This is another good example of the use of vehicles that are obsolete for their main missions, but can be recycled to others without spending a huge amount of money. Soltam company took the obsolete Tsahal’s M-4 A3E8 medium tanks and converted them into efficient self-propelled howitzers with systems manufactured in the country itself.The M-4A3E8 tank’s original gasoline engine was replaced by a more powerful Cummins diesel engine to maintain the mobility performance after the increase in weight due to the transformation. The L-33 had a door on each side of the superstructure for crew access and two doors at the rear for munitioning tasks.The Ro’em maintained the efficient running gear of the M-4A3E8, but due to the increase in weight, the speed and the autonomy were reduced. The main advantage was to have a good number of howitzers in a short period of time using weapons that did not involve a retraining of the artillery units, since the howitzer was the same M-68 as the towed version and its ammunition was the same.
