El Paso, Tex. — FORT BLISS may be the least British place on earth. It’s a million acres of Texas and New Mexico desert where it always seems hot, it practically never rains and virtually everything has been sun-scorched brown.

And every day it’s where the United States Army practices destroying things with tanks.

Nevertheless, this is where Richard Hammond, British to the marrow, is starting his occupation of America after three days of training with the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank.

Mr. Hammond, 42, is the boyish third of the cast of the BBC’s car-obsessed “Top Gear.” He is here on a blazing September day, wearing a flight suit and learning to operate the Abrams tank for his new TV show, “Richard Hammond’s Crash Course.”

The show, which will make its debut on the BBC America cable channel on April 16, is produced in America for an American audience. That makes it something of a test of how far Mr. Hammond can push the popularity he has earned — but in this case, without the interplay of his “Top Gear” co-hosts, James May and Jeremy Clarkson.