FEW people ever experience first-hand the true horrors of war. The Tank Museum at Bovington has unveiled plans to recreate the reality as closely as it can without live ammunition being fired.

The museum is bidding for £15.44 million lottery funding to carry out a major redevelopment and expansion scheme.

A proposed new environmentally-controlled hall will house the museum's precious collection of tanks.

Hairline cracks have started appearing on some of its First World War tanks caused by temperature fluctuations and humidity inside the current display hall.

Museum leaders want to build on the success of its life-size First World War trench, by creating exhibitions which take visitors through the defeat of Dunkirk and onslaught of the D-Day landings.

Museum director John Woodward said: "They will feel what it was like in a landing craft coming ashore on D-Day and see what the tanks go through in context. It will be an immersive, contextual experience."

The new hall, which covers 5,000 square metres, will enable a larger number of the museum's collection of 300 tanks to be kept under cover.

Just half are on display at the moment, with others kept outside or in sheds.

Mr Woodward said: "I want people to be able to stand back and appreciate the power of tanks and understand they are beasts, but in a way there is a beauty."

The MOD's commitment to a 50-year lease for the museum means the money it generates can be ploughed into preserving the collection and creating new exhibitions.

Mr Woodward said: "We want to be a beacon attraction for this part of the world.

"The old part of the museum will house new exhibitions and we want to be creating new exhibitions so the museum is continually fresh to keep bringing people back."

The museum will find out this January whether its lottery bid is successful and if everything goes to plan, the work will be completed in early 2009.

First published: August 20