Now, while I dilly and dally and dance from topic to topic when it comes to most aspects of military history, there are (as regular blog readers, and certainly most of the Osprey Bloggers, will know) two subjects for which I am a stone cold sucker.

Essentially, if it's Latin America, I'm sold. Similarly, if it's up-gunned and up-armoured vehicles* (the more improvised the better!), I'm there with bells on.

So, when I passed Joe's desk earlier this week and saw him grinning like the Cheshire Cat, I was more than a little bit scared. Fortunately, this wasn't one of his 'how much Mountain Dew can you drink' ideas, but a link to a rather interesting article describing the increasing popularity of up-armoured vehicles, both in civilian use, as well as in armed forces across the region - ranging from improvised responses to Mexico's narco-insurgency to Venezuela's acquisition of Russian vehicles. Well worth a read.











*Watch out for Vietnam Gun Trucks, coming October 2011.