Armoured car regiment Armoured Car Regiments were reconnaissance units employed by the British Army during the 20th century . The primary equipment of these units was the armoured car with many different types of armoured cars serving in the regiments during the Second World War and the Cold War . An armoured car regiment typically numbered several hundred men and several tens of armoured cars . By the end of the 20th century , armoured cars as front - line reconnaissance vehicles had been supplanted by tracked vehicles in the British Army and the surviving regiments converted to other organisational forms . Regimental organisation in the Second World War . Armoured car regiments were a component of the Royal Armoured Corps . Similarly equipped units of the Reconnaissance Corps were organic parts of infantry divisions during the Second World War . France 1940 . In the 1940 campaign in France and Flanders , the 12th Royal Lancers was the sole armoured car regiment fielded by the British Expeditionary Force . During the 1940 campaign , the 12th Lancers had an authorized strength of 38 armoured cars and about 380 men organised into a headquarters and three squadrons . This regiment served as the army - level reconnaissance asset of the B . E . F . The war in the desert . In the open spaces of North Africa , armoured reconnaissance was extensively used by both the Axis and the British ( and Commonwealth ) forces . Changes in doctrine made the armoured car regiment an organic asset of the armoured divisions , in which role the regiments typically fielded between 50 and 60 armoured cars ranging in type from older Rolls - Royce vehicles to more modern Humber types . Less heavily armed scout cars were used as well . During the East African Campaign , the 1st East African , Kenya , and Southern Rhodesian armoured car regiments were employed by the East Africa Command . Italy and northwestern Europe 1943 - 45 . In 1943 , the armoured car regiments were removed from the armoured divisions and used as corps - level reconnaissance assets with one regiment assigned per corps . In this role , they achieved their final organisation of a headquarters and four squadrons with 767 men . Each squadron had five troops of two Dingo scout cars and two Daimler Armoured Car s . The heaviest armoured cars in the regiments , the AEC Armoured Car s , now mounted 75 - mm cannon , a far cry from the original armoured car armament of one machine gun and one antitank rifle of 1940 . Commonwealth and other forces . Besides the British Army , the Canadians , South Africans , and Poles also fielded armoured car regiments organised along British lines and employed against Axis troops in North Africa , Italy , and northwestern Europe . Australian forces fielded the 2 / 11 Armoured Car Regiment , but it was not employed in combat . Postwar . For decades after the Second World War , the British Army of the Rhine and forces in the U . K . maintained armoured car regiments whose mission remained tactical armoured reconnaissance on conventional battlefields . The 4th Queen ' s Own Hussars saw combat in Malaya from 1948 - 51 as an armoured car regiment . Other armoured car regiments such as the Royal Horse Guards were deployed to Cyprus as a result of the unrest and military events there . The last armoured car intended for conventional battlefield use , the Fox armoured reconnaissance vehicle , was withdrawn from active British service in 1994 and replaced by tracked reconnaissance vehicles like the Sabre . Although reconnaissance regiments like the Household Cavalry Regiment remain active in the British Army , they no longer operate armoured cars and hence the British forces no longer field armoured car regiments .