I wasn’t 100% sure of which subcategory to pst this in, so apologies if it needs to be moved.
I am in the process (the long, long, looong process…*) of CAD modelling the Merkava IV. I am struggling to locate all the stated weapons in my various photo sources (which is mostly, admittedly, two walkarounds of the one from the Latrun Armor Museum.)
The main gun/50-cal and the commander’s MG are obvious; I surmise the slot to the left of the main gun is the coax MG.
The purported second MG pintle on the left side i’m unsure about - on several of my photos, there’s no gunner hatch (as appears on a couple of sources, though not on any I have actual photos of) , just another slab of modular armour.
I hazard a guess, then, that the second MG might not be used on later IVs (especially as it might seem to be in a place the couple of pictures of the Trophy system would seem to go).
I have no CLUE where the mortar hatch is. The closest clue I have was a diagram of the Merkava II, where the port was located on the right hand side of the main gun - but I can’t see an kind of apparture on the IV. Nor has my google searches turned up anything like a video or image of one firing the mortar or something, yet all the information I’ve found insists the IV does have one.
I assume the shuttered box on the right is another sensor/camera array (like the rotatiing one on the left side of the turret).
Can anyone shed any light on this for me?
*With the HIGHLY complex turret geometry, it might be the single most difficult model I’ve ever worked on, and that includes the IMR-2.