Firefly question:

Russ, the IDF never used the Firefly. The Lebanese tanks were supplied directly to Lebanon in the middle 1950s; not sure who sold them. France doesn't seem to have used Fireflies, though they did have M4A4s. The Lebanese tanks were re-powered with GM 6046 diesels in the early sixties, and again with the Poyaud 520 in the late sixties. The one at Latrun probably came from Lebanon, perhaps taken during Operation Litani in 1978 or Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982. I don't know for certain that this is true, but the IDF would certainly have come across examples to acquire at those times. Equally, it could have been acquired from another museum in a trade. The Latrun museum has many vehicles which have never seen IDF service but are interesting to have in a comprehensive collection.

Yes and no.  Remember that the Lebanese people have a merchant heritage that goes back many centuries.  They know how to work deals and find what they want, and that experience renders them equally adept at the arts of smuggling such things when that becomes necessary.  In Lebanon, the major political parties all had religious sectarian affiliations.  None of them trusted the other factions, all of them maintained militias outside the national army structure...in some cases these were for all practical purposes family armies.  And all of them, to various degrees, plotted to both seize national army assets in the event of war and to secretly smuggle in heavy weapons (including armor) which could be hidden from rivals and the national authorities alike, ready to emerge if the political situation devolved into open sectarian warfare.  Which, of course, it eventually did.

With the Firefly, the biggest headache would have been ammo for the main gun.  None of that had been produced for some years before the Lebanese Civil War flared up, because so few nations still operated the tank and it had long since been retired by Britain.  Machine gun rounds would have been far easier to come by.  I have no doubt that the Fireflies used in the war made do with whatever stocks could be found in bases around Lebanon, and not much else.  They don't seem to have been retained is service with any militia very long, and lack of ammunition was probably a major reason.  It would have been far easier to have found someone willing to sell rounds for the M41's 76mm, for example, and the same goes for any of the more modern or widely-operated vehicles like the T-34s supplied by Syria to the factions they supported.  For the Phalange and SLA who eventually operated M50s, ammunition aplenty was available from their IDF sponsors.  If it was available on the international arms market, above-board or black market, militia purchasing agents would have ferreted it out and acquired it.

Given the degree of destruction wrought during the fifteen years of the Civil War, none of the players appear to have had any difficulty in sourcing adequate supplies of munitions.

I've been told that the Lebanese Firefly originated from stocks in Italy after the war. As for ammo supply, they must have able to source them readily given the Firefly was in service into the 1980s.

Here's my take on a Lebanese Firefly I built earlier in the year...



Gary