Jenkins
Legendary Member
- Location
- Felixstowe
An Austin Champ has been on my 'like to have' list.
I worked with an ex-engineer who'd been in the invasion of Egypt. He had one that had had the governor removed and always insisted it was good for the 'ton'! He said they were so good the army couldn't afford them and so they went to Landrover for a cheaper alternative when they moved entirely off the Willys Jeeps from WW2.
If I had the money, space and time I'd buy myself a CVRT Scimitar from a disposal sale before they're all snapped up by the Ukrainian army (or donated to them by MoD). Even allowing for the rosy glow of nostalgia, crewing one of these was by far the best fun I've had as a reservist. Of their successors, the RWMIK is just another Land Rover, and Jackal has proved problematic for many reasons.I understand they could buy 3 landies for the cost of one Champ, and whatever minor advantages the Champ may or may not have had, it was not 3 times as good.
I do quite fancy a Champ though, and they're not silly money; that or a 101 landy, with the latter arguably somewhat more sensible
Of course, I'd really like a Stalwart or Saracen or maybe a big Scammell artillery tractor, but that's nearly as daft as a tracked vehicle,
If I had the money, space and time I'd buy myself a CVRT Scimitar from a disposal sale before they're all snapped up by the Ukrainian army (or donated to them by MoD). Even allowing for the rosy glow of nostalgia, crewing one of these was by far the best fun I've had as a reservist. Of their successors, the RWMIK is just another Land Rover, and Jackal has proved problematic for many reasons.
I too like the idea of the CVRT, but I'd go for the Spartan mini-APC version.
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Also saw a combat engineer tractor (armoured amphibious digger) on fleabay a while ago for a very reasonable £20k, especially since a new one was presumably a million quid or whatever Hey, a Vincent motorbike would be well over double that! And the CET would always be handy for a bit of landscape gardening, or getting about in the snow, or maybe for the zombie apocalypse.
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Perhaps slightly more sensibly (or not), we did see a WW2 Bren Carrier driving round Penrith a few years back, which looked great fun. As a far less sophisticated thing than the modern vehicles, it probably wouldn't cost that much to run and maintain as these things go
You could hold out of an Ajax. It's is predicted that by the time they're in service they'll be technically obsolete so you could pick one up for a song.
We should have just bought the Bradley and savednthe Country and the military budget billions, but those in charge of our military procurement think they know better when 3 out of 4 times they actually don't.
Never actually seen a Bradley in the flesh. They pack a bit of a punch. A BAE product in latter years.
Well, the Bradley worked properly for a start.
Well, the Bradley worked properly for a start.