Universal Carrier 193648: The 'Bren Gun Carrier' Story (ISBN 1841768138)

The Complete Story:
The second sentence in this book pretty well sums up the entire story of the Bren Gun Carrier: 'Designed for a role that it never really fulfilled, it was adapted to dozens of others for which it was never entirely suited and was still in service, in vast numbers, long after it should have been pensioned off.' In effect it was something like a tracked version of the Jeep. It was armored (sort of, about 1/3 of an inch), and because of the tracks had very good cross country mobility. It was reasonably reliable (in later versions) and cheap. It was made in several factories in the UK as well as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. This book is another of Osprey's specialist books describing a single line of vehicles in great detail from its history to cut away drawings, dozens of variations, a magnificant set of photographs. It is probably the last word on Bren Gun Carriers (a name by which they are universally known, that was totally incorrect).

A good work on an almost useless weapon!:
This is about what one would expect from an Osprey title: well researched and written, excellent color plates and photos. The Universal Carrier ("Bren Gun Carrier") is amazing in that a sophisticated, well-funded military would actually buy and field such a useless weapon - and in quantity! Truly, here is a weapon that was useless in its intended role. It was too poorly protected to support infantry with direct fire and too small to carry any useful load. The Universal Carrier is an excellent example of poorly thought-out weapons development.