This is number 7 in Kagero's Photosniper series and covers the British Chieftain tank. This tank was a follow-on to their hugely successful Centurion and incorporated some rather novel aspects that really did not work as well as was hoped. One of them being the ability to operate off different fuels and for this a new engine was developed. Unfortunately for the Chieftain, not only was the engine not that big a success in its intended role, but it was underpowered as well. As with all things that make it into production, warts and all, the issues with the mixed fuel capabilities were dealt with by not using them and though the engine was upgraded over the years to where it was reliable and produced more power as the vehicle weight increased, it was always underpowered to some extent.

It was decided that it needed a larger gun in the 120mm range to make the tank on a more equal footing with its primary adversaries that were built in the Soviet Union. For some odd reason, there was thought about making the turret of the Chieftain interchangeable with a US turret, but since that was only equipped with a 90mm gun, the idea was allowed to die.

The Chieftain was modified throughout its service career with earlier marks being upgraded to different marks; mostly by taking the older tanks and bring them up to the standards of the new build versions. The last new build Chieftains were the Mk.5 with those from 6 to 11 being upgrades to various systems and equipment. British Chieftains were totally supplanted around the time of the first Gulf War with only some specialist vehicles hanging on for a few years more.

The book itself is an excellent read and reference. The first part of the book is a background history of the development of the tank, its systems, its development once production got underway and its use in service. This is followed by an extensive photo collection including, oddly, quite a few photos of derelict tanks and those used as targets. The book then goes into a couple of pages of plans in the ever-popular 1/55 scale and is followed up with a walk-around section of full color detail photos. This is capped by several pages of full color profiles and includes a four view of the interesting and complex urban camo scheme worn by those tanks based in West Berlin.

In all, it is a reference that I know you will be using for years. It is a book that I very much enjoyed reading and is one I can easily recommend to you.

May 2013

Review book courtesy of the fine folks at Kagero. Visit them for more books.

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