Fox armoured reconnaissance vehicle

It had a crew of three and had a low profile rotating turret armed with a 30 mm L21 RARDEN cannon, which was manually fed with three-round clips; 99 rounds were carried. A coaxial L37A2 7.62 mm machine gun was mounted with 2,600 rounds. The weapons were not stabilised. This turret was also equipped with a set of two 4-barrelled smoke dischargers. The vehicle had a combat weight of 6.75 tonnes and was designed to be air-portable. The Fox had aluminium armour and was fitted with a flotation screen. It lacked protection against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Powered by a Jaguar 4.2-litre 6-cylinder petrol engine, the Fox was one of the fastest vehicles of its type. The all-welded aluminium armour hull and turret protected against small arms fire and artillery splinters but not from heavy (.50 calibre) machine gun fire. The driver sat at the front and had an integral periscope/hatch cover that lifted and opened to the right. The centre mounted turret held the commander-loader on the left and gunner on the right. They each had a rear-opening hatch cover. Without preparation, the Fox can ford one metre of water and a flotation screen can be erected in two minutes. Drive when floating was solely from the road wheels, giving poor performance and the screens were removed from most UK vehicles early in their service life. Air portable, three Foxes can be carried by one C-130 Hercules aircraft, two of which can be parachute dropped. The Fox was principally used by the Royal Yeomanry and the Queen's Own Yeomanry, the brigade reconnaissance regiments in 2 Div, BAOR's rear area formation. Small numbers were also attached to air mobile, armoured and mechanized infantry battalions to form a reconnaissance platoon. ==Variants==

• FV722 Vixen - Un-turreted version, was planned and tested but never entered production. An example of the Vixen is held at the Bovington museum. Hull #2, after spending about two decades mounted on a plinth as a gate guard at the Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment, Chertsey was recovered, exported and restored to mechanically operational condition in Australia. • Polecat - There was at least one trial version of a Fox chassis mounting the standard UK GPMG one-man turret (as used on the FV432 APC) and possibly one with a larger one-man turret mounting an M2 .5in heavy MG. Both types were proposed for use in Northern Ireland during the 1980s as patrol vehicles. • Panga - Export version for Malaysia, fitted with Helio FVT-800 machine gun turret. Prototype only. • Fox-Scout - Escort version with 7.62 mm machine gun (FN MAG or L94A1 chain gun) and 4,500 rounds. Prototype only. • Fox 25 - Fitted with a 25 mm Chain Gun in a Sharpshooter turret. Crew: 2. Prototype only. • Fox MILAN - Tankhunter version with MILAN Compact Turret. Prototype only. • Fox Anti Aircraft - Fitted with a special turret mounting an Oerlikon 20 mm KAA-001 cannon. Prototype only. Fox turrets • Sabre - The turret of the Fox was remounted on the chassis of an FV101 Scorpion hull to create a new tracked reconnaissance vehicle, the Sabre. Cheaper to produce than the similar FV107 Scimitar, 136 Sabres were created. Modifications included redesigning the smoke grenade dischargers, replacing the standard machine gun with a L94A1 chain gun and domed hatches to improve the headroom for the commander and gunner. They were assigned to the reconnaissance platoons of armoured and mechanised infantry battalions, before being withdrawn from service in 2004. • FV432/30 - A small number of Fox turrets were added to modified FV 432s in the mid-1970s for the Berlin Infantry Brigade but this project was abandoned after 13 were converted. ==Operators==

Current operators • - 20 purchased and received from United Kingdom in 1981. All operational as of 2024. • - 50 operational as of 2024. 55 purchased from the United Kingdom in 1975. Former operators • - 200 (withdrawn) ==References==