Zachlam Tager
Contents
Description
The Zachlam Tager is a rank IV Israeli tank destroyer with a battle rating of 6.7 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update "Wind of Change".
General info
Survivability and armour
The armour on this half-track is negligible, as it can be penetrated from every side by a 7.62 machine gun under 400 m range. The front will resist light machine guns, but the driver and gunner windows can be penetrated regardless, disabling the carrier. On top of that, it is open-topped, which means if it's hit by any chemical shell anywhere, the crew is doomed.
This also makes it less vulnerable to APHE, as even some of the most sensitive shells will fail to detonate upon hitting it. Even if they do detonate, they will usually explode in the back of the truck next to the ammo crates, which are shielded by another 6.35 mm RHA and may not explode if hit indirectly.
The truck is short enough to hide behind many medium tanks and cover, though the weapons and the very top of the hull is generally exposed, which makes it unreliable in AB.
Armour type:
| Armour | Front (Slope angle) | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | ___ mm | ___ mm Top ___ mm Bottom |
___ mm | ___ - ___ mm |
| Turret | ___ - ___ mm Turret front ___ mm Gun mantlet |
___ - ___ mm | ___ - ___ mm | ___ - ___ mm |
| Cupola | ___ mm | ___ mm | ___ mm | ___ mm |
Notes:
Mobility
Zachlam Tager is very fast when moving forward in a straight line, easily competing with light tanks. Unfortunately, it has a poor reverse, so it's significantly less mobile than RakJPz 2 and operator must commit to their fights or be destroyed.
The truck barely has enough horsepower to push itself up steep hills, but it will still do so at 5 km/h speed in most cases.
Keep in mind that the drive wheels are in the back - the front wheels do not generate any momentum and if the halftrack manages to hang itself on some ladder or rocks, it will be forever stuck there, unless the missile launch recoil managed to kick the front of the truck off it.
| Game Mode | Max Speed (km/h) | Weight (tons) | Engine power (horsepower) | Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forward | Reverse | Stock | Upgraded | Stock | Upgraded | ||
| Arcade | 83 | 19 | 8.6 | 210 | 282 | 24.42 | 32.79 |
| Realistic | 76 | 18 | 131 | 148 | 15.23 | 17.21 | |
Modifications and economy
| Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armaments
Main armament
The main weapons are the LFK SS.11 missiles. There is 4 of them on the top of the truck and 2 reserve missiles are stored in the boxes in the very back.
These missiles are wire guided, which means that in RB you will have to guide them with WASD (tank movement inputs) and cannot move the vehicle until they hit a target. In AB, they are guided with the mouse and do not prevent the Zachlam Tager from moving after launching (it is still necessary to stop to fire).
Missiles fire from the left to the right and reload from the right to the left. Missiles are reloaded in ~5 seconds, but only when the vehicle isn't firing (like reload on the tank autoloaders). Rearm on a capture point takes ~8 seconds per missile
In RB, SS.11 missiles have a very long dead zone range (about 150 m) in which you cannot control them, but they are generally more responsive than others. At melee range, treat them like rockets.
Unlike with most of the other wire guided missile carriers, it is possible to choose if you want to launch the missile straight forward or upwards. This allows a smart operator to bombard enemy tanks out and over cover and then unload its entire ammo rack when they lose patience and try to rush the position. Keep in mind, the half track must be stationary for missiles to fire, so it is important to prepare for a counter-attack properly.
In AB, the missiles are guided with a binocular on top of the vehicle. Since enemy tanks have aim assist in AB, the most sensible strategy is to only pull out the bino out of cover without exposing anything else.
| Tager missile | Turret rotation speed (°/s) | Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Vertical | Horizontal | Stabilizer | Stock | Full | Expert | Aced | ||||||
| 6 | -5°/+20° | N/A | N/A | 13.00 | 11.50 | 10.60 | 10.00 | ||||||
Ammunition
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 10 m | 100 m | 500 m | 1,000 m | 1,500 m | 2,000 m | ||
| LFK SS.11 | ATGM | 600 | 600 | 600 | 600 | 600 | 600 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Range (m) |
Projectile Mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (m) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g) |
Ricochet | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||
| LFK SS.11 | ATGM | 220 | 3,750 | 30 | 0.05 | 0.1 | 4,550 | 80° | 82° | 90° |
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
3rd rack empty |
4th rack empty |
5th rack empty |
6th rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ |
Usage in battles
In AB, most of the drawbacks of the Zachlam are not present, as such it can be played relatively freely. In RB, the Zachlam gets very few options. The safest way to play is simply as a scout, using hills for cover and scouting through the safety of your binoculars. Every enemy you encounter is an immense threat, and none is easy to destroy: even light vehicles may shrug off your missiles. You can only stay close to strategic points with the 6 missiles, and if none of the strategic points are in your team's control, there is simply nothing the Zachlam can do besides staying low and passively scouting.
The missiles have extraordinary range, but in practice will almost never reach a far-away target in time due to how slow and hard to control they are. The sweet spot for a target is between 400 and 600 m, past the 150 m dead zone and only 3 seconds away of missile flight time at most. The Zachlam can find limited success in using hills at its advantage, by firing missiles upward and dropping them on enemies from the safety of cover; or at point-blank, without control over the missiles due to the deadzone but with the advantage of being able to fire 4 missiles in rapid succession.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Can rush objectives due to a high movement speed
- Has 4 shots ready, can attack both directly and indirectly depending on the situation and range
- Has significantly better maximum range than the type 60 ATM
- Counts as a scout tank while being an ATGM tank, which allows it to negate smoke screens in AB and to earn points faster in RB
Cons:
- Has nearly no armour and is open topped, thus very vulnerable to anything at close range and/or with a fast reloading gun and HE, can be easily destroyed by a fighter plane or forced to move by artillery
- Halftrack has a tendency to get permanently stuck if driven carelessly
- Unlike similar RakJPz 2, can't properly fight if attacked from multiple sides, requires high situational awareness
- In RB, the controls have a dead zone of ~150 m, which combined with launch/reload patterns makes fights in cramped spaces a bit stressful due to ATGM not always making a fatal hit
- Low ammunition count won't let you use it as a stand-off sniper for long, though it's possible (irrelevant in AB)
- Weak and slow missiles can easily be shot down even by the weakest of machine guns
History
As part of its armament process leading up to and during the 1948 War of Independence, the armoured corps of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) acquired a large number of WW2 surplus M2, M3, M5 and M9 halftracks from a variety of sources. These vehicles rapidly became the IDF's primary armoured personnel carriers for mechanized infantry units, and participated in every Israeli war until their eventual replacement by the M113.
While the Allies had experimented with a variety of different weapon mounts for these halftracks during the war, Israel continued to do so in the late 1940s and early 1950s, mostly using French and locally-produced weapons. Halftracks with cannons, howitzers and mortars became commonplace, and were used as fire support for both armoured units and mechanized infantry units.
The development of the French SS.11 anti-tank guided missile in the 1950s greatly intrigued the Israelis, and they decided to acquire large quantities of the weapon system. Among other implementations, Israeli military industries experimentally mounted the weapon on M3 halftracks. Four rails were installed, each carrying a missile ready to launch. The Israelis gave the SS.11 the codename Tagar ("Provocateur"), which is misspelled as "Tager" in War Thunder. The full name Zachlam Tagar means "Tagar Halftrack". The vehicles were deployed as part of the IDF's artillery corps, organized into multiple batteries, and attached to various armoured and mechanized regiments.
The Tagar's primary action was during the 1967 Six-Day War, where it was mostly meant to engage Syrian and Egyptian T-54s. Tagars were thus possibly the first guided missile tank-destroyers ever to be used in actual combat. Unfortunately for the Israelis, their doctrine for the tactical application of high-mobility ATGM platforms was practically non-existent, resulting in the weapon being almost completely ignored by the armoured unit commanders, and being deployed sub-optimally in most battles where its was present. However, they reportedly did fire at enemy targets during the initial push into the Syrian Golan Heights, as well as during the battle of Abu-Ageila which directly paved the way to the Israeli takeover of the entire Sinai peninsula from Egypt. It is unclear whether the Tagars scored any kills during their engagements.
The Tagars were soon decommissioned following the Six-Day War. By the time the importance of ATGMs in modern warfare had become clear, Israel was already well on its way to replacing most of its halftracks with M113s.
Media
- Skins
See also
External links
| Israel tank destroyers | |
|---|---|
| Artillery | M109 · Rochev · Sholef |
| ATGM | Zachlam Tager · Giraf |
