7th Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom) Armored Brigade deployed to Afghanistan's Helmand Province, Kandahar, and Kabul. On 5 March 2013, the British Secretary of State for Defence, Philip Hammond, announced that the 7th Armoured Brigade would have its Challenger 2 tanks and heavy armoured battalions removed over the next decade. The Brigade itself was re-designated as the 7th Infantry Brigade, but retains its famed 'Desert Rats' insignia. It will form part of the Adaptable Force under Army 2020. The decision was met with regret by former 7th Armoured Brigade commander Patrick Cordingley, who said that the "changes would still dismay veterans and the general public". On
7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom) to the Rhine. The division's performance in Normandy and the rest of France has been called into question and it has been claimed they did not match those of its earlier campaigns. In early August 1944, Major General George Erskine, the division's GOC, who had been in command of the division since January 1943, Brigadier William Hinde, commanding the 22nd Armoured Brigade, and up to 100 other officers of the division were removed from their positions and reassigned. Erskine was replaced by Major General Gerald Lloyd-Verney. Historians largely agree that this was a consequence of the "failure" at Villers-Bocage and