Old Egyptian Tank

Recently I purchased a small model of a Stalin (IS-3) tank from a hobby store. With its sand colored camouflage, this one depicts a late model (IS-3M) supposedly with Egypt's 4rth Armored Division in 1967. In fact, all of Nasser's 100 Stalins served with other units. Egypt's 7th Infantry division was bolstered by an IS-3M regiment near Rafah (whereas the 4rth Armored was deployed farther west, at bir Gifgafa). The other 60 Stalins were with the 125th Tank Brigade of the 6th Mechanized Division at Kuntilla, in the southern part of the Sinai front.
Designed to fight the toughest German armor in WWII, the IS-3 proved to be a formidable opponent. Its heavy frontal armor was impervious to the bazookas of Israeli infantry and paratroopers. Even the 90mm rounds fired by most Israeli Patton tanks (M-48A2s) could not penetrate it. In contrast, the Stalin's big 122mm gun proved effective. In a number of battles, IS-3Ms knocked out several Pattons of Israel's 7th Armored Brigade. Only one Patton company, with 105mm guns, was successful, destroying seven IS-3Ms.
Altogether, Egypt lost 73 Stalin tanks in 1967. According to The Six Day War by the Churchill brothers, those at Kuntilla were abandoned without a fight. Presumably this led to the Soviet claim that if all of Egypt's tanks had fired just one shot, they would've won the war.  Although Israel captured many IS-3Ms, it decided not employ them in its own armored units. The Stalin was too slow for the fast desert warfare favored by the IDF, and the rate of fire of its big gun was too low. Since 1967, the IS-3M was phased out of service in the Egyptian Army.