A senior IDF source has recently acknowledged the existence of an armored vehicle that has been in operation since the early 1980s, according to an analysis published Thursday in the authoritative Jane’s Defense Weekly. The source described how the IDF refitted an obsolete tank to fire the guided Tamuz missile in 1982.

Known as the Pere (‘Savage’), the resulting vehicle is comparatively well armoured and has the mobility to keep up with the IDF’s armoured divisions. It still has a crew of four: a commander, two gunners, and a driver. Once ordered to fire on certain co-ordinates, the crew launches a Tamuz towards the location, uses the live feed from the camera carried in its nose to identify a target as it approaches and then manually guides the missile towards it.

The manual guidance system restricts each Pere to having only one missile in the air at any given time, although a battalion of vehicles working together could potentially fire volleys at an enemy tank formation.

Notably, the Peres were fitted with dummy barrels to mimic a 105 mm main gun and give the impression they are still tanks. Syrian intelligence would consequently not consider the vehicles an immediate threat if it spotted them behind the front line, when in fact the Peres would have been in a position to bombard an advancing armoured formation with long-range anti-tank missiles.

The existence of the Tamuz missile, which the Pere launches, was confirmed in 2011. Jane’s speculated that the Pere was possibly revealed in an effort to establish deterrence and to market the vehicle “to potential export clients.”

[Photo: army reco / YouTube ]