The IMI 120 mm gun is an L44

smoothbore A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. Some examples of smoothbore weapons are muskets, blunderbusses, and flintlock pistols. ...

tank gun A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are high-velocity, large-caliber artilleries capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high-explosive anti-tank, and cannon-launched guided projectiles. Anti-aircraft guns can also ...

designed and produced by Israeli Military Industries (IMI). It is widely confused as a licensed production of the Rheinmetall L44 tank gun, however it was developed by IMI from 1983 to 1988, to meet the requirements of the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

' Merkava Mark III

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank or simply tank,Ogorkiewicz 2018 p222 is a tank that fills the role of armour-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more po ...

, i.e. a narrower mount like in the M60, both tanks designed around a 105 mm gun. It was first revealed in 1989 when it was shown to be the main armament of the Merkava Mark III. In 1990 the Israel Defense Prize was awarded to Israeli Military Industries for this development, which gave Israel the means to produce tank guns independently.

Design

This tank gun is very similar to the Rheinmetall L44 versions installed on the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Leopard 2 The Leopard 2 is a third generation German main battle tank (MBT). Developed by Krauss-Maffei in the 1970s, the tank entered service in 1979 and replaced the earlier Leopard 1 as the main battle tank of the West German army. Various iterat ...

, American

M1 Abrams The M1 Abrams () is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare, it is one of the heavies ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

n K1A1, and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese Type 90

s. However, it has a different

recoil Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, for according to Newton's third law the force requ ...

system, consisting of an optimized

concentric In geometry, two or more objects are said to be ''concentric'' when they share the same center. Any pair of (possibly unalike) objects with well-defined centers can be concentric, including circles, spheres, regular polygons, regular polyh ...

retarder and

pneumatic Pneumatics (from Greek 'wind, breath') is the use of gas or pressurized air in mechanical systems. Pneumatic systems used in Industrial sector, industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A centrally located a ...

recuperator A recuperator (electro- end carbogidro-) - is a special purpose countercurrent exchange, counter-flow energy recovery heat exchanger positioned within the supply and exhaust air streams of an air handling system, or in the exhaust gases of an in ...

, and more compact overall dimensions, not exceeding those of the existing 105 mm M68 rifled gun of the Merkava Marks I, II, and the

M60 tank The M60 is an American second-generation main battle tank (MBT). It was officially standardized as the Tank, Combat, Full Tracked: 105-mm Gun, M60 in March 1959. Although developed from the M48 Patton, the M60 tank series was never officially ...

Variants

There are three variants of the IMI 120 mm gun: the MG251, fitted with a thermal sleeve developed by Vishay Intertechnology and provided with a fume extractor which can be removed for maintenance without disturbing the actual sleeve, its improved version MG251-LR and the MG253, with a thermal sleeve developed by VIDCO Industries and a new compressed gas

system. They fire a family of ammunition developed by IMI, can fire French, German or US 120 mm

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

ammunition if required, and also fire the

LAHAT The LAHAT (laser homing attack or laser homing anti-tank, also a Hebrew word for ''incandescence'') is a third generation semi-active laser homing low-weight anti-tank guided missile developed since 1991 and manufactured by Israel Aerospace In ...

anti-tank guided missile An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. ATGMs range in size from shoulde ...

Operators

Current operators

* MG251: ** Merkava Mark III * MG251-LR: ** Merkava Mark IV * MG253: ** M60T Sabra

in 1974. * CN120-25 120 mm gun: French equivalent, developed by Établissement d'Études et de Fabrication d'Armements de Bourges (EFAB) in 1979. * EXP-28M1 120 mm rifled tank gun: Experimental British weapon of the late 1970s/early 1980s. Was to have equipped the MBT-80. * CN120-26 120 mm gun: French equivalent, developed by EFAB in 1980s. * OTO Breda 120 mm gun: Italian equivalent, developed by OTO Melara in 1988. * L30A1 120 mm rifled gun: British rifled equivalent, developed by ROF Nottingham in 1989. * JSW 120 mm gun: Japanese equivalent, developed by Japan Steel Works in 2008. * CN08 120 mm gun: South Korean equivalent, developed by

Agency for Defense Development The Agency for Defense Development (ADD, ) is the South Korean government agency for research and development in defense technology, funded by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). It was established in August 1970 under the ban ...

(ADD) and WIA in 2008. * 2A82-1M 125 mm gun: New Russian 125-mm equivalent, developed by

Uralvagonzavod UralVagonZavod () is a Russian machine-building company located in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. It is one of the largest scientific and industrial complexes in Russia and the largest main battle tank manufacturer in the world. Etymology The name ''У� ...

in 2014. * MKE 120 mm tank gun: Turkish equivalent, developed by

Otokar Otokar Otomotiv ve Savunma Sanayi A.Ş., also known simply as Otokar, is a Turkish bus and military vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Sakarya, Turkey. Otokar is a subsidiary of Koç Holding. History Otokar was founded in 1963 as Turkey' ...

and Hyundai WIA in 2016.

References

{{reflist 120 mm artillery Tank guns of Israel Tank guns

Design

Variants

Operators

Current operators

See also

References