The pure joy of driving a tank and what it takes to get there.

Easily one of the best experiences you can ever have in this life is driving a tank around a pre-made course. The sense of strength and power is immense as you drive along safe in the knowledge that pretty much anything you come across is going to come of second best even against say some small to medium trees. It’s also really reassuring that whatever terrain you come across its not going to stop you from getting somewhere.

Thick mud, pools of deepish water, steep hills a tank gives you the chance to go everywhere. Just imagine the sense of power that gives you if you stick a great big gun on it plus grenade launchers. To get the idea you’d have to join the armed forces with particular regard to a tank regiment but there are quicker and cheaper ways to do it. A quick trip to a Tank Driving Days website like armourgeddon.co.uk/tank-driving-experience.html/ can soon give you an idea. In fact, it’s the closest you’ll probably ever get to the real thing the only thing they don’t provide the massive gun to fire.

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Becoming a real Tank crewman is a bit more of a hard slog than just booking a day with the Armourgeddon Lads. A Tank crewman is at the forefront of the battle and the army describe it as a heavy combat role. The Challenger Mk 2 Tank becomes your home and the four-man crew that drives it your family. It is the only role in the British Army that will allow you to drive a tank and it involves the deepest commitment. You also need to be aged between 16 and 32. If you join you don’t get to start driving the thing anyway. You first start by taking 14 weeks basically training to see if you can actually be a solider. To be clear this is not an easy time.

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After it’s over and you prove your worth it’s off to Bovington the home of the Tank Regiment and a famous museum to boot. You’ll be there for 20 weeks where you’ll learn to drive a regular unless you’ve already passed and how to fix the Challenger if it breaks down plus how to use the radios, and by that we don’t mean tuning it to BBC 6 Music. Once that’s passed you move onto getting your H licence which teaches you how to drive a tracked vehicle. The best thing being that when you get out of the army as long as it’s got an MOT and the gun is decommissioned you can drive a tank on the road!

Author: Kei Taylor

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