"Golan Heights: Israeli Tank Ramps?" Topic

In the Yom Kippur War, the Israelis on the Golan Heights positioned their tanks on pre-built 'tank ramps' which allowed them to fire without exposing much of their vehicle.

Does anyone have a good idea what they looked like?

My Google-fu is weak today, I can find no pictures.

Daddy's Little Men blog has pics of painted terrain pieces from the defunct Battlefield Architect, which suggest they were simply mounds of earth with a ramp on one side. link

How have you modeled them? Do you make them terrain pieces, or just little terrain items to place around/under the tanks?

Hmmm, hadn't heard of those.

Did see the Egyptians build something similar for their radar vans and SPAA missile launchers/guns.

You can clearly see those on Google, along the Suez Canal, still.

For the tank ramps, I'm thinking prepared, "hull down" positions, where they could even back up and go "turret down", and then roll forward to fire, as needed, just exposing the gun and turret mantlet.

American tanks had a lot better ability to depress their guns than the Soviet built ones did.

Another view of the firing ramp terrain pieces, on Daddy's Little Men: link

Looks like these are prepared positions allowing hull down positions….

link

Page twelve has a description of the three tier system…..some appear to be making use of natural terrain features, others have been prepared.

Hope it helps
Chris

One of the Osprey books has an illustration. I think it was one of the tank vs tank books.

Not sure I can come up with a pic but they are basically exactly as you and others have described them. It is simply a ramp bulldozed into the earth. The tank backs down the ramp leaving little but the turret and gun exposed. This is a prepared fighting position.

There are "tank ramps" which are a different thing. The tank drives UP in order to get more elevation on the gun, therefore longer range. I believe the US used these around Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge.

This is an example

link

A berm has been created that allows a tank to be in a hull down position while firing. By backing up the turret disappears from view by the enemy and the tank can easily shift its position to the left or right to take up firing again.

It is very different than a prepared 3 step hide/fighting position.

Mainly modified British Centurions on the Golan in 73 – at least for the initial defensive period. The famed 7th Armoured Brigade was an all Centurion force. And yes, they had good gun depression too, and excellent protection.