In this companion volume to British Tanks: The Second World War, Pat Ware provides an expert introduction to the design, production and operation of British tanks since 1945. Fewer types of tank were built than during the wartime period, but the complexity of design and manufacture increased, and a level of technical sophistication in the key areas of armor, firepower and mobility was beyond the imaginings of the tank pioneers of the First World War.Using a selection of contemporary photographs supported by some modern photographs of preserved vehicles Pat Ware sets the modern tank in a historical context. He describes its origins in Britain and its development and deployment in the Second World War and in the post-war period. All the British tanks that have seen service since the war are depicted, among them the Conqueror, Chieftain, Centurion and Challenger. The engineers tanks the flails, recovery vehicles, bridge-layers are featured, as are the less-well-known British tanks made for export.This highly illustrated survey gives a fascinating insight into the recent evolution of the British tank and its role in the postwar world.Pat Ware is a leading expert on the history of military vehicles and a prolific writer of books and articles on every aspect of the subject. His most recent publications include a study of the military Jeep and encyclopaedias of military vehicles and motorcycles. He was the founding editor of Classic Military Vehicle magazine in 2001 and continues to contribute to the magazine as well as writing a military column for Land Rover World.

This book, the last in a four-part series on British Battle Tanks covering the whole history of British armoured warfare, concentrates on those vehicles that have served following the end of World War II up to the present day. Starting with the Centurion, the title explores those types that equipped the armoured divisions lined up on the German plains to resist any potential Soviet offensive, as well as in Korea and Suez, including the Chieftain and Conqueror, and modern tanks such as the Challenger 2 which are still in service today. Covering the many variants of these and other tanks in British service as well as their deployments around the world, including in Afghanistan and Iraq, this illustrated volume is a comprehensive guide to the development of British tanks since the Second World War.

British Second World War tanks performed so badly that it is difficult to bring to mind any other British weapon of the period that provokes such a strong sense of failure. Unfortunately, many of the accusations appear to be true – British tanks were in many ways a disgrace. But why was Britain, the country that invented them, consistently unable to field tanks of the required quality or quantity throughout the conflict? This perceived failure has taken on the status of a myth, but, like all myths, it should not be accepted at face value – it should be questioned and analyzed. And that is what Dick Taylor does in this closely researched and absorbing study. He looks at the flaws in British financial policy, tank doctrine, design, production and development before and throughout the war years which often had fatal consequences for the crews who were sent to fight and to be ‘murdered’ in ‘mechanical abortions’. Their direct experience of the shortcomings of these machines is an important element of the story. He also considers how British tanks compared to those of the opposition and contrasts tank production for the army with the production of aircraft for the RAF during the same period. His clear-sighted account goes on to explain how, later in the conflict, British tank design improved to the point where their tanks were in many ways superior to those of the Americans and Germans and how they then produced the Centurion which was one of the best main battle tanks of the post-war era.

A British tank historian sheds new light on the UK’s Cold War era research and development of cutting-edge military vehicles and anti-tank weaponry. In the thirty years after the Second World War, the British army entered a period of intense technological development. Yet, due to the lack of surviving documentation, comparatively little is known about this period. What does survive, however, reveals 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 massive 183mm anti-tank guns, devastating rocket artillery, colossal anti-tank guided missiles, and micro-tanks operable by crews of only two. At one point, they were on the cusp of building hover tanks. This book explores a time period of increasing importance in military engineering history and brings much-needed light to the dark age of British tanks.