Major Ratcliff gets tanked up over artillery misfire

On seeing the front page of the April 29 edition of your publication, I nearly choked on my pink gin and had to send the mess steward for a fortifying whisky.

Your story on the Marshall-Cavendish Images of War bundle was accompanied by a picture of an armoured fighting vehicle. The copy went on to refer to this vehicle as a tank.

Dash it Sir, you obviously don't know your bogies from your turrets and anyone with a military background will know the machine depicted in the photograph is an Abbot self propelled gun, which is an artillery piece, not a tank.

The Abbot, now obsolete, carried a 105mm gun with a range of 17,350 metres, whereas a tank has an effective battle range of 2-3000 metres and is employed to fight other tanks. A tank is armoured to withstand damage from a tank round, but an Abbot is armoured to protect the crew from splinters from counter battery fire. Hopefully, the games industry will not be tempted to develop an Abbot simulator game, because if you pit it against a tank, the game will last about 5 seconds.

Toodle pip, Major Chris Ratcliff

TD KINGS Retd.