Tank Command. This item is unavailable.Tank Command

Who would have thought that steel boxes with guns would endure as the stalwart of the battlefield for over a hundred years? For all the new trickery and wizardry of the modern fight, the tank's ability to pack a huge punch at up to 3000 metres, protected by steel, ceramics and now, electronics, is still the most reliable and durable weapon in the military toolbox.

In this thrilling new book, former tank commander Hamish de Bretton-Gordon OBE offers a unique and timely exploration of the evolution of the tank, on and off the battlefield. Written in close collaboration with the world-renowned Tank Museum, it brings the thrill of hardware together with the sweep of history, telling the tank's origin story on the battlefields of World War I, charting its primacy during World War II, and analysing its critical role in modern warfare, whether in the Gulf (where Hamish served) or on the new Ukrainian and Russian front lines.

From the MARK IV at the battle of Cambrai to the Challenger 2 in Ukraine, discover the characters who sat at the helm of these iron chariots and what they saw, those who innovated the machine to continue the tank's prominence despite numerous attempts to write it off, and why it remain critical to success in battle even in today's era of drones and cyber warfare.

With thousands of hours commanding Chieftains, Challenger 1s, and Challenger 2s, Hamish is the leading authority on the subject, and Tank Command is an essential addition to any military history reader's bookshelf.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a world-leading expert in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) weapons. He served twenty-three years in the British Army, including service as Commanding Officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, the UK CBRN Regiment and NATO's Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion. His operational deployments included the First Gulf War, Cyprus, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has been in Syria and Iraq frequently in the last ten years, setting up the CBRN Task Force in Syria and advising medical charities. This considerable experience in the field places Hamish as one of the world's foremost and most current experts in chemical, biological and nuclear counter terrorism and humanitarian operations.

Hamish is a commissioned reserve officer in the British Army's Staff Corp as senior advisor and mentor to the Ministry of Defence on CBRN. He is advising the Ukrainian government, NGOs and journalists ion CBRN defence.

Today, Hamish gives advice to UK and US government agencies and is a senior Ministry of Defence advisor on CBRN and Syria, is frequently seen on global news channels providing expert commentary, and writes for UK, Middle East and US news journals and newspapers. He was a Visiting Fellow at Magdalene College Cambridge in 2020-2022 and his memoir, Chemical Warrior, was published by Headline in 2021.