British

With war clouds gathering, the British general staff ordered the acceleration of their cruiser tank programme - fast. reliable and reasonably armoured fighting vehicles that exploit weak points in the enemy lines and spearhead breakthroughs. One of the...

The first M3s were operational in late 1941 the U.S. Army needed a good tank and coupled with Great Britain's demand for a medium tank immediately, the Lee began production by late 1940. The tank's first actions during the war was during the North...

Armadillos were improvised armoured self-propelled guns based on any available lorry chassis for airfield defence. The ‘armour’ consisted of wood and/or steel plates lined with gravel. The Mark I and II were armed with two Lewis Guns mounted in an...

The standard British field gun of World War II was the 25-pdr gun-howitzer, a versatile weapon with a calibre of 3.45 inches (87.6mm). This was the weapon used in overwhelming numbers in every theatre, although the 3.7-inch (94mm) Mountain Howitzer was...

Britain and her Commonwealth put huge numbers of men into uniform in WW2 to stem the aggression from Germany, Italy and Japan. Her small professional army was swallowed up defending a worldwide Empire and soon her forces were shattered and in full...

After the Dieppe raid it was obvious that new equipment was needed to breach beach defences and other fortifications. The Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) was designed to fill that need. Essentially the AVRE was a Mk III or IV Churchill with a new...