a company's worth of Pumas (the initials in Hebrew stand for Engineering Barricade Breaker). These also are turretless tanks, and are used both to protect the combat engineers (*waves proudly*) and to carry their various equpiment (mines, exposives, ladders, anti-minefield stuff, anti-tank-ditch stuff, etc).
Now, look at the prominient Puma - the one with "1v" painted on the side armor. See how the armor plates have black (ok, they
used to be black...
) rubber skirts on the bottom edge? See how the edges of the rubber skirt are msimatched?
Those four front armor plates are reactive armor - packed with explosives that, when hit by an armor-piercing round, explode outwards, dispersing the focused molten "spear" of metal that would have penetrated regular armor.
They're as heavy as heck - I'd guess about 100 kilos apiece, and a real pain to take off and put on again. So I'll bet that they had the plates on incorrectly when they painted the unit designations, and just decided to leave them as-is.
