EAN 9781861263018

The British Army's Challenger Main Battle Tank was born not simply as the answer to a straightforward military requirement, but also as the result of shifting political and financial constraints. Despite this unpromising birth, the tank was to prove itself triumphantly in combat in Operation Desert Sabre - the 'hundred-hour war' to liberate Kuwait in 1991, when more than 170 Challengers destroyed large numbers of Iraqi tanks and AFVs without suffering a single loss to enemy fire. Operating under the most dif­ficult conditions in the British Army's first major armoured conflict since World War II, the combat and maintenance crews of the Royal Armoured Corps demonstrated skill and deter­mination second to none.