Land Rover: Military Versions of the British 4x4

Ben Skipper

Jan 2021 · Pen and Sword Military

About this ebook

A richly illustrated guide to modeling the military Land Rover, filled with previously unseen inspirational photographs and drawings.

The Land Rover was originally designed to fill a gap in the Rover Car Company’s post-war product portfolio. Initially based on Willy’s-Overlands Jeep, the now-legendary Land Rover was adopted by armed forces across the globe almost immediately. By its sixtieth anniversary in 2008 the Land Rover was serving as a combat vehicle and as a first responder platform.

This unique LandCraft title looks into the Land Rover’s development during the immediate post-war years, to its development and growth as a military vehicle synonymous with versatility. The book charts how the Land Rover evolved into unique military-only variants.

The book also examines how this modest 4x4 grew from an innocuous Cold War cargo vehicle into a weapons platform supporting troops in the deserts of South West Asia. The military Land Rover truly offers the modeler an exciting range of subject, era and theatre choices.

“A welcome addition to the very popular Land Craft Series. Aimed at model makers, this series has become popular with a much wider readership, due to the excellent text describing the subject vehicle and its deployment, including unit structures—Very Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench

“All in all this is a great, compact reference work for modelers heading off on a Land Rover safari. It’s not overwhelming, provides good recommendations and fair assessments of products while presenting fantastic reference material to help the modeler get motivated and also providing enough up close detail to be helpful.” —AMPS

About the author

Ben, a RAF veteran, is an avid modeller and writer of military themes, specialising in 20th century subjects. Ben’s work has been featured in previous Pen & Sword titles and has, on occasion, won prizes.His interest in British armour was cemented by a visit to the Kings Royal Hussars in the early 90s as an undergraduate in the Territorial Army. Upon graduation Ben joined the RAF, where he served for five years, clocking up the air miles in a range of RAF transport aircraft including the VC10 and C17.It was while serving with the RAF that his first foray into writing occurred, reporting on his experiences of a Kosovo/FYROM tour for an in-service trade magazine. On leaving the RAF Ben continued to develop his writing and research skills working within the third sector and NHS researching military and veteran subculture. Some of this work would be used to shape key government veteran policies.Using this experience he decided to strike out and write about a range of field sports topics. This included researching and writing numerous pieces, from visiting the magnificent Horses and Gunners of Kings Troop, RHA, to reviewing the sometimes questionable behaviour of gun dogs. In 2018 Ben successfully completed the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists John Deere Training programme, finishing as an Honour Roll Student. The highlight of the course was to be let loose with a 26 tonne quad track tractor.Ben is also a visual designer with a love of fashion items and has designed clothing and accessories for Help for Heroes.