'It's a real man's life', 1960 (c)

Chromolithograph recruiting poster, after Charles Wood (APD 141), published by HMSO, 1960 (c). Printed by J Howitt [and] Son, Nottingham, or Jordison [and] Company, London.

During the 1960s the main theatre of deployment for tank commanders like the figure depicted here was with the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) in West Germany. Created in 1946 to help forestall any Soviet attack through the German plains, the BAOR was a massive British commitment and at its peak numbered around 80,000 soldiers. BAOR armoured units lived under the constant spectre of nuclear war breaking out and having to face the massed armoured formations of the Warsaw Pact. In the event of war, it was estimated that the life expectancy of a British tank commander was around 36 hours.