Ukraine is lucky to have Britain’s Challenger 2 tanks

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. So wrote William Shakespeare in Henry V. He could well have been writing about the British Army’s main battle tank, the mighty 62-tonne behemoth that is Challenger 2, which is now being sent to Ukraine. 

The Challenger 2 is a weighty sort of greyhound. But ‘Chally’, as it was affectionately known by those of us crewing it, could really move. It had close to that ideal balance all tank designers are aiming for, providing protection, manoeuvrability and firepower (each of which deteriorates when you improve one of the others). 

Soon after I finished my tank commander’s course, fighting pixilated Russian tanks and infantry-carrying vehicles in the gunnery simulator, the Chally was sent to Iraq. It got a chance at the beginning in 2003 to show what it could do during the first days of the invasion. But by the time I first went to Iraq in 2004, a Chally tended to be plopped in front of the camp gate if there was intelligence of a potential vehicle-borne suicide bomber.