Iraqi Armed Forces Forums منتدى القوات المسلحة العراقية

The royal Iraqi Army was the first military arm in Iraq to acquire and use tanks and other armour.

Between 1930 and 1958, Iraq had a mix of British, Italian and American armour. But mostly British.

The premier tank being the Churchill tanks.

Here are 2 pics for Iraqi Army armoured cars in first stage about 1932-1936.

sorry for my ignorance but what are their names?

I assume you mean it type of armored vehicles, they were Crossley MK 1 armored car.

For more information se below PDF file

http://www.warwheels.net/images/1931826 ... leyMkI.pdf

The First Iraqi Tank type Fiat Light Tank The L3/33 or Carro Veloce CV-33

With believed that Iraq had around 16 of light Italian tanks type Fiat L-33 it has a contracted in the year 1936/1937 after the coup, General Bakr Sidqi and went about Iraq acquiring weapons from another sources other than the British source. which formed a company of tanks within the Independent Mechanized Brigade.The Independent Mechanized Brigade, composed of a light tank L 33 company, an armoured car company with Crossley six-wheeled armoured cars, two battalions of "mechanized" infantry transported in trucks, a "mechanized" machine-gun company, and a "mechanized" artillery brigade. When Iraqi forces surrounding Habbaniya in May 1941 in Iraqi revolt or Anglo-Iraqi War have been used this Independent Mechanized Brigade in the Iraqi movements. And that at least two of the Iraqi light tanks were knocked out during Iraqi counter-attack on British forces at Fallujah.





The L3/35 was developed from the four Carden Loyd Mark VI tankettes imported from Britain in 1929. The first vehicle developed by the Italians from the Carden Lloyd tankette was designated as the CV-29; "CV" being an abbreviation of Carro Veloce (Italian: "fast tank") and "29" as the year of adoption. Only twenty-one CV-29s were built.

L3/33
In 1933, a new design was built jointly by the Fiat Company of Turin and the Ansaldo Company of Genoa. This vehicle was introduced as the Fiat-Ansaldo CV-33. About 300 CV-33s were built.

Variants L3/33, L3/38, L3 cc, L3 Lf,
Specifications

Weight 3.2 tonnes
Length 3.17 m (10 ft 5 in)
Width 1.4 m (4 ft 8 in)
Height 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in)
Crew 2 (commander and driver)
Armor 6–14 mm
Primary armament 2 × 8 mm machine guns
Engine FIAT-SPA CV3 water cooled 43 hp (32 kW)
Suspension bogie
Operational range 125 km (78 mi)
Speed 42 km/h (26 mph) road

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L3/35

In addition to Churchil tanks, bought from the UK in the late 1940s, the Royal Iraqi Army has operated at least a battalion of Centurion MBTs, acquired probably following the 1956 Suez War.

Has anybody got photographs of them?

are you sure about centurion tanks in the Iraqi army?

from SIPRI. I got the following list.

(25) Churchill Tank (1952) 1953-1955 (25) Ex-UK
(20) Ferret Reconnaissance AV (1952) 1953-1955 (20)
(55) Centurion-3 Tank (1953) 1955-1956 (55)
40 M-24 Chaffee Light tank (1954) 1956-1958 (40) Ex-US; 'MAP' aid
(25) IS-3 Tank (1958) 1959-1961 (25) Ex-Soviet
(250) SU-100 Tank destroyer (G) (1958) 1959-1963 (250) Ex-Soviet
45 T-34/85 Tank 1958 1959 45 Ex-Soviet
(250) T-54 Tank (1958) 1959-1965 (250)
(80) T-34/85 Tank (1959) 1960-1965 (80) Ex-Soviet

now a lot of the items on the SIPRI list are odd to say the least! I'm not sure if we can really know that centurions were sold to iraq.

now except the churchill, M24 and T54 I've never seen evidence of the existence of the others in iraq... no archive photos, recollections by old soldiers, or any pictures from the armour museum where the old italian tankettes and others were filmed.

Yes, Iraq had Centurion tank about a of 50-60 tanks obtained in the second half of the fifties of the last century and remained in service until probably the end of the sixties, and I think that Iraq was gift they to Jordan after the 1967 war. I myself saw these tanks in a military parade in 65/66 as, I recall. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of these tanks. There may be a film about the Iraqi army in the royal era, where these tanks appear in.

wow. that's a great detail Tango! So then, onto more interesting questions... what about IS3 / SU100 / T34 ?

From the list posted by you above and clear the types of armor that Iraq obtained. I have only a picture of the tanks destroyer SU-100 during the Iraq- Iran war.

PLEASE POST IF POSSIBLE!!!

Here is...!

Here is a pic of Iraqi M-24 Chaffee Light tank and they Have been used in Iraqi Army until 1975.

Specifications
Weight 18.4 tonnes (40,500 lb)
Length 5.56 m (18.24 ft) (w/ gun)
5.03 m (16.5 ft) (w/o gun)
Width 3 m (9.84 ft)
Height 2.77 m (9.08 ft)
Crew 5 (Commander, gunner, loader, driver, co-driver)

Armor 9.5–25 mm (0.37–1.49 in)
Primary armament 1 × 75 mm Gun M6 L / 39, 48 rounds
Secondary armament 1 × .50 cal Browning M2HB machine gun, 440 rounds
2 × .30-06 Browning M1919A4 machine gun, 3,750 rounds
Engine 2 × Cadillac Series 44T24, 8 Cylinder 300/220 hp (220/164 kW) total
Power/weight 16.09 hp/tonne
Suspension Torsion Bar
Operational
range 161 km (100 mi)
Speed 56 km/h (35 mi/h) (road)
40 km/h (25 mi/h) (off-road)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M24_Chaffee

after much digging around in my photo archives i found these Iraqi T34 pics...

you can also see that there seems to be a Centurion tank next to the first T34.

here is an Iraqi M24 chaffee.