Kirjahaku

Everything was going great until the wolfbear's angry glowing eyes discovered them. The wolfbear ran and ran until you could hear the sound of their fear. Welcome to Willow Thicket.

The 'Zimmerit' material, developed in Germany in 1943 was ostensibly a coating applied to some German tanks and armoured fighting vehicles to prevent magnetic mines from sticking to them. When the British first encountered Panzers covered with this material following the D-Day invasion in June 1944 they were both curious as to what it was made of, and more importantly, how to use it for their own purposes. The British undertook lengthy experiments trying to imitate and then copy Zimmerit for a protection against magnetic mines such as those used in the Far East by the Japanese and in Europe by the Germans but more than that too. The British saw the potential of this material as a visual camouflage and, later even considered it for use in protection against detection by radar and infra-red. Experimental work was too late to see service in WW2 for the British. It did, however, continue after the war until suitable materials were developed although work on the subject was discontinued in 1947. By this time, the British had developed the German Zimmerit into their own material, improved and with a potential well beyond a simple coating to stop magnetic mines sticking to a tank.

Service Manual for the British Super-Heavy tank TOG-2R. Pieced together from surviving records this manual was written in sections during the long development of the tank and was stopped when the project was terminated. As such the manual is incomplete but has been recreated as close as possible to what the original manual would have looked like had the tank entered production. Terminated at a time when the manual was transitioning from TOG-2R to TOG-2* this manual provides an intriguing insight into the development process for a service manual for a tank and to the vehicle itself. Intended as a supplement to 'The Tanks of TOG' by Andrew Hills this manual shows how far the project had progressed and the amount of work which had gone into the design.

In 1916 the British Army had started using tanks in battle in an attempt to break the deadlock of trench warfare. These large lumbering Heavy Tanks were slow and unable to exploit weaknesses in enemy lines or a breakthrough. What was needed was a new 'Medium' Tank, and the Lincolnshire firm of William Foster and Co., the brains behind the Heavy Tanks set to work on a new Medium vehicle. By February 1917, this new vehicle, known as the Tritton Chaser or 'Whippet' was ready in prototype form. Two hundred of these Whippet tanks, officially known as the Medium Mark A were produced. This manual dates to the early days of the Whippet as it was being produced for the Tank Corps. A guide to the operation and maintenance of this new, smaller, and faster tank.

The foundations and principles of modern armoured warfare did not appear out of a vacuum, and nor did the machines of WW1 and WW2. Their development was full of false starts, failed ideas, and missed opportunities. Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton was a pioneer in electrical engineering and road haulage who, by the turn of the century found himself in South Africa during the Boer War. Later, in WW1 his early work with the Landships Committee on tracked vehicles sought to break the stalemate of trench warfare. Although his tank designs never saw combat the work he started was carried on by other pioneers and helped to usher in a dawn of armoured and mechanised warfare.

Service Manual for the British Super-Heavy tank TOG-2*. Pieced together from surviving records this manual was written in sections during the long development of the tank and was stopped when the project was terminated. As such the manual is incomplete but has been recreated as close as possible to what the original manual would have looked like had the tank entered production. Terminated at a time when the manual was transitioning from TOG-2R to TOG-2* this manual provides an intriguing insight into the development process for a service manual for a tank and to the vehicle itself. Intended as a supplement to 'The Tanks of TOG' by Andrew Hills this manual shows how far the project had progressed and the amount of work which had gone into the design.