Magach 5 without ERA (or were there any clean M48A5s) in IDF service?

Armor/AFV Cold War
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I am trying to see if I can build an IDF M48A5 from the Academy kit (and not buy the dedicated Dragon one with the ERA blocks). There doesn’t seem to be a lot of photos or resources on the Magach 5 and I wanted to check if there were any Magach 5s without the ERA blocks - like the earlier clean Magach 3s or would all the M48A5s have received the ERA blocks immediately? The block pattern naturally seems to be different from the M60s, so I don’t think I can re-use ones from ESCI or Academy Magach 6s.
Also, is (what is called the “IDF-style” by Hunnicutt in his Patton book) M48A5 commander’s cupola (included in the Academy kit) the same as the Urdan cupola and would not have been replaced by IDF or would I have to source a proper Urdan (from a Magach 6?). Finally, would the correct tracks be the T142 from the M60s for Magach 5s or can I still use the T97/chevron tracks included in the kit?
Overall, I think what I need are good photos and resources on the Magach 5/M48A5 in IDF and other than the one museum example with ERA bolts, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of photos of positively identified M48A5s in IDF service. Any suggestions would be welcome…
Deniz

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IDF332
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You could try and use a Takom M48A5, don’t know how much you’d have to mod the kit though.

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Thanks for the photo, but there is a good chance that it is a Magach 3, as it seems to have an L7 gun (raised lips on both sides of the bore evacuator: Magach identification guide. – Shiryon Archive) and an M1 cupola (I doubt if any early M48A5s with M1 cupolas would have made it to IDF).
Deniz

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The tank in the photo is an upgraded M48A2, not an M48A5. You can tell by the mudguard supports being on the sloping face instead of the horizontal part above. AFAIK, all M48A5s had the later mudguard style with the crosses in them, like on the Takom kit.

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Dragon has a Magach 5 kit, but I think it has ERA, but I guess you can leave it off.

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Pretty sure all IDF M48A5s got Blazer as soon as they were received. I’m building one from the old academy kit and definitely wouldn’t recommend starting there. Any aftermarket Magach 3 blazer kit would work for doing the 5 version but if you want to stay with the cleaner look you could always do a “what if” build

Here is a link to my build so far on the scalemates site
https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=49714&p=projects&project=56728

If I was going to do this again I’d start with the Takom kit

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Thanks, I was following your build as well. I have been building quite a few Magach 6s with ERA blocks lately and wanted to change things up with clean versions of M48s and M60s before I pick up the ERA’d Magach 3 and 5s from Dragon (nowadays, the Legend sets seem to be more expensive than the Dragon kits anyhow).
I have been searching for some time now and still have not seen a photo of a clean M48A5 in IDF service, and with online photos of Magach 5s also being generally very rare, I don’t think I will find one anytime soon. So, I agree that they were probably modified pretty quickly after delivery. I also didn’t find a dedicated book on Magach 5s and very brief mentions in other books (they all skip from Magach 3 to Magach 6), which is interesting.
At this stage, I’ll probably build the Academy M48A5 kit straight as a K or a T1/T2 (using Hobbytime decals and parts from their kit).
Thanks again
Deniz

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Some more info for you. In Michael Mass’s IDF Armour Series #1 Magach 6B Gal there is a history of sorts on the Magach at the beginning of the book. It says that Magach 5s all had blazer and all used T-97 tracks through out their service

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Thanks a lot, appreciate you keeping an eye out!
Deniz

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