The Royal Armoured Corps composition may have changed dramatically during the four and a half decades of The Cold War but its role in the nations defence has been predominant. This highly informative book focuses on the deployment of the British Armys armoured regiments from the end of the Second World War, their vehicles and equipment, the creation of the British Army of the Rhine, NATO commitments and other peripheral missions. The characteristics and variants of the Centurion, the powerful but short lived Conqueror, the Chieftain and Challenger are covered in expert text and by numerous images. The RAC in the Cold War is a tribute to the men who served in these famous regiment and their stories make fascinating reading.

Originally published in 1943, this book tells the story of the battles and campaigns of the Armoured regiments of the British Army in the early period of WWII. It includes BEF operations in France, 1940, the Western Desert fighting the Italians and later the Germans, Siege of Tobruk, the ill-fated Greek Campaign and battle for Crete, and the early battles in Burma.

This is the first volume in a three-volume illustrated history of the evolution of armored manoeuvre warfare in the British army, covering the period from 1914 until 1939. Author Dick Taylor’s tour de force covers the evolution of the tank and armored cars in response to the specific conditions created by trench warfare, the history of the use of tanks during the war, as well as the critical period between the wars in which the tank was both refined and neglected. He also looks in detail at the amalgamations and mechanization of the horsed cavalry which led to the formation of the Royal armored Corps in 1939. His detailed and absorbing narrative covers the social and human aspects of the story as well as the technology, and explains how the nation that invented and first fielded the tank in 1916 struggled to maintain the lead after the Armistice.

A scholarly exploration of the British armoured regiment and its part in the Allied campaign to liberate Europe during World War II. On June 14, 1944, the tanks of the 144th Regiment Royal armored Corps disembarked on Gold Beach during the Normandy landings. A long and bitter campaign began, taking them across Northwest Europe into the heart of Germany. During that advance the regiment took part in several important actions. These included Operation Pomegranate (July 1944), Operation Totalize, an innovative night attack which was one of the final steps to breaking out of the Caen bridgehead (7/8 August 1944), the siege and capture of Le Havre, the fighting in Holland during late 1944, the crossing of the Rhine, and the capture of Bremen just before the end of the war in Europe. The author investigates the regiment’s service through interviews with his late father-in-law, Captain R.W. Thorne, who had been an officer in it during the war. This book also draws on a variety of contemporary sources—not least of which are the archives of fellow officer Marcus Cunliffe, a distinguished British scholar and author, who specialized in American Studies after the war (particularly military and cultural history). From Arromanches to the Elbe is a serious contribution to World War II history. It explores all aspects of army life, such as training and the social history of an active service unit, and will appeal to those interested in the European campaign, the use of tanks and armored warfare, and, of course, the final battles to defeat Hitler’s Third Reich.