This is one of the best studies I've ever read about a specific armored fighting vehicle and that is due to the author's intimate experience with the machine in question, and their willingness to give an unvarnished appraisal of its faults. The real guts of this work is Kent's overview of how the Chieftain MBT came to be saddled with a totally inadequate drive train, the details of which are truly mind-boggling. Having read about chronic procurement malpractice across the British Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF during this period it would seem that there is room for a study of how the British became so bad at technology management post-1955; assuming the skeletons have not been buried so deeply that they'll never be found. ( )