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Ascout car is a lightwheeled armored military vehicle, purpose-built and used for passivereconnaissance.[1] Scout cars are either unarmed or lightly armed for self-defense, and do not carry large-caliber weapons systems.[1] This differentiates them from otherreconnaissance vehicles and wheeledarmoured fighting vehicles that may fulfill a similar mission but also possess much heavier armament.[note 1] Scout cars are designed for carrying out observation and remaining undetected, while avoiding contact with the enemy.[3] Armies which adopted the concept were likelier to place an emphasis on reconnaissance by stealth, unlike others which preferred more heavilyarmoured reconnaissance vehicles, designed to fight to obtain information if necessary.[3]
The term "scout car" first entered widespread use in the 1930s as an officialUnited States Army designation for any wheeled armored vehicle developed specifically for reconnaissance.[1] Following the US entry intoWorld War II, US Army staff clarified that the term would not extend to heavier wheeledreconnaissance vehicles fitted with turreted weapons, such as theM8 Greyhound.[1] In this context, "scout car" meant a four-wheeled, often open-topped, armored car which was unarmed or only fitted with a light or general-purpose machine gun for self-defense.[1] Under US doctrine, scout cars were only to be used for short-range reconnaissance.[4]
The US Army abandoned the scout car concept after the war because the vehicles' armor tempted crews to emulate tank tactics. American scout car crews often directly engaged hostile positions rather than relying on their vehicles' low profile and stealth to reconnoiter them effectively.[5] This resulted in heavy losses and interfered with a reconnaissance unit's ability to observe the battlefield. One solution proposed was to further reduce the armor on the lightly protected scout cars, which would compel crews to resist the temptation of using them as combat vehicles.[5] This was not considered practical in the long run and US reconnaissance units eventually replaced all their scout cars with unarmored utility vehicles such as the jeep (and subsequently, theHumvee).[5]
In 1940, theBritish Army defined a "scout car" as an armored car for observation, intelligence-gathering and other elements of passive reconnaissance.[6] The scout car's envisaged role in British doctrine was to probe forward and report on enemy dispositions before conducting a hasty withdrawal.[6] The first British vehicle of this type to enter service was theDaimler Dingo.[6] After the war, this role was filled by theDaimler Ferret.[7] Scout cars were gradually superseded by more heavily armed vehicles for light reconnaissance, such as theFV721 Fox armored car.[8]
Some nations followed the US lead in abandoning the scout car concept in favor of unarmored vehicles; for example, theDanish Army concurred with that trend because it found the jeep and an open-topped model of theMercedes-Benz G-Class more useful for allowing scouts to observe enemy movements without being detected.[9] Armored vehicles were evaluated negatively because their hulls reduced situational awareness, and increased the temptation for the crew to remain mounted or engage in combat with the enemy, contrary to Danish reconnaissance doctrine.[9] In other armies which espoused a reconnaissance doctrine emphasizing combat over observation, the scout car niche simply never emerged; for example, French reconnaissance units embraced light armored vehicles like thePanhard EBR andPanhard AML-90 which were heavily armed because they encouraged scouts to engage enemy units and force them to deploy.[8] TheBrazilian Army rejected the scout car due to a combination of these factors; it preferred heavier, six-wheeled armored cars like the M8 Greyhound (and subsequently, theEE-9 Cascavel) for traditional reconnaissance and found unarmored jeeps adequate for secondary reconnaissance tasks.[10]
During the early 1940s,Red Army doctrine did not recognize a unique niche for the scout car, and the Soviets were likelier to favor heavier, six-wheeled vehicles such as theBA-20 for reconnaissance.[11] However, the weight, high profile and poor mobility of these early Soviet armored cars limited their usefulness in the reconnaissance role.[11] This led to the replacement of the BA-20 and other designs by the Soviet Union's first dedicated scout car design, theBA-64. In the postwar era, Soviet scout cars such as theBRDM-1 andBRDM-2 were attached on the divisional level and deployed for screening and long-range probing actions.[12] The scout cars were complemented in Soviet reconnaissance battalions by specialized variants of theBMP-1 orBMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, which were able to reconnoiter much more aggressively and engage hostile armor as needed.[12]
By the lateCold War era, the scout car concept had gained popularity and recognition among armies all over world.[7] Examples of scout cars common during this period include the SovietBRDM series, the British Ferret, the BrazilianEE-3 Jararaca, the HungarianD-442 FÚG, and the AmericanCadillac Gage Commando Scout.[13]
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