Winter woes
I think that one of the possible reasons that the Canadian Military dose not uses British vehicles can be summed up with one word – winter. British vehicles are not known for their performance in cold weather.
Back in 1982-83, when I was working in Oman, you could always hear the Brits bragging about their Land Rovers. On Masirah Island there was a British contractor who had about a dozen L-Rs. One morning the temperature dropped to the point that there was ground frost. The Americans and ourselves had a good laugh, because not one of the British Land Rovers would start.
The last time that the Canadian Military was looking at a British vehicle was in 1971 or 72. They were considering buying about 130 Scorpion tanks. They failed the winter trials, because they would not run in cold weather. The solution was to mate the Scorpion’s turret with a 6x6 MOWAG Piranha armoured car.
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