Merkava 3 Spotted With New Armor

Starting late April, older variants of Merkava 3 appeared with new, possibly somewhat improvized side armor.

Merkava 3 tanks in their early form have flat sides. Later, based on lessons from operations in the South Lebanon Security Belt (1985-2000), a new armor package was developed and installed, giving the Merkava 3 a rounder shape, closer to the Merkava 4.

Early Merkava 3 with flat side armor

Late Merkava 3 with applique side armor giving it a round shape

However, as with other upgrades (including a major FCS upgrade), the applique was not retrofitted to all tanks, and to this day some are still rolling with the same old configuration.

As far as I am aware, only the 14th reserve armor brigade of the 252nd division (Sinai Division) still operates those tanks.

The Merkava 3 was also planned to receive Trophy at some point, by the way, but the program does not seem to have progressed anywhere, and these make sense as the IDF was in the process of down-sizing its armored corps.

Hundreds of tanks were planned to be sold abroad, and certain general purpose vehicles acquired by the IDF are conversions of old withdrawn Merkava 3 tanks, like the Pereg recovery and maintenance vehicle, and Ofek C2 vehicle.

I also remind that reserve units are, for many reasons, usually kept back while active units deal with the more intense and dangerous threats, and reservists act as reinforcing elements to handle lower priority tasks.

From that we can conclude the IDF shouldn't have high motivation to invest in a sophisticated solution to the early Merkava 3s increasingly inadequate protection.

It is certainly possible the IDF has little to no capacity to produce new dedicated armor kits for the Merkava 3 anyway. 

The Israeli industries are however making all sorts of armor solutions, and these the IDF can buy quickly, package in a locally made case, and fit however many and wherever needed.

We have already seen numerous, seemingly random configurations involving multiple box sizes, mounting points, and number of mounted boxes.

I believe it is highly likely that maintenance units were instructed to weld mounting points on the field, thus field conditions. And multiple sizes were created to cope with overall inaccuracies in installing said mounting points, so that every tank could be fitted with armor boxes as needed.

 

Israeli AFVs To Get Loitering Munitions and Drones

As a natural step in the Carmel future AFV family program, the IDF is looking to integrate drones or LMs (Loitering Munitions) into its combat vehicles. On the surface, this adds integrated verticality to the maneuvering element. But it offers more than that.

In February 2021, Rafael presented at IAV Online about its solutions for the next-generation of combat vehicles. 
For the US that would be the NGCV family of which the core were ambitious replacement projects for the M2 Bradley IFV and M1 Abrams MBT, along with less ambitious modernization projects like the AMPV and the seemingly cancelled M10 Booker.
For Israel that would be the long term Carmel project who IAI was chosen to lead, and the more short term projects like Merkava MBT, and Namer and Eitan APCs.

Without doubt the biggest evolution in AFV design and operation today is the informational revolution. With such powerful cannons and missiles, there's no longer an issue of how hard you can hit, but how quickly and efficiently you can find the next target to actually utilize this tremendous firepower.

If we look at current warfare in Europe and the Middle East, we see that in one theater tanks are very niche and in the other they're the central component of ground combat. 

Early iterations of SA (Situational Awareness) improvements involved all-around cameras and sensors to detect targets in the immediate vicinity of the tank or within its LoS (Line of Sight). 
Today it's important to evolve on that and add a vertical element to look behind and around an obstacle.
No matter if we're in Europe or the Middle East, we still need to look behind or into a treeline, or around the corner of a building. 

Do you see the tank in this image? No? Then neither will an onboard camera. But a drone looking directly from above, coupled with a thermal camera - will.
In this particular incident a Hamas combatant exited a covered tunnel shaft, placed a HEAT charge with a timer on the hull of a Merkava tank, between the hull and turret, ran back to cover, and while concealed by dust he fired a second shot.
This could have been avoided through technology that's readily available in 2025. 

A few stills from Rafael's presentation at IAV 2021.

A standard Merkava 4M with what appears to be a large 4 cell launcher. Interestingly, while Rafael presented its vertically launched FireFly with the Carmel demonstrator, these appear to be angled.

Such arrangement is unlikely to be final as it exposes fairly expensive kit to all sorts of even non-combat damage.

As we can see, Rafael's Carmel demonstrator uses a FireFly LM, which has since entered service with IDF infantry.

Also footage from its Carmel demonstration in 2020, showing the LM's deep integration with the AFV's systems and BMS (Battle Management System).

Enabling this integration is Rafael's Storm Breaker architecture. 

While Rafael focused on the effort from a prime contractor's perspective, other smaller companies provided the innovation on its specific components.

Enter SpearUAV.

SpearUAV seek to turn existing kit used by individual soldiers and vehicles, into drone launchers, thus reducing carried equipment. And it also cooperates a lot with Rafael as we'll observe soon.

One of its solutions is to launch these from the Merkava's 73mm smoke grenade launchers. You can see it here. Called the Ninox 66, its fate is not currently known. For some reason it is not listed on SpearUAV's website. 

Ninox 66 in green canister

According to Defense-Update, the IDF is currently examining multiple designs from multiple vendors. One of these potential solutions is the SpearUAV Viper 300.

Viper 300 (left) inside an MCL (Multi Canister Launcher), and Viper-I interceptor (right)

MCL of the Viper 300 on a Plasan SandCat APC

It remains to be seen what the IDF even seeks from this LM. Is it mostly observation for a single instance and then discard? Do they want recovery? 

Basic war economy tells me that the IDF will seek to deploy these only in combat, and for these to be persistent so as to not spend the money multiple times. A larger solution indeed makes more sense in that context. 

Another realistic solution is to discard their use as an LM, maximize their endurance via installing extra batteries as payload, and utilize in-service FireFly LMs as a strike weapon. If FireFlys are treated solely as a strike weapon, these can be more easily justified from a training efficiency standpoint, while capitalizing on existing production.

Viper-I popping out from an MCL on a Rafael C-UAS vehicle demonstrator

The MCL for Viper 300 also permits launching the Viper-I, a same form-factor interceptor variant that can augment the vehicle's APS by extending its range and improving its verticality.

Although I've focused a lot on the Viper 300 here, Defense-Update are listing other candidates of course. 

Some UAS the IDF is considering as part of its C-UAS effort, and their success could translate to AFVs as well.

Sources:

https://defense-update.com/20250504_loitering-weapons-on-merkava.html

https://www.edrmagazine.eu/iav-2025-spearuav-proposes-its-multirole-loitering-munition-and-c-uas-systems