Book Review – The Rolls-Royce Armoured Car

The Rolls-Royce Armoured Car, David Fletcher, illustrated by Henry Morshead, Osprey New Vanguard no 189, 48 pages, published 2012.

If you ever wanted to travel in style wearing an uniform, then a Rolls-Royce would certainly have been the thing to drive. The armoured car saw its debut in 1914, it was used during the inter-war years and even saw action in the desert war of WWII.

The chapters of this book, totally dedicated to this luxury car, are:

- Introduction: Who had the idea to put armour on his Rolls, why were Rolls-Royce chassis used, and a bit on how the early cars evolved.

- Design: what it says

- World War I: Naval Operations, The Machine Gun Corps, Gallipoli, Africa/Middle East, The Yeomanry and India.

- The Interwar Years: The different patterns (marks), RAF-use, Ireland and India

- World War II: Home Guard and other uses

- Bibliography

- Index

As usual in an Osprey there are colour plates, five one-page plates depicting two different cars each (great if you want to get a feel for the different colour schemes and differences in the patterns), one two-page spread with a cut-away view of a 1920 pattern car with numbered details (interesting) and a one page in-action drawing (not impressed, the figures really don’t look human, perspective is hard… a apge-filler that could have been used far better)

This is an Osprey as they are supposed to be: a good primer for a specific vehicle in this case. Recommended, I’ll give it a 4 out of 5 if you have any interest in British armoured cars.