Reporters driving Armored Vehicles

For some reason, the last month has seen several articles in the media about reporters driving tanks and armored vehicles.  Two of these pieces have appeared in Business Insider.  The first of which is an article from March 23 by Lianna Brinded called “I went to Lithuania to drive a tank and it was one of the coolest things ever.”  Of course, the use of the term “tank” in the headline is misleading.  As usual the media call any vehicle with tracks a tank regardless of what it actually is.  In this case, the tank in question was actually a FV432 APC.

lianna-fv432-lith

A few days later Business Insider ran another story about a reporter goofing around with tanks called “We visited a farm in England that lets you crush cars with military tanks.”

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British “Bulldog” to be in service 70 years

bulldog_410pxThe Daily Express is reporting that the FV432 “Bulldog” armored personnel carrier will remain in service until 2030.  Replying to a parliamentary question by Lord Stevens of Ludgate, the Ministry of Defense said that it had 883 of the vehicles and pointed out they were given an upgrade in 2006.  According to the article, an MoD spokesman said: “It proved its worth on operations in Iraq and huge improvements including power upgrades and enhanced armor protection mean more performance, reliability and endurance on the battlefield.”  The article states that by 2030, the Bulldog will be one of the oldest pieces of equipment in NATO.  Original article here.