In the beginning there was a weird looking tank with its engine in the front, called a Chariot and modelled by Tamiya, it later grew up with more armour and a modified engine and became Chariot Mk2 and this time it was modelled by Academy. Finally it took steroids, got a 120mm gun a much bigger engine and lots and  lots of armour and has now been modelled by Academy.

So after waiting we've finally got a model of the Merkava Mk3 and unfortunately it is rather disappointing. I would guess that the vehicle exhibited at Latrun in Israel has been used as the reference vehicle which is where the mistakes might have come from as that vehicle is the prototype and is not fully representative of the in service vehicle. As with all the latest Academy kits it is very nicely moulded with crisp detail that in this case hides the more fundamental errors in the kit. These are as follows;

The road wheels are of the incorrect pattern being those from the Merkava Mk2 kit. the real wheels are of a smaller diameter with thicker rims and look distinctly different.

The side skirts are also incorrect and are those fitted to the later marks of Merkava Mk2, each panel has 24 rather than 12 bolt heads on it and the recessed attachment bolts are shown as raised. The sprung hangers are very poorly represented and will require a complete rebuild

The track is new and is of the correct pattern but appears to be 1½-2 mm too narrow.

The turret requires some surgery; the ridged panel below the main gunners sight is too high which results in the side panels below it being too high and the side panel above it being too narrow, get out the razor saw!. The nose of the turret is of the incorrect shape, the real turret front bottom panel is not flat as depicted in the kit but is a narrow V shape, so the whole nose profile comprises a flattened diamond shape with the gun in the centre. This part is made of composite armour so the whole thing should have holes in it like the top section. Missing are the side mounted Laser warning sensors.
Onto the roof; behind the domed commanders hatch is a circular recess copied from the Merkava Mk2 unfortunately this isn't on the real vehicle as isn't the sloping panel beside the loaders hatch.

The rear stowage basket is simplified, the floor being made of  'holey' TOGA armour which is heavily moulded, an etched fret (as supplied in the limited edition Mk2 kit)  would have greatly improved this area. Unfortunately the frame has sink marks on the outside and the bars should be round not square section. The `ball and chain' armour is represented by white metal castings which again will look better replaced by jewellery chain and lead shot.

On the rear of the hull are representations of the stowage frames, which would look much better constructed from etched frets in a similar manner to that described above, maybe later Academy will reissue it as a limited edition kit for lots more money. However they are of the correct pattern for a Merkava Mk3 but not for a Merkava Mk2.

A surprising omission from the kit are any crew figures, even though a modern IDF crew set are already produced by academy and their M51 contained a unique sprue of 1967 standard IDF crew. Again I would guess that a limited edition version of this model will be released later.

Markings are provided for two vehicles; the first being `Mahatz', which I believe is the first production vehicle and is featured in the Concord book on the Merkava. This particular vehicle has large side skirt markings but in real life had a combination of Mk2 and Mk3 wheels and stowage differences. The second vehicle is from the 3rd company of 188 brigade on the Golan, the marking show to use small `969' markings on the side skirts, this can only be true for Mahatz as that vehicle registration number is 829969

Overall a disappointing kit for the detail fan, however it looks like a Merkava Mk3 and after all its the only one on the market so you can make your own mind up, I for one will enjoy getting this one right but its going to be a long job!.  However it will give the bits to do a late Merkava Mk2 with a little sweating of blood (and expense) so come on Tamiya bring out a better one!!