Brief History of The 2nd Royal Tank Regiment
The 2nd Royal Tank Regiment was formed from the Heavy Machine Gun Corps in 1916 and first saw action in tanks during the Battle of the Somme in August 1916. Cambrai in November 1917 (celebration day) saw the newly formed ‘Tank Corps’ in action for the first time and gaining ground in a war that had been at a stalemate for years. The Tank Corps saw service until the end of the war on all fronts. After the war, the Tank Corps became the Royal Tank Corps (1928) and then later the Royal Tank Regiment in line with Calvary terminology; it formed a large part of the newly formed Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) in 1939. In World War II, the forebears of 2 RTR saw action in Europe, the Western Desert, Burma, Italy and NW Europe after D Day. In 1992, 2 and 3 RTR amalgamated to form the present 2 RTR.
The Present
The Regiment is currently part of the famous ‘Desert Rats’ - 7 Armoured Brigade, and are based in Fallingbostel, between Hanover and Hamburg, in Germany. The Regiment has recently returned from both war fighting and peace support operations in The Gulf with it's Challenger 2 main battle tanks. In 2004 the Regiment has conducted a major manning re-organisation and took on the role of being Opposing Force (OPFOR) in BATUS (Canada) from Apr through to Oct 04. With the Regiment together for the first time since February 03 after training for and being at the front of a well executed, rapid, high intensity war fighting campaign we are all extremely proud of what we have achieved.
The Future
What lies ahead for the Regiment in the future? In Aug 05 we will be preparing to move to the UK (Tidworth) and becoming part of 1 Mech Brigade. In conjunction with the move, the Regiment also begins their Training Year. During that time our energies will be focused on conducting a Regimental conversion programme to the new BOWMAN system and will also conduct low level Sqn training.
