cold war

The cold war years saw massive concentrations of armour deployed either side of the Inner German Border. Starting with Shermans and M26 Pershings plus numerous tank destroyers in the US forces and Churchill, Sherman and Centurion in the BAOR. French troops deployed US equipment in the first...

Hello, a newbie here to the british army. I was wondering if anyone could help me out and tell me what exactly the 1st armoured division's purpose/mission was within the BAOR in germany around 1975-1991. Was it tank support or did the armoured division have their own infantry? Hope someone can...

Spoiler! This book isn’t the story of a tank commander from the Cold War to the Gulf War. The misleading title discombobulated me for a bit – you’ve be spared the discomfort. Both the wars and tanks play bit parts; however this is primarily the memoir of Lt. Col. Stuart Crawford. He served in...

Disappointingly, Chobham Armour isn’t a sneaky-beaky exposé of British boffins’ development of ballistic protection detailing the near magical properties of layers compressed fag-butts and twiglets between sheets of Unobtainium, in a 1/63 cubit spaced lattice work (damn, I’ve said too much)...

A subject very close to my heart being one of those boring old Cold “Warriors”. The author Michael Green a prodigious writer on several military subjects turns his attention to the post Second World War. In 1946 the war weary nations of the world suddenly began to realise that new threats were...

The B-36 Cold War bomber, I must confess, I knew very little about this aircraft, other than seeing it featured in a film with James Stewart, that seemed to be more of a promotional film for the U.S.A.F. I presumed that its design and conception dated from the 1960s, however this very...

Combat aircraft are complicated things, designed and operated by fallible humans to do dangerous stuff. Even the computers now necessary to keep them airborne are programmed by fallible humans. Making sure that they work as intended and safely is the job of a test pilot, who earns his pay by...

Hello! I was referred here from reddit, and as a long time lurker since the site first started. Now, the people on reddit did tell me to open with how the SLR in wood furniture is the best weapon ever. I do somewhat agree with this, I believe that Synthetic is far better. Best weapon ever...

Judging from the forum comments on here there are a hardcore of ARRSE members to whom the Cold War forms an intricate part of their lives. To that end I would suggest that Stephen Twigges’ Images of The National Archives Cold War will resonate with many of us. As perhaps expected it does...

Written by the creator of one of the finest anti heroes, Bernie Gunther, this book is a departure from Kerr’s normal stomping grounds. I will refrain from delving into the book to illustrate what points I have, as to do so might ruin other readers’ enjoyment, so for once this will be a blessedly...

This is a large paperback of 220 pages (plus space for notes at the back of the book). As would be expected from Pen & Sword's Images of War series, it is lavishly illustrated with large (half-page) black and white and colour photographs. Its coverage is US main battle tanks and armoured...

On the face of it I did not know what to expect from this book, with little thought I assumed that it would be a history of the nuclear submarine bases and perhaps Lossiemouth and a few other air bases. Nothing could be further from the truth. The author Trevor Royle has produced a prodigious...

As The celebratory cheers of VE Day had barely died in the throats of a war weary population, Europe was being carved up by the Victors with a view to ensuring that never again would Germany threaten the peace being imposed upon it. However those in power were far from oblivious as to how the...

Liberation Square is the first novel by Gareth Rubin, a journalist who has written for many national newspapers. This is a detective novel with a twist. Over the years there have been many novels and films that have visited the premise that Germany won the war and the UK was occupied...

A good old-fashioned cold war spy story, well written and with enough twists and turns to keep the reader enthralled. The story opens with the main character, Kate – a senior Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officer in charge of the Russia Desk – receiving a tip-off from an old contact who...

Britain’s contribution to the land part of the Cold War was collectively known as the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). Throughout the period ((1945-1993) at least 55,000 troops were garrisoned there, initially to keep the Germans down but mostly to keep the Russians out. That’s a huge amount...

T-54/55 thru T-90 - end of WWII to collapse of Soviet Union. T-55:-

This is a novel from a series of books concerning Detective Chief Superintendant Frederick Troy, there have been several books in the series, which has been well received but which I have not read. I found this book a bit difficult to read, the storyline was good but the writing was patchy...

I found this A3 overlay (pic) whilst sorting out some old papers. It's a projected target map of a Soviet Nuclear attack on the UK, from the 1980's. Triangles = groundburst. Diamonds = airburst. There are some obvious targets and some less obvious. Most of the densely populated parts of the UK...