FV107 Scimitar: British Speed Demon

The Scimitar is a Cold War Light Tank in the British tech tree. It is part of the CVR (T) series of vehicles. The Scimitar is a variant of the CVR (T) platform fitted with the 30 mm L21A1 autocannon, also known as the RARDEN, and was utilized in the role of an armed reconnaissance vehicle, and as a light tank. With a top speed of 50 mph, a reverse gearbox, an APDS-firing autocannon that can penetrate up to 110mm of armour, along with its small size, it is a master of flanking and fast, precision strikes. However, a slow fire rate and a exceptionally high fixed zoom for the gunner’s sight, combine to make it difficult to use against fast moving targets at close range.

Weaponry

The main armament of the Scimitar is the 30mm RARDEN autocannon, a familiar gun for those who know their Cold War British vehicles. It is the same gun fitted to other British light tanks like the Warrior and the Fox. It has an exceptionally slow firerate for an autocannon, at 80 rpm and is loaded in clips of 3 rounds. The Scimitar has a plentiful amount of ammunition, with up to 165 rounds carried for the main gun. It comes with three shell types, but in most cases you will only need 1 or 2 types depending on your personal playstyle. The ammunition used by the Scimitar is as follows:

The RARDEN is well suited for dealing with most enemies that you will face, but only after unlocking the APDS round. The Scimitar is the first vehicle in the British Tech Tree fitted with the RARDEN, and serves as an introduction of how to use it. The starting APSE (Armour Piercing Secondary Effects) or SAP-I round will struggle to deal with most vehicles, bar the most lightly armoured tanks, but the explosive filler is useful after penetrating, and in most cases will be able to one-shot light tanks and SPAA, some of the most dangerous enemies to the lightly armoured Scimitar.

Despite the stock SAP-I belt lacking the penetration to be effective against most enemies, it is the best option for dealing with light targets as SPAA or other light tanks like the XM800T, Marder A1-, BTR-80A, and the BMP family of vehicles due to it having explosive filler. It is much better to replace the SAP-I belt with the APDS as soon as you unlock it, but if you prefer to use a combination of both, it does have moments of usefulness.

The APDS belt has much better armour penetration compared to the SAP-I belt, allowing you to take out a much wider range of targets and is much more use against the much more heavily armoured Soviet and American tanks that you will come up against. The 10x zoom for the gunner’s sight allows for easy target spotting from range, allowing you to scout or even engage the target. Despite the APDS having much better armour penetration, it will still struggle against a lot of targets frontally, with an exception being the Leopard I. With APDS, the Scimitar can penetrate the Leopard I through the front with ease, but will require multiple shots to take out the crew or ammunition, as the small size of the round will in most cases require you to shoot the ammunition to kill tanks with minimal expenditure of ammunition.

My personal recommendation is taking around 25+ belts for the Scimitar, as the RARDEN will eat through ammunition in a prolonged firefight, meaning you will have to return to capture points to reload if you have been firing for a long time. The ammo storage is towards the rear of the vehicle, below the turret, and mounted quite low in the hull. This is quite a hard position to hit, but the small crew quantity will mean that you are much more likely to die to crew loss than ammo detonation. DO NOT waste ammunition space by taking the HE belt, as it has even worse armour penetration than your coaxial machine gun and the explosive filler is too low to have any meaningful effect on any enemies.

The Scimitar also has a single 7.62mm L37A2 machine gun mounted coaxially alongside the main cannon. The 7.62mm lacks the sufficient armour penetration to be lethal against anything but open top vehicles, an extreme rarity to see when playing the Scimitar, but can be used to clear any obstacles that could block your view, such as bushes, fences and small trees.

Mobility

The Scimitar has a top speed of 50mph (81 km/h), and good acceleration for a tracked vehicle. You will easily be able to outpace almost all tanks at the starting rush for the capture points or positioning. The Scimitar also has a reverse gearbox, allowing for it to be able to reverse out of danger and into cover much faster than a lot of enemies, a very useful advantage as the weak armour of the Scimitar will not allow you to duel with heavy enemies in a direct engagement.

The tracked design of the Scimitar makes it much easier to control at speed compared to wheeled vehicles like the Fox or Eland 90, as you can come to a stop and turn before they do. Tracks also mean that the Scimitar performs better offroad than a wheeled vehicle, giving you an edge over the much faster wheeled vehicles that could be used as an alternative in the British tech tree.

Avoid direct contact with the enemy if possible, as the weak armour will not allow you to last very long under direct fire. Try to flank around the enemy, or race to good sniping or ambush spots. The Scimitar performs better on larger maps with plenty of cover and terrain features to hide behind. The high speed makes the Scimitar an ideal flanker, allowing you to drive into a good sniping or scouting position behind a hill or a house.

Armour & Survivability

The Scimitar boasts a maximum of 63 mm of frontal armour, including 52 mm of armour in the front of the turret. However, the armour won’t protect you from most main armament of enemies you will face, especially if you expose the side of the tank to your enemy because the armour is incredibly thin there, at 32 mm at its thickest point. The side and the rear of the turret are 25mm and 20mm thick respectively, which makes the Scimitar not immune to HMGs in the side arc, so be wary of tanks that carry those. As of the 'Ninth Wave' update the Scimitar armour scheme was refined, and part of the hull and turret armour was converted to volumetric armour. This allows you to sometimes tank shots that would normally destroy the Scimitar, but this cannot be relied on. In the frontal arc, the Scimitar is immune to .50cal or 14.5mm AP rounds, and some autocannon rounds, allowing for it now to be much stronger against the HMGs that normally shred through light tanks like the Fox.

The turret of the Scimitar is relatively low, but the optics on the roof are much more prominent compared to the similar turret on the Fox. In a lot of instances you will be shot in the optics, which normally kills your commander or kills the turret crew, which in turn kills the vehicle. The Scimitar only has a crew of 3, which will mean it cannot survive much direct fire, as just shooting the turret has a high chance of a total kill on the vehicle.

With the Scimitar, it is best to avoid being shot in the first place as almost any hit will send you straight back to the hangar. To improve survivability, try to steer clear of direct engagements by flanking or laying in ambush. If the enemy sees you, use the good reverse speed to get yourself out of trouble, use the smoke grenades to mask your vehicle as you retreat and the high speed to quickly put a gap between you and the enemy.

Tactics

Traditionally, the role of cavalry has been of either of two roles. First, to provide a shock force capable of breaking through enemy lines, and then exploiting that breakthrough and, second, to act as an army’s eyes and ears by scouting ahead of the main force and identifying enemy positions. Since the early 20th century, there was two ideas for the latter role: reconnaissance by force — heavily armoured forces able to identify and engage enemy forces, and  reconnaissance by stealth — a lightly armoured, fast moving force, able to defend itself but poorly equipped for offensive engagements with large enemy forces. Historically, the British army has favoured the idea of reconnaissance by stealth, and this is the role that the Scimitar is best used in.

Use the good mobility to make a dash to the flanks of the map, and try to find fixed terrain features to hide the Scimitar, maximising concealment of the vehicle. A bonus of the Scimitar’s small size makes it easy to camouflage with bushes, for those who own them, making it even harder to spot on forest maps. Use the Scouting ability and the high zoom gunner’s sight to mark enemies for your team, hopefully giving you plenty of assists via scouting enemies.

Scouting, assists and capping points is a good way to gain research points for the Scimitar, especially before you unlock the APDS that will allow you to go toe to toe with MBTs and other armoured targets. After spotting an enemy, try to avoid head-on contact if they haven’t seen you, as the RARDEN does not have a stabiliser, meaning it takes a while between bringing the tank to a halt and the Scimitar being in a position to fire. When coming to a stop, try to avoid jumping into the gunner’s view first, as this will drastically increase your aiming time, and in close combat a quick aiming time can save your life.

The narrow FOV of the gunner’s sight will mean you will struggle to deal with fast moving enemies up close, and means you will be blind to any enemies coming up behind or beside you, so it is better to use the binoculars instead of the gunner’s sight for scouting in the short to medium range, and the gunner’s sight for the longer range. The high zoom of the sight hampers aiming time, making it is easier to do the majority of the aiming in 3rd person, and make the final adjustments in the gunner view.

Try and get into a position where the enemy is unaware of you and ambush them with well placed shots into the weaker side armour. Attack enemies before they have seen you, before quickly retreating back into cover once they have noticed you or you didn’t take out anything vital on their tank. If fighting SPGs like the PzH 2000 firing low velocity HE over range, with good timing you can reverse into cover before their shot can hit your tank.

Use the RARDEN sparingly or only in self defence, as you rely on concealment to survive, and firing the gun can give away your position to a wary enemy. To maximise effectiveness of the small calibre APDS rounds, aim for weak spots on heavier vehicles, or where the ammo is stored. The autocannon can be used to track-and-barrel enemies at close range if you need to, allowing you to make the most of your mobility to flank the side of the enemy, and slowly pick them apart.

In conclusion, the Scimitar is best used as a fast reconnaissance tank, flanking around the bulk of enemy forces, scouting, picking off unwary targets, and avoiding staying in the open for too long.

I hope this guide is helpful, and wish everyone the best while playing the FV107 Scimitar.

All uncredited images belong to Badass_Jellykin from War Thunder Live and thanks to  F-16D Barak II for the editing support.