401st Brigade (Israel)
unit of the Israel Defense Forces
The 401st "Iron Tracks" Brigade (Hebrew: עקבות הברזל, Ikvot HaBarzel) is an Armored Brigade in the 162nd Division of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
History
Established in 1966, 401 Brigade is one of the youngest brigades of the IDF. It took its current form in 1985.
The brigade was initially composed of the 46th and 195th Armored Battalions and the 52nd and 34th Infantry Battalions, which were converted to armor.
The 34th Battalion was disbanded and re-established in 1988 as an anti-tank battalion, later designated as the 94th "Duchifat" (Hebrew: דוכיפת, hoopoe) Mechanized Infantry Battalion. In 2002 it was returned to the brigade. In 2005 it was transferred to the Judea and Samaria Territorial Division.
War of Attrition
The brigade was formed by expanding and splitting the 14th Armored Brigade together with which they held the 160 kilometers long Suez Canal defensive line in Sinai. The brigade was the first to be equipped with American "Patton" M60 tanks.
Yom Kippur War
Along with the 188th Brigade on the Golan Heights the brigade suffered heavy losses in the early days of the war. The 195th Battalion אדם Adam belonged to the brigade in the war.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2083587. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 1985, 1988 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “401st Brigade (Israel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.