(Tel Aviv) The IDF has a habit of taking off the shelf weapon systems and with a number of tweaks improve their standing somewhat. In the past they improved the Sherman tank (Super Sherman) which in 1973 wiped out an Iraqi Tank brigade consisting of T62 tanks in the Golan heights. We saw the same with the Centurion tank , which in 1982 took on and defeated the latest Russian T72 tank (A Tank that NATO was really scared of). How about the F15, which whilst in service with the IDF has the worlds record as the best fighter aircraft going which has a kill ratio of 102 to nil. The list goes on: F16, Mirage, T55 aka Achzarit, M60 aka Sabre, even the Chieftain Tank owes so much to the IDF.
The reason why Israel does so, is because it is faced on all sides by people who want to wipe the country out due to their unholy codex and because they have the funding in which they can purchase the latest weapons of war, Problem is, they haven't a clue how to use them. The latest upgrade for the IDF is on the AH64D. The Helicopter Gunship is already a formidable killing machine, however its major strengh is also its largest weakness. The Hellfire missile was designed to work around the radar of the Apache and that is limited to 8kms ample for the 80s when the missile came out, when a cluttered Europe was deemed to be the battlefield of the future and its nemesis was the ZSU-23-4 which had an effective range of a couple of miles. With the advent of far superior anti-aircraft weaponry such as 2K22 Tunguska and the Pantsir-S1 both of which can be found in Syria, Iraq and Iran. the IDF really can't rely on the ageing and now limited Hellfire. So what have they done, why they have fitted out the Helicopter with the Israeli Spike Non line of sight missile which whilst cheaper than the Hellfire has a range out to 30kms. In use with the South Koreans, the Uk and the Philippines.
And here is the finished product as cleared by the IDF:
