Riot Control Vehicles: 1945–Present (New Vanguard, 219)

nice book on new subject

Instalment No 219 of the seemingly unstoppable Osprey New Vanguard series is on Riot Control Vehicles 1945 - present. Written by Chris McNab and with some illustrations by Ian Palmer in many respects it follows the same style as the rest of the series. That being it is meant as a basic overview and tries to pack a lot into its slim 40 or so pages.As per other books in the series we get lots of black and white photographs that do a good job of showing visually what the text is talking about and as per usual modellers and military equipment buffs will find plenty to enjoy here. Ditto for the illustrated pages.Text wise things are a little different here to many of the vehicle oriented instalments of this series. The whole book is basically about riot control vehicles, their uses and their various advantages and disadvantages. What is different is that much of the time in one of these books is taken up with the author itemising the development of a certain type of tank sometimes to the detriment of readability. Or the work is covering a range of tanks from a certain nation and you get a very concise run through of all of those tank types. In this book the work is basically centred around design facets and talking about the various components of a riot control vehicle rather than specific types of them. Which admittedly would probably take up a few volumes of New Vanguard sized books to itemise just a few dozen types of these vehicles on the market and in post 1945 use.Hence this can't be viewed as a mini encyclopaedia in terms of itemising different makes and models. It is still highly useful and, again, modellers and military hardware buffs will probably enjoy this work. It should certainly spark a few ideas for some urban dioramas.

Very well written and informative.

Informative from a contemporary perspective, however, I do wish it involved more photographic history of, than it did. One photo; those weren't M-113s. Overall, O.K..

great book but I was looking a something I little different but I like it all the same.

thank you

Good book, except the description of Brazilian riot veichels, thats need to be updated

This new title from OSPREY’s New Vanguard series is among the most peculiar and intriguing. Recent history is characterized by riots, turmoil, localized conflicts (many times in urban environment) that put in focus strange and media-covered vehicles overlooked by the more treated true military vehicles.Author Chris McNab starts his analysis from the beginning of WW I, when Rolls Royce developed a Silver Ghost-derived armoured car so well designed to be maintained in service to 1944!However the true Riot Control Vehicles – RCV era began after WW II, especially in the troubled countries of Africa and Asia.The text covers another RCV intensive area as Northern Ireland, that saw a lot of RCVs developed by the various Land Rover marks and the menacing Alvis Saladin and Saracen.Also the chapter treating the sophisticated and optimized modern RCV vehicles (e.g: Paramount MAVERICK and the Canadian INKAS) give the reader the idea of how the task of designing and operate these sturdy beasts is hard and specialized. The operational story in the Afghan and Iraqi areas is also well covered and the usual drawings and cutaways by Ian Palmer give the best addition to a nice and interesting book.