What's the Greatest Machine of the 1980s...the FV107 Scimitar?
Light, agile and very fast on all types of terrain, the fabulous Scimitar FV107 armoured reconnaissance vehicle was developed by car manufacturer Alvis, who were asked to build a fast military vehicle that was light enough to be airdropped - simply not an option for full sized battle tanks at the time, which averaged around 13 tonnes.
Alvis got the weight down to under 8 tonnes by using a new type of aluminium alloy and minimising armour rating in favour of speed. They built the Scimitar around a 220 horsepower, six cylinder, 4.2 litre Jaguar sports car engine with ground-breaking transmission that allowed differential power to each set of tracks. The result was a a sports car of the the military world that might not be the toughest in the field, but could race it's way out of trouble at speeds of up to 70 miles an hour.
What makes it great: A revolutionary armoured vehicle that brought the very best of British sports car performance to the battlefield.
Time Warp: The Scimitar was the only armoured vehicle to be used by the British Army in the Falklands War.
This short film features Chris Barrie taking the Scimitar for a spin.
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Im an american and our units did a sort of foreign exchange student program thing so i went with the Britts and they put me on a Scimitar crew. MOST fun i had in the army
Not long after these started showing up in Germany a driver came into the NAAFI saying he had been given a fine from the German Police for speeding on a country road. He never bought another beer that night!
You’d of thought the police would avoid stopping a tank...
@@boomeranglord3035 maybe it was a speed camera.
If he admitted that he was not wearing a seat belt, the fine would be more.
When I was in the Army, someone tried driving the 432 backwards as fast as it went forward and hit a tree, bending the track guards. Lucky for them they managed to get away with it as no NCO's were about.
When we first had these in the 1970s if was faster than most family cars of the time. It use to scare the crap out of people as they, usually 3 at a time, past them on the motorways
In the good old days when schools allowed the forces in to do (recruiting) presentations. One of the divisions who used Scorpions came in. What a pleasant and interesting afternoon. I was too much of a wet lettuce to join the army but I appreciate them trying. Loved the 'toned down' humour.
loved driving it. maintenance was fairly easy, went through a load of head lamp bulbs tho. Every journey a new set.
The curse of the sealed beam unit
.... And what was that strange box on right of main gun with the warning plate on it?? K
@@khrystree9233 that box you ask about houses the night sight 👍
@@davidcostello2525 thought it did . Wot sort of sight is it ?? K
@@khrystree9233 it was Espire when I left 18 years ago, before that it was infrared I believe, can’t quite remember, I couldn’t tell you what they use now
I started as a driver and then progressed to a gunner mech 2i/c what a machine it was, we called it the italian because it actually went slightly faster backwards due to the engine weight being at the back as apposed to the front when going forward, happy memories
The "70mph in reverse" capability was only available on the French version. 😁
Aye, they removed the hot water tanks on them and fitted them with a wine cellar instead.
And the Italian version too.
I like this! A fantastic design for multi roles. I wish we had this as an ATGM- and AAGM-carrier in Sweden.
Could you imagine a class of budding student Chinese Army Officers watching this video and taking thorough notes trying to understand Chris Barrie.
Meet it in Germany on a Nato exercise, and was impressed how fast it was.
Was gunnery and driving instructor on scorpion (76mm cannon) in my squadron in Ireland ( yes Ireland have a defence force). Great vehicle, super fast and fantastic off road capability. 76mm cannon was great but I think the radon cannon was superior
Well done Ireland from a British
Robson Greene met him in NZ in 1993 when Soldier Soldier was filming in Waiouru
One of my favourite actors
The "Top Secret" marked film that I watched in 1972 showed the original petrol version drag race a Jaguar on tarmac as it's opening sequence... It certainly held its own to a decent speed.
lot of 'poetic' licence in this article, eg 70MPH? no way ever, top speed was around 50 on a good day, I served on these for 22 years. Oh and...it's NOT a tank, it's a reconnaissance vehicle.
+TheMickhowes Did it break down often?
very prone to breakdown in my day, though the upgraded ones today with the perkins diesel engines are more reliable.
TheMickhowes Ah I see, thanks for replying.
Sergio Hernández That's really bad haha.
TheMickhowes ... I don't disbelieve you but I was overtaken on the M1 by a convoy of scimitars. I was doing 70! This was soon after they were issued. Were yours governed?
Loved being a driver and a gunner on this I would love to buy one one day if the opportunity ever presents it’s self
Outstanding!
Love it!
i been out 20 odd years,i know cvrall off them,my regt had the lot,16/5th the queens royal lancers,wehad the lot in woofers ,lost scorpion when moved to herford.
Man that thing looks like a good time.
I can hear them hearing Phill Collin's song while driving the light tank
I think they should have made a new version Scimitar. Overhaul the engine, make it of steel, change the gun to a remote station. It could really work and be maybe 10% wider and 20% heavier.
Steel? Some kinda composite reactive armour nowadays, light and strong.
@@jimdavis8391 and use Bradley turrets?
You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not an armoured vehicle expert.
70mph backwards? Do the Italians fancy buying them off us?
KZhead suggested this and I clicked. As soon as I heard the narrator I thought, "Is THAT Rimmer???" 🤣
I think the fastest I ever got out of it were 58-63 mph.and that was downhill...
Try disconnecting the governor I got 72/73 and the straight.
I kind of nearly set one on fire during my time at Catterick
I love british armour designs. They have the best looks.
great
50 mph = 80 kph is the real speed of Scimitar. I hate when peoples give random data (in this case he keeps saying 70 mhp) and have no clue fo what they are speaking about.
Got 80 out of mine, had a wolf behind me, speed gauging.
Really Pinocchio
used to park up in the mayfly pub,near andover,for a ploughmans lunch,no alcohol. saw some of my officers there,and a gentleman wanted to see wat was under the hood,only a 4.2ltr jag,lol,yeh i got 5,142 miles out of my track ,compared to my old units 1500,bad maintenace.
@Worzal Gummidge yes it was
i drove it in somalia toooooo much fun & speed in the red dust
Irish defence force use these with the the 76mm gun, not a bad turret gun mind.. capable of knocking out armour vehicles and doing damage to normal tanks , say hitting their tracks etc but not piercing main armour unless it was a perfect hit. These tanks in my opinion if fitted with a bigger gun like the scorpion 90 are deadly..
jason byrne you mean scorpion tank
The Spartan make ya thinking of anything ( HALO )
there was a vehicle that did 100mph called the wasp mvee built itscorpion chassis ,with a 5.2ltr westlake engine, 0-60 5secs
that was 1980
iused to drive scorpion up and down the A 30-303,from chertsey to tidworth,track trials.
Change gun to a chain gun and two gpmg for close protection. Add four missles then you have a tank killer going at 70 miles per hour light recon tanks
Bring scimitar and scorpion light recon tank back for the protection of the British isles
A new smaller version needs to be made with a 30mm auto cannon with rubber tracks. Maybe get the weight down to 5 tons.
Take my money......NOW!
*Gazpacho soup!*
Lieutenant Hubert Gruber's little tank
I want to buy one
Whilst capable of neutral steer he fails to mention that the turning circle increases in higher gears so you have to change down for sharp turns & the split range downshift ffrom 5 into 4 if done too fast caused all sorts of problems, same in the Spartan & Sultan
That is how the gearboxes work. If you tried changing down so far to over rev the engine you couldn't make that turn at that speed without rolling anyway
I see this alot in lots of literature slating about how triple diff transmissions make wider turns in higher gears...it's quite literally part of the design...so when you're doing 70 ( probs more like 50) you won't flip over when you pull the lever...you wouldn't full lock your steering wheel in your car at 70. You can design it out by driving the steering diff via the lay shaft but you lose the neutral turn and it becomes a fixed radius turn such as a controlled diff in a Sherman. The Brits used this design ( merritt-brown) for half a century because it is exactly what a track laying vehicle needs.
@@jamesscott5407 On another note, there's a video of a Koenigsegg going full lock and back again at speed to show off it's stability. It's pretty impressive
@@neovo903 I was generalising that you wouldn't do it in a car as in a normal everyday car...a koenigsegg is a little bit of a specialist thing lol! This was more focused on track laying vehicles but thankyou for your input, I'll have a look at those high speed turns!
@@jamesscott5407 found it! kzhead.info/sun/dZl6gtOFhHOmpXA/bejne.html
Chris Barrie IS Rimmer lol XD
Smeg off.
This is a CVRT not a tank it's job was to be in front of the front line hide and see and not be seen and report back what it see's, and the crews were trained how to do that, and bring Artillery fire down if needed, never meant to be a tank killer but if it was spotted it had a 76mm or a Radon cannon on the Scimitar and when they let go watch out! of course if it was hit it had no chance with anything above a heavy machine gun, but try getting your sights on one when it is moving, as for the speed thing 50mph is right but the first thing every new driver learnt when joining his Regiment (from older drivers strictly hush hush) was how to disconnect/disable the limiter and everyone did takes a few seconds very simple, got 72/73mph out of mine on a dual carriageway one driver in our squadron swore his did 80mph and I never disbelieved him, only drove the petrol version can't speak for the later diesel version.
The rib tickler
Still faster than a starbug
Those 4.2 jag engine were actually de-tuned for the CVR(T). Won’t loose speed on a turn? You had to slow down & change down, depending upon how sharp the bend was.
They came out in the 70s?
I want to be 20 again
Smoke me a kipper, ill be back for breakfast 😭 lol
the sabre had the jag then the scimitar got the 5.9 turbo cummings diesel ok some overlap but essentially.
Our Scorpions could drive in Excess of 120km per hour
They restricted speed later to reduce gearbox wear and tear
The British armed forces took CVR (T) Scorpion and Scimitars with the Blues and Royals, they aslo had FV180 CET with the Royal Engineers and the Royal Marines had their Centurion BARVS. So the Scimitar was not the only armoured vehicle used by the British in the Falklands war.
And the Americans had the M113 for a reconnaissance vehicle..................... No contest.
giajin wont add this to the british tech tree cos its too good.
What is its combat record?
Pretty good.
gulf 91'took out t62s
and 55 30mmapds does the job
WOW! I would never believe that that 30mm gun could get through tank armor
if you got the right shell,a miniture of the cheiftain or challenger round armour piercingfin stabilised sabot
is it real Scimitar? not Scorpio?
Some oak would have done, worked well enough in Nelson's day :)
70 mph backwards? Surprised the French didn't buy them all.
So anything as big or bigger than a.50cal can take it out
I'm not in the forces but I know that this isn't really a tank, it's armament and armour protection is nothing like a real tank would have, it was designed to be fast and mobile enough to carry out reconnaissance patrols etc, the armour was enough to prevent rifle and machine gun fire, and artillery blasts and shrapnel etc, but the main protection from the enemy was its ability to drive away quickly without getting into a fight.
What makes a tank , between the 1st and 2nd world wars guns of 20 to 37 mm were common on tanks !
Fun to drive 🤣🤣🤣
70 Km/h maybe (not mph). Yeah, it was light and fast and a half decent hit from an RPG would cripple it! Also, does the little bit of extra cross-country performance that tracks afford you make up for the weight and extra maintenance required (over wheeled vehicles)?
martyb999 We had two of our Spartand hit by RPG in Bosnia, neither penetrated ( they did hot the rear bin on one and the rear cage on the other though).
They were lucky, and it sounds like the external storage bin acted as an anti-RPG cage? My may concern wasn’t penetration, you’ve only got to damage the track or blow off a wheel and it’s an expensive, thin skinned static machine gun post. That is until the Spetsnaz operator or well trained Soviet paratrooper (and that’s who we’d have been facing in the 1980’s) sticks another round through you. I’m talking from an RAF regiment point of view here? As far as we were concerned they were a joke. Okay for scaring anti-nuke demonstrators and maybe the IRA, useless in the event of WW3. Handy little vehicles from a “Brown Type’s” point of view I’ll grant you.
to be fair in the event of ww3 if you can't compete with nukes the rests kinda useless either way sure it was badly armoured but thats a requirement for air transport
@@martyb999 Much like the Dingo or the stuart in ww2 they weren't for going toe-toe though, as you said it was light and for reconnaissance, putting the autocannon on it i'm guessing is just better than the ferret(i think)'s 30cal or a GPMG.
I looked it up, it was 70mph for the jag powered one and 50mph for the cummins. MPH is correct
think the fleet are now perkins diesels .
Cummins 6bt
Speed Trials on [01 SP 07] in 1971 using ungoverned Jaguar engines straight from the factory (painted black at the time) gave a maximum road speed (M6 Motorway near Castle Bromwich) of 68mph. ''Chassis''?? is he for real? ........AFV's have a hull not a chassis.
01sp03 known as P3,do u know that wagon?
ฉันว่าเขามีชุดยิงประมาณ 8-10 นัดต่อการยิงก็น่าจะเพียงพอเพราะมันมีความแม่นยำสูงมากอาวุธไปมากจนเกินใช้ก็เป็นเรื่องอันตรายกับกำลังพล
Did they not go to the Falklands conflict?
Surely the PCR machine (thermocycler) and cell phone are the greatest inventions of the 80s? (Among many others). Why a tank?
Give them some leeway. No doubt the mobile phone is the greatest piece of technology going and anything that pushed forward medical science would be miracle work compared to before it existed. It's just people want to see weapons of war for some odd human reason.
Armour must be terrible.... wouldn't want to get shot at by a 50.
Both yes and no... I believe it is on par with a Bradly or Warrior... Good enough to give protection against the smaller weapon systems, but not enough against dedicated anti tank weapons or guns/cannons.
bandholm Bradley can survive 20mm across the vehicle bar the rear and the warrior is proof against 14.5mm all round. Scorpion and scimitar is proof against AP 7.62 *maximum*
Joseph Elias I doubt it... But the Scimitar isn't meant to be shoot at anyway.
bandholm You doubt what ?
Can the Bradley and Warrior be airdropped en masse?? You're comparing apples and oranges here. In this case you're comparing what is designed as an armoured *reconnaissance* vehicle with armoured *fighting* vehicles *4 times heavier* . The FV107 Scimitar is armed with the 30mm L21 RARDEN autocannon. Meaning it easily outguns any opponent armed with a 12,7 mm (.50 cal). The L21 has an effective range of 4000 meters. An M2 an effective range of 1800 meters, and that's against non-armoured targets, i.e. troops. This means the FV107 can fire at you from distances twice as far away as the 12,7 mm can so you best lie in ambush and hope they don't spot you first - which happens to be their specific job, reconnaissance. I took the liberty of finding out the effective range of the AP 12,7 mm round. The common AP round can perforate 16 mm of armour at 500 meters range. Now, 500 meters isn't the range you'll find a reconnaissance vehicle entering so it better come really close before the guys in the ambush can have a good chance of knocking it out. For this to happen the guys in the reconnaissance vehicle have to actively enter a potential battle zone and pretend it's a armoured fighting vehicle, which it's not, and hence never will do, thereby making your whole "wouldn't want to get shot at by a 50" point moot. The best AP 12,7 round is the tungsten round - which we all know is readily available to insurgents and most armies of the world because it's a dime a dozen cheap (sarcasm) - can penetrate a 19 mm hardened steel plate at 1000-1200 meters. Again this is not much use against a 30 mm autocannon with an effective range of 4000 meters. Modern recon vehicles also come with the latest optics, meaning they visually scan an area from a safe distance since their optics allows them to do so. That's the whole point of them. Gone are the days you have to send troops in with binoculars and a radio to report what they can see. So in short, you seem to have misunderstood what the difference between an armoured recon vehicle and an armoured fighting vehicle is and what respective roles they have. A comparison is pointless as they fill two different roles. The scenario you present would only happen at close ranges you won't find this kind of vehicle in and you completely ignore the 30 mm autocannon it comes equipped with which makes any 50 cal machine gun not mounted on a tank or a AFV a bad place to be behind should you not manage to knock it out. You were saying?
It's an armoured car not a tank
aluminium armour sounds as good as cheese armour to my ears
m113, sherridan and bradley. It wasn't just us using ally for light vehicles and oddly enough, against modern "baddies" it's all you need really as chunky armour unless it's spaced/chobbham/etc is still going to be eaten by man portable anti tank missiles.
Duck egg!
It's NOT a tank.
Guinness's World Record accepted it as the fastest tank.
It's not a tank. Ffs!
Plz send me one … just 1 ☝️
Prone to hull cracks..
Did you see how the the t34 s were built...you have the brain the size of a pea..mosquitos were made of wood, will you say know good due to woodworm
소형장갑차인대잘가네요
เราจะพัฒนาการยิงแบบใหม่ก็จะเป็นการยิงวิถีโค้งซ้ายกระสุนพิเศษนำวิธีที่อยู่ในท่อยิง
Aluminium armor?no no no that not even close to be armor nope,i pass!
The sheridan had aluminium armour nothing wrong with light tanks ;)
@@demonicpigeon4568 m113 and bradley in there too.
will it work in the ucranian rasputitsa?
That is NOT a tank.
First Gulf War, 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards , with attached reinforcements, fought as a regiment during this war and was equipped with Scimitar. A troop of Scimitars engaged and knocked out Iraqi T-62s, penetrating their frontal armour with sabot rounds. One Scimitar was engaged and hit by an Iraqi T-55 and the penetrating round passed through the thin aluminium armour without injuring the crew. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar
@@ggarlick46 and it is still not a tank.
@@cpscps2679 Its a light tank, aka reconaissance vehicle. Have you never heard of the Stuart tank from WW2...similar size and classed as a light tank.
LS swap it 😂
lol mate im glad you didnt say "K20 swap it"
70 mph is a lie - look it up in Wikipedia
I wouldn't trust wiki either.. why not just look up official sources ??
Looked up some actual specs, 70mph was possible.
@@wharris302 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar It is 50 mp/h
@@minimax9452 unfortunately for you most sites do not agree with Wikipedia.....the jaguar engined FV107 could do 70mph
@@wharris302 ok - I gave you my source - were is yours?
Not a tank you amature
Fu***ing aluminium tank 🤣 and it has Jaguar engine in it meaning you need to cary 3 mechanics and a lorry full of spare parts with you. "one of the greatest military vehicles of all time"
It’s service record proves your sarcasm as misplaced.
I like the German Wiesel tankette better
Is it really though?
Go back to germany then
Let's see how it does in Ukraine.
We learned nothing here
недоразумение нечем воеать ст54 т 55 даже т4только вборт