Customer Reviews

Scorpion Reconnaissance Vehicle 1972-94 (New Vanguard)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Christopher Foss is the world's leading armored vehicle expert and writes continually for Jane's, in this work he explores the reasoning behind the creation of a light TRACKED armored fighting vehicle (AFV) by the British to do armed reconnaissance, with a desire to be "stealthy" and air-deployable. What is most revealing is that Foss shows that the U.K. chose wisely to make the Scorpion/Scimitar family under 8 tons rather than in the 15 ton category, making it HELICOPTER air-transportable, hence an "Air-Mech" capability. The pay-off is that when the British Army needed armor in the 1974 Cyprus crisis they were able to fly in Scorpions by C-130s. When the Falklands War came, these amazing vehicle's light weight and light tracked ground pressure allowed them to be there to render battle-winning fire support for British Paratroopers marching across the island.

By the book ending before the Kosovo crisis, Foss is unable to mention the Scimitar family being CH-47 Chinook helicoptered into the area avoiding mines, obstacles, road ambushes to be the first NATO forces on the ground. Foss does with the beautiful illustrations of Peter Sarson show the Scorpion family in action in the Gulf war where a certain bias comes through in Foss. Foss clearly misunderstands that bigger engine and weight translates into "greater mobility" (the ultra-heavy school of AFV thought) which makes him wrongly conclude that when the Scorpion family in the Gulf war "couldn't keep up" with the 60-ton Challenger main battle tanks that the former is obsolete. If the Challenger had been around for the Falklands war in 1982, we could equally say, "It couldn't keep up with the Scorpion/Scimitars" because it couldn't even deploy much less traverse the soft, wet boggy terrain of the South Atlantic islands. Foss should know that when he describes that the Scorpion family had to make do with a petrol engine in the 60s when it was created, that the same high-power-to-weight-ratio diesel engine technology that gives us the Challenger can be used to upgrade the Scorpion/Scimitar family to make it as fast as the Challengers in the open desert as they are certainly more mobile everywhere else.

Its a great book, and a must have for the modern tactical futurist because the Scorpion family has been extremely successful despite the wishes of the heavyists--that Striker versions have killed heavy Iraqi tanks using guided missiles points the way to the future--light TRACKED AFVs that can go anywhere and be air-transported with top-attack missiles, cannon and can carry infantry. While the heavy AFVs sit in the motor pool, the Scorpion family deploys around accomplishing missions---why not UPGRADE THEM?

I own an Ex-British Army Scorpion, so I know a thing or two about them and I was pleasantly surprised to find this book very comprehensive in both the technical details and general information.

An exceptional job.

Charles TANKBOY Knight

This book is well illustrated with both pictures of the vehicle (in its many variant forms) and with painted colour illustrations. For anyone desiring to model this vehicle in detail it would rank five stars.

However, with respect to non-illustrative content the book is weaker. It is excellent in describing the development of the vehilce in great detail. But this strength is also its weakness in that, because of the book's very short length (about 50 pages) it has to cut back significantly on other topics. For example, there is more than 3 times more written space dedicated to the vehicle's development thant to its performance in both the Falklands and first Iraqi War. In addition, there is little discussion as to the vehicles strengths and weaknesses. A few paragraphs on its relative strengths vis-a-vis its American, German and Soviet counterparts would have been nice. Less space should have been dedicated to development and a little more on these topics.