The Tank Lord has returned. All Hail his mighty mustache.!!!

I nearly fell over. Tank Chats with David Fletcher is back! The world is righting itself!

So sad to hear David is no longer making videos, and i can't see how he can be replaced to be completely honest, as he has a wonderful way he presents and his knowledge is top shelf and mixed with his unique humour makes for one of my favourite youtube presenters of any genre! ....I know he may not be interested in the idea, but he would be a great podcaster on the subject of Tanks !!

Really happy to see Mr. Fletcher again. Really missed him and his knowledge- humour. And that with the Saladin; build the Tamiya model and really loved it!

2nd royal tank regiment on exercise crescent moon .circa 1960. I drove a Saladin from the coast of lybya south to the border with Chad to the Tibesti mountains. And back again. A long hot journey.It performed very well. I still have some old black and white photos of that journey. The Saladin Saracen and ferret's did their job in the lybyian desert. Plug the kettle in under the commanders seat and make the tea.

Dear Tank Museum: Please make sure the Davids know how glad we are for their continued service. Mr. Fletcher in particular has a regular cheering section on every new video.

I wonder how many other boys had a Dinky Toy Saladin in the '50s. It looked just right and was beautiful to this ten year old. I'm very happy to see you back, David.

MR. FLETCHER, the true treasure of the Tankmuseum! Forget the last running Tiger 1, just a ordinary prop compared to this Sir. Best wishes Mr Fletcher, stay healthy!

Heaven forbid if anything happened to David Fletcher a statue should be erected in the tank museum. KZfaq + David Fletcher = the man that's brought tanks to the masses

We still have Saladins and Saracens in full running order here in Indonesia used by reserve army units 🙈

One of my most vivid memories of the footage coming out of Kuwait during the invasion was that of a Kuwaiti Saladin valiantly battling Iraqi forces, it's main gun firing and turret swinging to engage targets in the city center. Though I don't know the fate of the vehicle or its crew, it seemed to me, at the time, to be symbolic of the spirit of the Kuwaiti people...............................

Great to see the man back, awesome as always.

David Fletcher -- the Man, the Legend, accept no substitute. Welcome back David!!

Well that makes me feel old! I worked on the Saracen, the Armoured Personnel Carrier variant back in the '70s. I guess I'm a museum piece too now ... or so my grandkids tell me.💀💀💀

I recently visited The Tank Museum, and it was a dream come true. Glad to support the Tank Museum, and i hope to visit again soon.

One of these passed me one day on the way to school, in the seventies I think. It made a hell of a noise: a big, deep rumble accompanied by a whine from the engine. And it seemed huge next to the cars of the era. Really impressive.

Thank You Mr David Fletcher MBE for your intelagent ,informative leactures

David Fletcher MBE, For The Win!

"they said it could drive on any four wheels after blowing any two off, and that's not true. you had to choose which two you got blown off" words to live by.

I had a figurative day in the mud and Mr Fletcher was just the motivational speaker I needed.

Sadly can only hit like once. Welcome back Sir. Great to see you again

This is the sort of chap you'd love to meet in a country pub on a winters night , listening to the stories no one would ever dare print ,

It's easily clobbered!! Brilliant, Glad to see you back Mr Fletcher ... a national treasure & so's the moustache!

David Fletcher back and in top form! Great video.

Good to see Mr. Flatcher, by the way, this Tank still used by the Indonesian Army, along with the other product from Alvis such as APC Saracen and Ferret scout panzer.

Ahh, David Fletcher is back again !!! Great ! Love your explanation on the wheelded vehicle !! Great !! Fletcher back is museum back !!!

Wonderful to see mr Fletcher back. Let the Fletcherisms commence!

Great to see Mr Fletcher alive and well.

Welcome back Mr Fletcher.

Truly marvelous to see Mr. Fletcher back in the saddle again:-) excellent morale booster!

Again David does us proud with his brand of presentation and excellent knowledge of the Saladin. I never fail to just zone out and relax with these tank chats providing us with a little oasis of sanity during stressful times. Hat doffed to you David.

Growing up in postwar Germany, I never saw one of these bad boys IRL. But I do still recall when I first saw one in The Avengers (Ep. 4.22 "What The Butler Saw") when John Steed arrived at the scene in an Alvis Saladin Series II FV601. As a young boy, I was thoroughly impressed by the design and therefor decided on the spot that this was exactly what my future self should have as a car. It got even better when an Alvis Saracen FV603 APC appeared in Ep. 5.24 ("Mission-Highly Improbable"). I still remember that the poor thing was hit with some kind of shrinking ray weapon and reduced to Matchbox size with Steed inside. Suffice to say, I was more concerned for the well-being of the Saracen.

Always had a soft spot for Saladin, a very interesting car. Thank you for the video!👍

Went back to work this week... just got home knackered to a new David Fletcher tank chat ....HOORAY

Always good to see you museum folks! Hope you're all doing well over there.

I'm really glad to see that David Fletcher is back and the channel is back up and running I've learned so much from this channel and look forward to learning more

Nice to see David Fletcher back and rambling to camera again. And about a vehicle I have an interest in, to boot!

To know that David Fletcher is fine and cheerful as always is a great relief in this trying times

The tank museum should sell audiobook CDs of David Fletcher reading from his books...

I've always thought the Saladin was a great example of British light armor. The Scimitar and Scorpion tracked AFV's were other impressive examples developed during the Cold War.

My car has a rear driver when my mother in law is in the back seat.

The only thing he said that didn't compute was when he mentioned Swingfire missiles and needing luck for them to hit the target. I was a Swingfire controller. They were as effective at maximum range, which would be the same regardless of the vehicle platform, as they were up close. Accuracy wise, they were as accurate as the controller who guided them onto the target. Fire and forget missiles inevitably took over from the Vigilant and Swingfire et al, but on their day they were state of the art.

a tank museum = a good day a fletcher vid = a very good day :)

Welcome back to Mr David Fletcher. I do enjoy what you bring to this Channel because it is always informative post

Great to see Mr Tank back where he belongs.

There is no substitute for David Fletcher, it's good to see him. Saladin is a very handsome vehicle, it seems David likes the Saladin, so I like them. It's a shame Crossley Motors has ceased to exist.

Thank you. Good to see David Fletcher!

I didn't know Salvador Dali drove Saladins... How surreal...

Nice one gents! One of my favorite vehicles. I did spot a minor mistake however. David describes the turret crew as "commander and loader". This is incorrect. The turret crew were a commander and a gunner: the commander (right) loaded the gun, and the gunner (left) doubled up as radio operator. This seems counter-intuitive and is different to most two-man turrets where the commander is also the gunner, however wartime experience had shown that it was quite difficult for the commander to maintain all-round situational awareness while spending quite a lot of his time peering through the narrow field of view of the gunnery optics. On the other hand, loading (at least in a recce vehicle) was an intermittent activity and he could spend a lot more time looking out of his periscopes as a result. This novel arrangment proved so successful in practice that it was carried over into the Scorpion and Scimitar vehicles, although the positions were reversed in those, with the gunner/radio-operator on the right and the commander/loader on the left.

Mr Fletcher. Thank you.

Great Tank chat, I drove the Fox but my Commander only had good words to say about the Saladin. Also really good to see you back David Fletcher!

Bro david fletcher is the realest man I've ever seen with that mustache... Its crazy how all that knowledge is stored in there

AT LAST! The one I've been waiting for from the very beginning, and it was totally worth the wait!

The tankies had these when I was infantry in Cyprus in late 80's. I know because we painted one of them pink when they weren't looking! I also think the Kuwaitis used them in action when Iraq invaded, I'm sure I saw footage of them fighting in Kuwait City..

Fletch returns!! Welcome back Mr Fletcher

Best looking armoured car ever, all the early post war British FV series looked the part from the Champ to the Antar, Ferret to Centurion.

Two dislikes are from Richard The Lionheart.

I regularly drove Stalwarts around workshops with the center wheels removed - drove OK but increased the turning circle by about three times! ( when suspended towing Stollies Saracens and Saladins you had to remove the center wheels and the sun gears from the rear hubs - the Bundeswehr took a dim view of towing with the front wheels flailing around in mid-air ! )

'They use to make claims like that.. a load of rubbish' - he's back..

The world is now on the road to recovery! Mr. Fletcher is back! We know all will be right in the world! Thanks!!

Another great presentation by Mr Fletcher. Always enjoyable and worth every second spent watching. The Attenborough of Armour.

I'm not even kidding when I say that my girlfriend and I just discussed visiting the UK (a destination we've never much entertained for a vacation) explicitly to visit the Tank Museum and possibly meet Mr. Fletcher. This man is just such a glorious mix of knowledge and sincere dry wit that it's a small wonder that he's so loved for his tank chats. David Fletcher: Making tanks and museums as awesome as they should be.

Great to see mister Einstein of Tanks againn👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🥳🥳🥳🥳

Glad to see you back, David.

He explain. He expand. but most importantly The moustache is back!

Thx, Finally the Saladin and plz more Sixxer the Saracen or the four wheel Ferret, i was 2 years old when a 7 year old boy played in the backyard with Matchbox Saladin , Saracen and ferret cars i tried to play with him like the days before when we played with Cars but this time he told me no Michael your are too young thats nothing for you, i was really upset and it ignited my love for british sixxers, when i came into school i buyed all sixxer from Matchbox incl the stalwart and then we moved downtown near the street and every autumn during BAOR manvoures i had the oppurtunitiy to play in Tanks and arm. Cars and had much fun with the Tommys incl. Choclate and engl drop in a golden Can. Last time i saw a Saladin was in 72 or 73 but it was not a BOAR Vehicle it was a BGS germ. Borderguard unit driving thru my Village.

A HESH round is as effective at any range - its penetration does not depend on velocity. The only reason that a Saladin might need for getting close is the inherent loss in accuracy of a short barrelled gun over distance, which combined with the subsequent low velocity of the round, means achieving hits at medium range is a problem.

This brings back memories. When my brother and I were kids we had a couple all metal matchbox Saladin toys. Guns had broken off and paint was chipped but after we stopped playing with them our dad got us an original just so we could see what it looked like. I think they were old toys our uncles used to play with in the 50s or 60s

Another fascinating video with our very own Sir David !!!!!!!

Welcome back Mr. Fletcher... Nice you see you again!!

"Thats gotta be the cutest wheeled AFV i have ever seen" -So it would seem

Had this as a 1/32 Taimiya model when i was a kid Was always a favourite. happy days

Hail to the King! Delighted to see Mr. Fletcher again, brilliant chat as always.

I saw it in the tank museum! Very advanced engineering.

Thanks David. Great to see you back in action.

Love your work guys, even though I'm an Infantryman from the Royal Australian Regiment I love to learn about military history and armor!! I got interested in it when I saw the Mephisto the only A7V left in existence that was recovered by Australians in WWI!! I'm so proud of the men who risked their lives in no mans land to recover this tank in the middle of the night!!

Glad to see your ok . Thanks for more tanks.

Excellent presentation. Welcome back David.

Good to see David Fletcher back. I love his no nonsense approach. "Don't agree with me? No one cares, don't complain in the comments!"

Thank you for your candor, Mr. Fletcher. Too easy to be misled by manufacturers' marketing hype. Please keep calling them as you see them!

I still have a Matchbox model of the Saladin from my childhood. Probably dates to about 1960.

Great to see this series back.

Yes! Perfect for a Friday afternoon!

Australia put that turret on M113's to make a Fire Support Vehicle.

Joke: What do you call the Italian variant of this vehicle? The Caesar Saladin.

Very happy to see the Saladin featured in the awesome tank chats!

RE. the wheels off: I remember my Dad taking me to Bov. in the summer (ab. 1968) and us going out to the ranges where there was a demo. "battle". A "Sallycan" drove behind a hillock "hit a mine", two wheels were blown 50 feet into the air, and it apparently (though with different number plates!) rolled out from behind the hill and carried on.

Good to have informed presentation. I seem to recall seeing one of these in Belfast in the 70s during Op. Banner. But I could be mistaken.

Excellent to see you doing these again.

As always Thank You Mr Fletcher.

Photos shown of 2rtr in lybya in the early sixties. These vehicles were issued to test them in desert conditions . Saladin's Saracens and ferret's.

Welcome back to David Fletcher and Tank Chats. You were truly missed.

We have three of these in our militia mech unit here in michigan. They were bought in the early 1990's a $8,000.00 each and had just been part of a large rebuild project in england. We have about a dozen Sarasens and many Ferrets mk1 and mk2. All are great to drive and easy to work on. We've upgraded the armor and kevlar blanketed the inside. Very automotive and very quiet. Liberty1775

Back in the museum!!!

Great to see David once again. 👌

Transmission wind-up was not the result of lack of a differential between the left and right wheels, it was the result of no differential between the front, middle and rear wheels. On dirt roads or travelling fast (relatively!) on a straight asphalt road, was no problem, but driving slow on on winding asphalt roads, for instance in built-up areas, caused a lot of wind-up. The easiest solution was to drive with one set of wheels over the kerb and sidewalk. There was a dieselisation kit offered in the nineties, with a Perkins 180 hp engine. I believe it was bought by Indonesia for their Saladins and Saracins.

See the picture with this young man in it you immediately know it's going to be an amazing road of a story 😂 I could listen to him talk about paint drying

I was quite interested in the video as I have a small model of a Saladin Armoured Car made by Corgi Toys during its service life

The man, the myth, the legend David Fletcher is back

I own a Mk 2 Ferret and a Mk 5 Saracen. I'd like to add a Mk 2 Saladin to the collection, one day.