Churchill Tank: An Apology Leaflet, Tiger 131 and Hobart's Funnies

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The Churchill tank grew from the A-20, an infantry tank designed for the trench warfare British planners expected in a second European war. After France fell and the army left much of its equipment at Dunkirk, director of tank design Dr. H.E. Merritt revised it into the A-22, and Vauxhall Motors was told to put it into production within one year. The first Churchills rolled out in June 1941 with a leaflet apologizing to crews for their flaws. The 350-horsepower Bedford Twin-Six joined two truck engines into a flat-12, the tank was underpowered, and in one 1942 exercise a single Churchill needed five gearbox replacements. Its Merritt-Brown triple differential, however, could drive the tracks in opposite directions and spin the tank in place.

At Dieppe in August 1942, about 60 Churchills supporting Canadian troops bogged down on the stony chert beach, yet none was penetrated by German anti-tank fire while manned. In Tunisia in 1943, a Churchill of the 48th Royal Tank Regiment jammed the turret of Tiger 131 with a six-pounder shell at Longstop Hill, giving the Allies their first intact Tiger, still running at the Tank Museum in Dorset. The Mark VII carried 152mm of frontal armor, thicker than the Tiger I, and the chassis carried Percy Hobart's specialist vehicles. Over 300 went to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. The Black Prince, built for a 17-pounder gun, reached only six prototypes before cancellation in 1945 as the Centurion arrived, and the Churchill retired in 1952.

• One King Force tank at the Second Battle of El Alamein was hit up to 80 times, and only one of the six was knocked out.
• At Steamroller Farm, two Churchills destroyed multiple 88mm guns, 25 wheeled vehicles and two Panzer III tanks.
• The NA75 used 75mm guns cut from mine-damaged Shermans and mounted upside down; about 200 were converted.
• The AVRE's 230mm spigot mortar, the "flying dustbin," had to be reloaded by hand through a roof hatch.
• The Crocodile flamethrower towed a 400-gallon armored fuel trailer linked by an articulated coupling.