ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS
Weapon Training
MILITARY TRAINING PAMPHLET
No.34
PART 4: FIRE TACTICS FOR TANK
COMMANDERS AND TROOP LEADERS
1940
Some years ago I bought this on ebay. As it was available for general sale and it's probably been declassified I'm going to risk breaking regulations by publishing photos of it, in full, here. If MOD wish me to take it down I will, but until then, or there's a knock at the door....
It makes for quite an interesting read. How much of it was followed and how much went by the board after first contact is hard to say. From a BKC player's point of view, it might lead to house rules on fire concentration.
All photos will enlarge if you click on them.
4 comments:
Great find mate, I thought everything was now open to the public, an interesting piece of history
All the best with your projects and plans in 2020
Cheers
Matt
The '50 Year Rule' covers most things. That and the fact that the War Office / MOD restricts information on everything; the theory being you don't talk about anything but, in reality, just confusing the hell out of everyone as to what is and what isn't common knowledge or a secret.
I remember having 'restricted' posters showing full colour exploded diagrams of current British weapons on my wall back in the 70s (my dad was military) - everything from general purpose machine guns to disposable 66 mm AT missile launchers. No one cared because everyone knew that they were being sold world wide to just about anyone with a buck.
It's funny what you collect, living on, and exploring the nether reaches of military training camps as a kid. I had a wide collection of spent ordnance, including a 66 mm AT missile with the head taken off, a very rusty (possibly live) mortar bomb, various spent bullets and cases (plus one or two live rounds), more shrapnel than you could shake a stick at, various bits of aircraft and tanks (I remember keeping loads of my stuff in ammo bins from a Saladin armoured car), and enough CS gas pellets to disperse a small riot. All of it has gone except for two things. At my parent's place, I still have a large section of terrain used in the old style flight simulators - where a camera 'flew' across model terrain the size of an aircraft hangar wall - I use to use it for playing 1:300 tanks on! - and the prototype for a new British helmet, made of what was called, at the time, Rolls Royce Resin. Both of which, I found on 'the dump'.
Alamein to Zem Zem by Keith Douglas is a great read and gives you an idea of how they fought later on in North Africa. IIRC the tactics had changed markedly from the pamphlet shown in your post.
Interesting read, this1940 manual - as mentioned, Alamein to Zem Zem is worth reading too.
The flight simulator terrain for 1/300 tanks sounds an interesting find too. Have you posted pictures of this?
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