The Churchill Tank in Normandy: Part One 40-44
Ratty Relic or Bocage Buster?
How did it go from a hated, atrocious POS tank worthy only of the scrapheap to a reliable, trustworthy, survivable and popular gun tank in action?
Another pertinent tale. /1
#WW2 #SWW #History
At 38 tons the Churchill was clearly a beast but a manageable one, given concerns about railway loading gauge had informed development (even then you still had to remove the side air louvres for rail tpt).
As always, compromise & industrial limitations underpinned design. /2
Early Mk I and Mk II were respectively armed with a 2 Pounder with coaxial Besa in the turret but with differing hull armament, I - 3" howitzer, II - Besa machine gun.
88.9mm of front armour provided excellent protection for the five man crew, and WS No. 19 provided comms. /3
Other than being undergunned another problem was, they didn't work very well.
But why?
It call comes back to, you guessed it, June 1940 - at the height of that invasion-scare summer.
AFV cupboards were bare so the initial models were raced into production in June 1940... /4
there wasn't time for proper prototyping or accompanying development as the imperative to have ANY gun tank pushed Vauxhall to the limit in the race to get SOMETHING, ANYTHING into the field.
9 RTR probably enjoyed the dubious honour of the first Churchill deliveries. /5