Title- Ejercito De Tierra, Vehicles of the Modern Spanish Army
Authors- Antoniao J.Candil Munoz
Producer- Tankograd
Item Number- Missions & Manoeuvres No. 7019
Cost- 14.95 Euro

INTRODUCTION

The modern day Spanish Army has transformed since the very early days as the Nationalist Army back in 1939 during the Civil War. The need to evolve as a military force has not been easy for the Spanish Army with a size of approximately 62,000 and having 150 Generals. The military budget has been reduced yet the military personnel of Spain’s Army still strive to be the best they can be whether during training or while deployed in a variety of areas around the world. Few may know that Spain only became a part of NATO in 1982 and they are continually attempting to move forward with modernizing their Army vehicle fleet in order to be successful at any mission they take on.

THE BOOK

Tankograd’s approach to documenting the vehicles of the modern Spanish Army comes in the form of Ejercito De Tierra, Vehicles of the Modern Spanish Army. The book is soft bound and contains 130 colour images on the 64 pages. There are also four colour drawings of the Spanish Army badge, the Spanish Foreign Legion badge, the Spanish Army Airmobile Forces badge, and the Spanish Army Special Forces badge.

The book content is as follows:
The Modern Spanish Army-The content begins with ten pages of a comprehensive written history and breakdown of Spanish Army units. This provides the reader with the history of the Army, the challenges faced, the successes gained, the future of the Spanish Army, a detailed listing of all the Army units and their vehicles, and information of Spanish Army troops deployed around the world.
- Introduction
- An Army for the 21st Century
- Present Organization, Capabilities and Missions
- ORBAT of the Spanish Army
- Heavy Forces
- Light Forces
- Other Forces
- The Spanish Army in operations abroad

Unarmoured Wheeled Vehicles- This begins the pictorial chapters in the book and gives an overview of the wide variety of unarmoured vehicles used by the Spanish Army. Most images were taken during SFOR or ISAF deployments but some images show vehicles on parade.
- Nissan 4x4 Patrol
- Nissan Patrol GR3.0 D
- VAMTAC variants
- IVECO 40.13 WM
- Pegaso 3046 4x4
- Pegaso 7217 4x4 variants
- Pegaso 3055 6x6 variants
- IVECO M320.45 8x8 variants
- IVECO M205.37 W 6x6 towing an Oerlikon 35.90 anti-aircraft gun
- IVECO Euro-Trakker variants
- LUNA crane
- Mercedes-Benz 2644 tractor and semitrailer
- Kynos Aljaba K-15-100 tank transporter

Artillery & Air Defence- The pictorial chapters continues with an overview of the tracked and wheeled vehicles used by the Spanish Army for Artillery and Air Defence. Nearly all images were taken during parades.
- M109A5 SPH
- AMX-30 Roland ADA missile system
- IVECO truck mounted Teruel rocket launcher
- Truck mounted Patriot SAM
- Improved HAWK SAM
- NASAMS II AD missiles
- Mistral man-portable SAM
- IVECO 7226 Signals Command truck
- SIVA-2 target acquisition UAV
- Raven UAV
- Searcher UAV
- 155.52 Field Howitzer
- 105 mm Light Gun

Wheeled Armour- This chapter covers the families of wheeled armoured vehicles used by the Spanish Army. Images show vehicles deployed to Lebanon, ISAF, Iraq, IFOR, SFOR, and KFOR.
- IVECO MLV 4x4
- RG-31 MRAP
- VEC-M1 6x6
- BMR-M1 6x6
- BMR-Recup (Recovery)
- BMR-600 TOW
- BMR-VCZ (Engineer variant)
- BMR-M1 Ambulancia
- VRC-105 Centauro 8x8

Tracked Amour- This chapter looks at the tracked vehicles used by the Spanish Army during domestic training and foreign deployments.
- Pizarro IFV
- ALACRAN (Scorpion) AEV
- M60 Leguan VLPD 26/70E Lanzador
- M548
- Bv 206S
- M113A1 TOW
- M113A1
- M125A1 120 mm heavy mortar carrier

Leopard 2 Main Battle Tanks- This chapter looks at the Leopard 2 variants used by the Spanish Army. Of note is that there are few images of the Spanish Leopard 2A4s deployed to the Spanish territorial enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Africa available on the internet and at least one has been included in this chapter.
- Leopard 2A4
- Leopard 2A6E
- Buffalo LEO 2ER
- Kodiak AEV (trial vehicle)

Helicopters- The final chapter covers the transport and attack helicopters deployed by the Spanish Army and Navy.
- SH-3D
- HT-27 Cougar
- AB-212
- Tiger HAD
- CH-47D

CONCLUSION

From an overview perspective I think the book has accomplished the objective of providing the reader both a written history of how the Spanish Army has transformed and where it is headed in the future. The reader is provided with in depth knowledge of the Army ORBATS and then shown in the multiple chapters the vehicles used by the various Spanish Army units both in Spain and deployed in various locations around the world.

For the amount of attention paid to unarmoured vehicles in the book I would have expected more coverage on both tracked/wheeled armoured vehicles and without a doubt more images of the Spanish Leopards. As noted in the written text the Leopard 2 program was the cornerstone to the Spanish Army’s modernization and as such should have had more images dedicated to it.

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