MRAP's

JLTV's along side a Hummer

I always got the impression that with the Hummer, the Americans were indulging their natural love of all things big... then it turned out that the Hummer just wasn't that fantastic against what used to be called booby traps, and I wonder if the rise of the IED has given the US military what its always wanted deep down inside, the ultimate 'bad ass ride'; the MRAP.



MRAP's aren't actually new, as I'm sure most military minded geeks are aware. They are a development of the old South African Casspir urban combat vehicles which used to figure so promimently in news footage from the townships, but I wonder if there is also a vague design link between the Casspir and the British Saxon? The latter was a light weight cold war APC design built around the idea of surviving land mines (its wheel arches were designed to blow off and deflect teh force of a mine blast).

You can buy a 1/48 scale Saxon from Sloppy Jalopy, and I've long yearned to buy a couple as part of a desire to do a 1970's style sci fi campaign at some point in the future, but I've yet to see any one offering 28mm MRAP's as yet. I wonder if this is because MRAP design seems to be developing so fast that any model produced would be obsolete by the time it was painted and ready for the table top, or because the sculptors simply can't find enough reference material to work out size and shape.

Saxon APC