The 8th Armored Brigade (Hebrew: חטיבה שמונה, Hativa Shmoneh) was an Israeli mechanized brigade headquartered near Jerusalem. It was the Israel Defense Forces' first armoured brigade which possessed tanks, jeeps and armored personnel carriers (APCs), whereas all other IDF units at the time were entirely infantry-based.
The brigade was called 'armored' for morale reasons, although in reality it only had a single tank company (later in the war, two companies), and a single APC company (these companies became the brigade's armored battalion), and an assault battalion composed of jeeps.
The Brigade's first commander was Yitzhak Sadeh.
Famous quotes containing the words armored and/or brigade:
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoitre the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)