The Dark Age of Tanks: Britain’s Lost Armour, 1945-1970

In the thirty years after the Second World War, the British army entered a period of intense technological development. Due to the lack of surviving documentation, this period is almost a second Dark Age. What survives shows the British Army’s struggle to use cutting edge technology to create weapons that could crush the Soviet Union’s armed forces, all the while fighting against the demands of Her Majesty’s Treasury. On this journey, the Army entertained ideas such as micro-tanks of about 20 tons in weight with two-man crews, massive 183mm anti-tank guns, devastating rocket artillery, colossal anti-tank guided missiles and ended up on the cusp of building hover tanks. This book takes a look at the records from a time period of increasing importance to the tank historian and starts the process of illuminating the dark age of British tanks. AUTHOR: David’s first experience with tanks occurred at the age of 16 when he worked in a local museum. A few years later he started working with computer game developers as a historical consultant. Since then he has worked with several companies including Wargaming’s World of Tanks, Gaijin’s War Thunder, and Obsidian Entertainment’s Armoured Warfare. Throughout this time he visited numerous archives across the country and contributed articles to company websites. In 2016 he self published many of these articles in a book called General War Stories. Which was then followed in 2018 by Forgotten Tanks and Guns of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, which was published by Pen & Sword. He has also been regularly published in History of War magazine, and Tracklink, the magazine of the Bovington Tank Museum.
50 b/w illustrations