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.