Britain is to give up its domestic tank manufacturing capacity. The Daily Mailreports that in future, British tanks will likely have Swedish chassis and be armed with German guns.

bae Systems, the last heavy-duty combat vehicle manufacturer in the UK, announced last week that it was closing its tank-building plant at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and also shutting down its armor operations elsewhere. The company said it was closing the plants because it did not anticipate any new government orders.

The announcement marks a dangerous day for the nation that invented the tank. The Daily Mail reported Saturday:

They have fought alongside British soldiers for generations, playing heroic roles on historic battlefields such as the Somme, Cambrai and El Alamein. They have carried famous names such as Centurion, Churchill, Cromwell and Crusader.But now, nearly a century after inventing the first armored warhorse—to storm through German lines in the First World War—Britain is to stop building its own tanks.

UK Defense Secretary John Hutton has indicated that the nation’s future military needs would not include the tank. Instead, he has announced “a rebalancing of investment in technology, equipment and people to meet the challenge of irregular warfare.”

Gen. Patrick Cordingley, commander of the Desert Rats in the first Gulf War, however, issued a grave warning to all Britons: “I think we have got ourselves into a real tangle here. If you look at the economic troubles of the 1930s, it ended in a terrible war.

“Are we saying it could never happen again, that we will not be drawn into a war where we will need a full range of forces and equipment?”

Allowing domestic military manufacturing to disappear or move offshore is a risky move.

For more on the dangers of declining British military readiness, read our article “Britain Cuts Military.”