After the success of the Blitzkrieg, men across Germany flocked to the armoured corps in search of glory. This is the story of one German tanker as he comes face to face with the harsh realities of armoured warfare.

May 1944: Canadian tanks begin their final push to drive the Germans from Italy. At each step, over rugged mountains and through steep valleys, the Canadians confront Hitler's elite Panzers - at the Melfa river, on the Trasimene Line, in the formidable Gothic Line, finally battering their way into the Po Valley.

1965: American ground forces and Marine Corps tanks land in South Vietnam, confident that they will defeat the Communist insurgency, until they encounter the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.

1968: The Americans mobilise hundreds of tanks to help defeat Communist forces in South Vietnam. Now the Communists combine guerrilla tactics with conventional military might and send their own tanks into battle. The final struggle for Vietnam begins.

In 1944 the US 3rd Armoured Division spearheads the Allied push from the western border of Germany towards Berlin. The American tankers battle fanatical Germans defending their homeland to the last, armed with the most powerful Panzers ever to take the battlefield.

By 1942, the Japanese Empire stretched halfway across the Pacific Ocean. This is the rarely told story of the key role played by US Marine tanks in the Pacific Campaign. They fight bloody battles against fanatical Japanese forces that defend the now infamous Islands of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Michael Wittman, the most decorated tank ace in history, fought at Kursk and in Normandy and in many of the greatest tank battles of all time. An officer in the notorious Waffen SS, hailed as a hero by the Nazis, Wittmann remains a focus of cult and controversy.