The British Army has secretly moved tanks through the Channel Tunnel to test the rail network in case of an invasion of Eastern Europe.

During the exercise on Tuesday night, five Challenger tanks were loaded on to trains and taken to France and back.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) attempted to keep the exercise quiet - no media were invited and a short tweet with a picture was sent out around midnight.

The MoD denied a request for further photos or video, but said the exercise tested "the viability of using the Channel Tunnel to move vehicles and equipment to mainland Europe, adding to the existing range of options available and increasing the agility of our Armed Forces".

Image: The tanks were moved through the Channel Tunnel. File pic

The exercise has been some time in the planning and defence sources have told Sky News the Channel Tunnel rail line could be commandeered in a time of crisis.


The British military has its own railway line that joins up with the national network, but the military uses a private contractor, Leidos, for movement through the Channel Tunnel.

The exercise was part of a wider series of NATO operations across Europe, testing logistics and infrastructure.

Recently, some 3,000 US soldiers landed in Germany en route to Poland. It is the biggest American deployment to Europe since the Cold War.

Later this year, approximately 500 British troops will deploy to Estonia as part of a bigger NATO move into the Baltic states and Poland.

Britain has just taken the lead of NATO's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, headquartered in Paderborn, Germany.

The task force is on standby to react to an attack on a NATO country within 48 hours.

RAF Typhoons will also go to Romania for air defence in the next few months.