Laviduce

It's less about 'why not' than it is about 'why'. Why would the IDF just publish documents it has on the Merkava 1? 
And unless none asked the IDF to publish it, it would probably still be classified simply because the expiration date hasn't passed. Though it's probably not hard for some fanboy to go to the Czech Republic with some special gear and measure the armor all around.

This diagram above is not totally consistent with what i have here:
 


 
-The block in front of the lower part of the EMES 15 does not seem to be not much thicker than 320 - 350 mm. The plate where the EMES piece penetrates does not seem to be much thicker than 300 mm.
 
-The special armor turret sides seem to be around 310 mm thick. 
 
-The thickest part of the of the turret seems to be the left turret face with 820-840 mm.
 
- The front turret roof seems to be about 45 mm thick.
 
- The turret roof seems to be about 30 mm thick.
 
- The front hull roof over the driver seems to be about 30-35 mm thick.
 
-The front hull /glacis seems to have a varying LOS thickness of 570 - 675 mm.
 
- The left turret face and right turret face seem to have different special armor thicknesses. 650 mm vs 830 mm on average.
 
The heavy side skirts seem to be around 105 -110 mm thick.
 
 

YPG Jihad design bureau

I  am getting the impression that they are talking about the tanks pictured above (Stillbrew Chieftain Mk10, Challenger 1, Leopard 2A4 (early), M1A1, Vickers Mk7/2) The picture seems to have been taken some time in 1990.
 
According to the Challenger 2 book by Osprey the Leopard 2A4 and the other contestants were "current production models". As we know; the latest models of these tanks were the Chieftain Mk11, Challenger 1 Mk3 (minus ROMOR armor), Leopard 2A4 with 2nd gen. special armor, M1A1 HA, Vickers Mk 7/2.
 
There is at least 1 problem with this statement.  The Leopard 2A4 pictured above seems to be one of the Leopard 2A4s that still features the 1st generation special armor. If take a closer look at the heavy side skirt mountings we see that they seem to correspond to the earlier models not the latter vehicles (vehicle 97+ batch 6, batch 7 and batch 8) as seen below.
 
Batch 8 Leopard 2A4:

 
It seems that this protection feature above the heavy side skirts was dropped in post 1992 Leopard 2A4s.
 
 
 
 
 

Although the Duke boys' new machine wasn't quite as fast as the General Lee, Rosco was nonetheless presented with an entirely new set of problems.
 

This confuses me even more. Rolf Hilmes explicitly states that the combined mass of the hull and turret chassis including special armor inserts accounts for 48 % of the entire weight of the 55t Leopard 2. This comes to about 26,5 t
 
In the Spielberger book the combined weight of the basic hull and turret (Panzerwanne and Trumgehäuse) are given at 21 t. Would Hilmes be off by 5,5 t (20+ %) ?

Some more information on the mass distribution of the Leopard 2:
 
R. Hilmes gives the following mass distribution:
 
Total System Weight: 55.150 kg
 
Electronic components: 3.860,50 kg - 7 %
 
Powerpack + full fuel tanks: 8.548,25 kg - 15,5 %
 
Running Gear (.i.e: tracks, suspensions, wheels, etc.); 11.857,25 kg - 21,5 %
 
Bare hull and turret with composite armor inserts: 26.472 kg - 48 %
 
Weaponry (main gun, Coax MG, etc.): 4.412 kg - 8% (not sure whether or not this includes the gun mantlet or not.)
 
 
W. Spielberger/ Oberst Icken gives the following values:
 
Turret mass without ammunition+equipment: 16.000 kg
 
Turmgehäuse/Turret Shell: 8.910 kg
 
Hull mass without ammunition+equipment: 37.800 kg
 
Panzerwanne/Hull Shell: 12.100 kg
 
Total hull and turret shell mass: 21.010 kg
 
Main Weapon System (120 mm RH gun) without mantlet: 3.100 kg
 
 
 
1. The bare hull and turret mass is stated to be around 26.472 kg with composite armor inserts. The empty turret and hull shell has a combined mass of 21.010 kg
 
2. This let's me believe that the composite armor in both the hull and turret has a total mass of 5.462 kg.