CHURCHILL TANKS BUILT AT GLOUCESTER RCW
The first Vauxhall designed A22 Churchill tanks began appearing in June 1941 with The Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company producing 764 of the 5 640 eventually built. In accordance with British Infantry Tank doctrine of the 1930s and based on the expected needs of static warfare, an envisaged 38 ton Type A20 – was required to cross shell-cratered ground, demolishing obstacles and attacking fixed enemy defences with a long trench-spanning wheelbase and armour heavy enough to withstand artillery attack. However, by the time that the first A20 prototypes were completed by Harland and Wolff in June 1940, it was clear that a new design – known as the A22 or Infantry Tank Mark IV – would have to incorporate the experience of the Nazi Blitzkreig and be in production within a year to replace tanks left behind at Dunkirk. The Churchill was also the first tank to use a Merritt-Brown gearbox which allowed steering by changing the speeds of the two tracks and even let the tank spin on its own axis. The suspension design, too, allowed the Churchill to climb steep terrain and even lose a number of track wheels without being stopped: in which case the crew had escape hatches in the side of the hull. The hull of the Churchill tank was made up of simple flat plates, initially bolted but later welded together, and was split into four compartments: the drivers position at the front, then the fighting compartment including the turret, the engine compartment and then finally the gearbox compartment. However, the rush into production caused design flaws, leading to GRCW Chief Draughtsman Frank Barber driving 25 000 miles in Churchill tanks (more than many combat soldiers) as part of brake and transmission tests, mainly carried out at a quarry in Haresfield. The underpowered, unreliable engines were inaccessible and the two pounder 40mm gun in the original round turret proved weak. A 3 inch hull howitzer also required the whole tank to be aimed for it to fire a useful high explosive round. The Mk II Churchill with its round turret replaced the howitzer with a machine gun but still performed so poorly during the Dieppe Raid of August 1942, its first combat use, that production was almost cancelled. However, the Mark III Churchill – first rolled out in March 1942 – was much improved and proved decisive in the Second Battle of El Alamein that October, mainly thanks to a new turret design carrying a 57mm calibre 6 pounder gun which even knocked out a German Tiger tank!
The Dieppe raid of 1942 failed with heavy losses of both armour and infantry because tanks were unable to penetrate inland. To overcome or destroy obstacles during future landings, J.J.Donovan of the Royal Canadian Engineers suggested a tank that could launch a small box girder as a bridge or a ramp and the Churchill Mark IV was chosen for this project due to its roomy hull with side doors for loading stores and equipment. The prototype Churchill Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers was ready by December 1942 with a girder that could span a 30’ gap or allow a 14’ wall to be mounted and a Petard spigot mortar added to the modified turret in February 1943. The Petard could throw a 40 lb projectile containing a 26lb charge up to 230 yards to destroy concrete obstacles.
Taking just one and a half minutes to deploy, the Tank Bridge No.2 (seen front right in the first picture of this article) provided a Class 60 tracked load and a Class 40 wheeled load over a 30ft gap. The bridge was in one piece and mounted on the turretless tank. The launching arm was attached by a pivoting arm mechanism with rollers to the front of the tank, the other end of the arm being attached to the centre of the bridge. The bridge remained horizontal as it was raised and then lowered by the pivot arm across the gap.
The self propelled gun (SPG) – specifically a motorized or tracked artillery piece which, unlike a tank, does not have to be in visual range of its target – became a part of the highly mobile battlefield tactics which emerged at the start of World War II. Supporting forces now had to move at the speed of a blitzkrieg and to exactly the same places, either to lay down a static or creeping barrage or to offer close support and destroy opposing tanks and fortifications. Otherwise obsolete 3″ anti aircraft guns were thus fitted to a Churchill hull with a ball mounting inside a fixed 3.5″ thick armoured superstructure. 100 units were ordered, but this was cut to 24 in February 1942 and none of them saw active duty. An example of a Churchill 3″ SPG is bottom right on the picture above.
Churchills were the most numerous British tanks used in the 1944 invasion of Normandy – both in terms of conventional gun carriers and more specialised forms such as “Crocodile” flame throwers with armoured trailers, recovery Armoured Vehicles of the Royal Engineers (AVREs) and bridging vehicles. Later Churchill IIIs sported 75mm guns, as did the Mark VII. With a wider and better armoured hull and completely new turret, the 40 ton so-called Heavy Churchill was introduced for the Normandy landings in June 1944 but was slower than earlier marks as the engine had not been upgraded to provide more power. Ultimately, the Churchill was held back by the size of its turret, which could not take a gun bigger than 75mm and so did not allow it to hit back effectively against better armed panzers even if it could absorb much of their fire. Despite unexpected successes in the mountainous terrain of Korea, gun Churchills left the British Army in 1952 although more specialist versions continued into the 1970s. Among them – and built by Gloucester RCW – was the AMRCR (Anti-Mine Reconnaissance Castor Device) developed in 1943 but never used operationally. Like the flail version of the Sherman, this was designed to clear a path through minefields by exploding any devices ahead of the tank and was based on a Mark IV chassis.