About us & the site

About us & the site TankNutDave.com

Tanknutdave.com is an online Encyclopaedia web source, about tracked and wheel based military vehicles called them the Armoured Essentials. The site has attracted the attention of well respected historians, authors and industry specialists, including the Director of Bovington Tank Museum for its educational content.

We have consulted for various production companies and TV channels such as the BBC, gaming companies, authors, dealerships and fighting vehicle manufactures such as BAE Land Systems. The site is supported by many current and former serving tank crewmen from around the world, giving us the unique practical information on vehicles, their experiences on them and what they are taught by the army on other countries vehicles.

Founding Members of the site

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TankNutDave

As of June 2015 TankNutDave is part of the developement team for Armored Warfare, an upcoming free-to-play multiplayer online shooter video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Mail.Ru.

The game features tanks from the 1950s through modern day and includes destructible environments as well as player vs. environment and player vs. player gameplay.

TND is the games Military Vehicle Specialist supporting the producers with information on fighting vehicles and assisting the art team.

Dave studied at a military based school were he shot at national championships and spent time on military equipment such as HMS Ark Royal. He writes most of the content for the website and works as a military vehicle instructor for private hire and the British Ministry Of Defence.

He is also an assistant show director for the annual MVT show Wicksteed At War, which attracts thousands of visitors. Dave is an advisor for the Citizens Advice Bureau. He has appeared on TV shows and radio interviews about military vehicles.

David Williams

Responsible for the maintenance, tech support and testing of software, David is childhood friends with TND and came up with his nickname. He also taught TND web design in order to build the site. David is a professional software tester.

Gary

Gary or “Gaz” followed in the family tradition of joining the Royal Tank Regiment. Gaz served for over a decade in the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, the oldest tank regiment in the world. As a Junior Non Commissioned Officer (JNCO) Gary was deployed on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on the Challenger 2 MBT and Warthog TCV respectively. As his father proclaims “Son of a gunnery God” Gary was a talented Tank gunner, holding the Regiments top results for many consecutive years.

Gary was employed as the Regimental Commanding Officers Tank gunner for his skill and effective intelligence. Gary left the British Army and perused a career in Hostile Environment Close Protection, successfully employed in Afghanistan once again and in an Anti-Piracy role off the coasts of Somalia and East Africa.

He is the driving force behind a number of projects including our YouTube videos, offering practical experience on the workings of fighting vehicles. Gary is often Dave’s voice of reason offering a no-nonsense opinion on some of the thousand innovative ideas that the TND team bring to the table.

Eamon

A Cavalryman within the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, Eamon joined the Army as a fresh faced 17 year old and was qualified as an M113A1 driver before he had his car licence. He’s deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan and has built his experience over the past decade in mounted and dismounted Cavalry operations, through numerous postings across the Royal Australian Armoured Corps.

He’s currently employed in the finest APC Squadron Australia has to offer and in his professional life enjoys short climbs to his turret, long range Support By Fire activities and the look on the infantrymen’s faces when his driver hits a creek line too hard.

Like Gaz, he offers the soldiers perspective on many of the issues that crop up on the facebook page, as well as the practical experience that comes from living and working the confines of Armoured Fighting Vehicles.

Our top contributors and Admins

Anthony Sewards

He joined the Canadian Military in 1987 and served the whole regular time service with Canada’s Only heavy tank Regiment, the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians). He completed 7 operational tours from missions in Cyprus, UN peace keeping forces during the Bosnia War and his final combat tours were in Afghanistan. He trained on wheeled, light & heavy tracked vehicles.

Anthony retired from the army as a sergeant and contributes to our Canadian vehicle pages and admins our Facebook group.

Thord Wedman

A former sergeant in the Swedish Army (regular), he was a squad leader in the Mechanized Infantry commanding APC’s. He completed a tour with the UNIFIL in Lebanon and then two tours as part of the UN peace keeping force during the Bosnia War.

Thord then completed 15 years with the Swedish Army Reserve. He retired as an officer/platoon leader and worked for two years as an instructor at the armies Engineer Regiment.

Thord works restoring fighting vehicles at the Swedish military vehicle museum, Arsenalen (The Arsenal) www.arsenalen.se He has assisted and worked on gaming projects with TND and admins our Facebook group.

The History Of TankNutDave.com

The site was founded in 2007 as a modelling blog for TankNutDave, reviewing the models built and writing about the actual vehicle. It quickly expanded in to the Armoured essentials Encyclopaedia.

The sites success came about from the break away of the traditional web source use of text and photographs, with the integration of embedded YouTube video’s and the opportunity for crews of tanks and other vehicles to contribute information with a level of anonymity.

The site now operates using a Word press CMT and attracts over 42,000 hit’s a month.

Our YouTube account attracts between 200,00 to 240,000 views per month with over 9,000 subscribers.

We also have a large Facebook group called Tank Nuts with several thousand members made up vehicle service personnel and vehicle enthusiasts.

How we research our vehicle content

This depends on the country of origin, if it entered service or was a prototype and when it was built. We use information provided to us by the manufacturer, government requisition orders, other government reports such as budgets and procumbent agencies from various countries. We will use historical information from Bovington Tank Museum library and respected authors of books on specific vehicles. We also rely upon information from the crewmen who have served and used military vehicles.

Advertising On TankNutDave.com

We are able to offer various packages based on budget, with unique advantages over conventional Google pay to click adverts. We can provide full sales brochure with all these details. Some of our clients have included Remington Tactical Shotgun Accessories and world record holder World Of Tanks.