The aim of Armour Archive is to track down, record and publish
the details of all preserved armoured vehicles around the world.
This includes vehicles in museums and private collections;
memorials; and battlefield, roadside and range relics.
The vehicles covered are fully tracked armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs),
namely tanks and self-propelled guns and vehicles based on their
chassis. It does not cover other fully-tracked vehicles, such as
armoured personnel carriers, unless they are based on tank chassis,
though it may be extended to cover these in the future. It does not
cover half-tracked or wheeled vehicles (usually described
collectively as "military vehicles") and there are no plans to
extend it to cover these.
Tanks of all nationalities are covered, from the Sherman to the
Tiger, Centurion to Chaffee, M13/40 to T-72. All countries of the
world are also covered, although there is naturally a greater
emphasis on those which have seen the most tank warfare, such as
western Europe, Russia and the Middle East, because of the large
numbers of surviving battlefield relics in these places.
The register was started in 1982 and since then the author has
visited nearly all large tank collections around the world and
hundreds of small ones. However, a large amount of information in
the archive is provided by other enthusiasts, and it has only been
through their help that the vehicle lists have become so extensive.
Although records are kept on all vehicles and countries, in recent
years efforts have been made to concentrate on one particular
country or vehicle nationality at a time and to then produce guides
in book form as Armour Archive publications.
Books published so far:
- Preserved Tanks in France (April 1994)
- Preserved German Tanks Volume 1: A7V to Panzer IV (December
1994)
- Preserved German Tanks 2 Volume 2: Panzer V Panther to
Leopard 2 (December 1995)
- Preserved Tanks in Russia (July 1997)
- Preserved Tanks in France - Second Edition (May 2007)
Other draft publications have been made available
for free download.
Trevor Larkum, February 2008