Источник: В. Ильин, М. Никольский. "Ливан-82. Победил ли Израиль в этой войне?"
>Day Six — 11 June.
>That morning Israeli Merkava tanks ambushed a Syrian unit of the 82nd Armored Brigade, equipped with the T-72 tank, in the Bekaa Valley: nine of them went up in flames. The T-72 was the latest and most powerful of the Russian-made tanks supplied to the Syrian Army and had been considered virtually invincible. Major-General Avigdor Ben Gal said of this action, "To our great satisfaction, we saw that the T-72 burns just like any other tank." The T-72s lay in no-man’s-land and the Syrians tried hard to prevent the Israelis from removing any of the hulks. Nobody in the West had yet examined a T-72 and one was badly needed for evaluation. A specimen was later retrieved.
Источник: Laffin, John. The War of Desperation.
>In one stroke, the Merkava came of age. For the first time, a T-72 had been destroyed by cannon fire from another tank. Before the end of the war, Merkavas would destroy at least 8 more T-72s, in this and in two other encounters — all at long range. This last fact is remarkable, since the 125-mm cannon of the T-72 should have been superior over distance to the smaller 105-mm gun of the Merkava.
>The Merkava did not emerge from the Lebanon War unscathed. The IDF has never released exact figures, but it does not deny that some of its prized new tanks were lost, at least temporarily, to well-laid Syrian ambushes. Others were stopped by antitank missiles fired from the ground and by French-built Gazelle helicopters.
>But in tank-to-tank fights, the Merkava prevailed.
>General Tal, the head of the Tank Development Authority was delighted with his tank’s performance in its first war. Vanquishing the T-72, the enemy’s best, in tank-to-tank duels was obviously a high point of his career.
Источник: Hellman, Peter. "Chariot of Fire" in: Heroes.
>В связи с движением сирийской бронетанковой бригады в Бекаа, самолёты ВВС начали атаковать эту бригаду ночью. Она понесла тяжёлые потери. На этом этапе мы уже могли планировать, как создать давление на сирийцев в Бекаа, как со стороны хребта, так и со стороны Джабель Барук, со спусков ведущих с гор в Бекаа. И действительно, мы использовали эту дорогу. Наша часть двигалась по ней, наткнулась на танки Т-72 и уничтожила их за 2 часа до вступления в силу соглашения о прекращении огня в полдень в пятницу.
>На момент прекращения огня, 12:00 в пятницу, мы были в огневом контакте с 3-й дивизией и начали уничтожать её танки Т-72. В то время мы были к северу от Озера Карун, в 8 км от шоссе Бейрут-Дамаск.
