Main Battle Tank

by Niall Edworthy

The British Army's Challenger II Main Battle Tank is one of the most awesome war machines ever built. In March 2003, three Squadrons of Challenger 2s from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, part of Britain's 7th Armoured Brigade, the fabled Desert Rats, gathered in Southern Iraq to prepare for battle. The Army's newest Big Guns were going to war for the first time. But Operation TELIC was a war which the Challenger 2, designed to operate in the fog and mud of the Central European Plain, had never been expected to fight. And one that would quickly break every rule of tank warfare including the golden never take a tank into a town. In "Main Battle Tank", author Niall Edworthy, granted unprecedented access to the Scots DGs, tells the story of an extraordinary chapter in the history of British Army. From the terrifying rescue of a stricken Challenger 2 and countless nerve-shredding raids into Basra and Az Zubyar, to the biggest tank engagement fought by the British since the end of WWII, "Main Battle Tank" is the brutal, blistering true story of a war that tested man and machine to the bloody limit.

Genres: Military Fiction

312 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2010

Reviews

[hans wempe · Rating 5 out of 5]

very exiting book.

[Georgios Salapasidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

Nicely narrated and accurate. Would have expected more on tactics. It leaves something to be desired because it’s very enjoyable and ends somehow abruptly.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a longtime reader of stories and histories of British army and especially about its armored forces, so finding this book in a used book store in Gent, Belgium was a very pleasant surprise. Throw in the Scots Dragoon Guards in the 2003 invasion of Iraq as the subject unit and buying it was a no-brainer. Niall Edworthy is a British journalist and author of a number of books on wide ranging topics. He wrote this book after conducting hundreds of hours of interviews of the officers and men of the Scots Dragoon Guards, so this is very much and “as-told-to” memoir. It is also a book about the use of modern armor, in this instance the Challenger II main battle tank, in modern warfare at the small unit level. With limited exceptions this is not a story of large scale tank on tank battles on the scale of the Second World War or even Desert Storm.

The Scots Dragoon Guards were one half of the tank force in the 7th “Desert Rats” Armored Brigade in the 1st UK Armored Division, providing armor support as a part of the First Marine Expeditionary Force (US Marines). The British forces would focus upon the city of Basra on the Shatt al-Arab river in southern Iraq and bordering both Kuwait and Iran. The city and surrounding area were home to an estimate 1.5 million people, a reality that greatly defined operations by the British and American forces in the area. Although a couple of battles were fought against large Iraqi tank formations, much of the fighting as described in the book was in urban settings against large numbers of heavily armed men in civilian dress for the most part and operating as irregulars.

Many of the incidents described and challenges met by the Scots Dragoon Guards will sound familiar to anyone who has followed American armored units in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it’s both interesting and worthwhile to see them through a different set of eyes (and described with a different accent and vocabulary!). The accounts of life inside a modern main battle tank during combat may be a revelation for many readers, they certainly number among the most harrowing accounts of combat I have read. This is very much a work aimed at the popular audience but I think even military professionals and knowledgeable civilians will find it useful and informative.

[Cameron Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with Sniper One and Apache, this has to be one of my favorite personal accounts of the British Army in the middle east. A great balance of humour, action and of personal experience. Also being a massive tank nut, the way the Challenger II performs is of great interest anyway.

A thoroughly good read.

[Russell Phillips · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good, interesting account, but there are factual errors that annoyed me too much for me to continue