Customer Reviews

New Vanguard 80: Chieftain Main Battle Tank 1965-2003

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I liked this book for the simple reason that it is the only one thus far published which contains decent color side plates of the Chieftain main battle tank. So far there have been only two other publications (the long out of print "Fotofax" edition by Simon Dunstan, and the current and well done "Chieftain" by Bob Griffin) dedicated to this the most powerful and sophisticated MBT in the world from the late 60's to early 1980's (and one that would do justice to this day to any of the current generation of MBT's). I was hoping this one would fill in some of the holes that the other two left. I would have liked to read more about Iran's use of the vehicle in combat in the 1980 to 1988 Iran-Iraq War (including details of how many they lost) which this book really does not cover at all, simply stopping at analyzing the variants sold to the Iranians. To be totally fair, accurate information on Iran's use of her armor in the Iran-Iraq war is very difficult to come by, due to the political situation that has obtained there since 1979. It would have been nice to have a color plate of an Iranian Chieftain as well as some photos of them as well, since they were one of the most important users of the tank (they had as many as the British Army itself as of 1980). It would also have been nice to see some more on Kuwait's use of the tank during the Iraqi invasion in 1990 and the subsequent liberation of that country.

This is a good book on the Chieftain, which was probably the best tank in the world during a good part of its service life. Its one bad downside was its L60 engine, a more ill-chosen powerplant for a tank is hard to think of. This engine, for some odd reason, was developed from the Junkers two-stroke engine that powered the German Ju-86P high altitude bomber of WW2! This book covers the L60 saga well, and this is an interesting part of the Chieftain story. Another book on the Chieftain that is worth having if you can find it (it was published in 1979) is "Chieftain" by George Forty, which is a more comprehensive book (128 pages), and goes more into development and details, but does not cover the history of the Chieftain as recently as the Osprey book.

Having served on these canTANKerous beast in the 1980s and loving nearly every minute of it. This book brings back some memories of working on the engines, changing out gear boxes, etc.

Most books of this nature never seem to capture is the personalty of these vehicles although this one comes close with the various photographs and colour prints and I liked the cutaway diagram especially.

The Chieftain led the way of the MBT(I also served on M60s for a month and got to ride in both versions of the Leopard)and had something the others lacked and that was presence(you knew you were in it deep when you heard that engine and saw that puff of black smoke because we could hit you with that beautiful 120mm from far away.

Good work

In contrast to other New Vanguard books does this one not provide new information. A far better publication is the old CHIEFTAIN book by Geroge Forty published by Ian Allen in 1979.