h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lovely article! A book I can recommend on this topic is "Mailed Fist" by Major John Foley; Foley is a tanker who worked his way up through the ranks of the RTR in the 1930's and who was commissioned as an officer in 1943; he commanded a Churchill tank squadron from the D-Day landings to the war's end. The book is engagingly written and is excellent on small unit co-operation between infantry, armour and artillery: for the purposes of this account, Foley writes on the everyday limitations of living in your tank. He writes about being deep in France - but after receiving a direct hit that failed to penetrate, the cloud of dust dislodged by the impact from every cavity wasn't French earth but that of their training ground in Sussex which had lodged deeply. Also the case of the Churchill that fell over a ravine edge in the Ardennes - but which landed right side up and started up first time despite falling for a hundred feet...