The Churchill Infantry Tank (A.22)

A Mk I Churchill

A Mk IV Churchill

A Mk VI Churchill

The development of the Churchill can be dated back to the A20, this vehicle looked similar to the Churchill and it's armament consisted of a 2pdr in the turret and a 2pdr in the hull, two prototypes were built by Harland and Wolf in June 1940. The project was then taken over by Vauxhall who were required to have the vehicle in production within a year, the resulting vehicle was the A22, known as the Churchill and the first vehicles were produced in June 1941. Due to the fact that the vehicles were ordered off the drawing board and Vauxhall did not have the time to rectify issues the first Churchills had a series of defects when they were issued to units.

The Churchill's armour was extremely thick for the period, over 100mm thick at the front and 76mm sides on the Mk I which would have posed a very difficult target for any German tank or anti-tank gunner. The hull consisted of machineable armour on a milled steel frame, this allowed production to be easier, the turret was usually cast although in later versions it was also machineable armour. The machineable armour + milled steel armour configuration offered slightly less ballistic resistance to a single machineable plate but the milled steel plate offered better protection against non penetrating rounds. The biggest change in armour came in the Mk VII version when frontal armour was increased to up to 152mm and sides 95mm, Mk III - VI versions also had additional armour added to the front and sides of the tank.

The Armament on the Mk I consisted of a 2pdr in the turret and a 3" Howitzer in the hull, this allowed the vehicle to fire both Armour Piercing and High Explosive shells but the position of the 3" Howitzer in the hull restricted it's movement and was removed in the Mk II version to be replaced by a Besa 7.92 machine gun. It was obvious in 1940 that the 2pdr was becoming obsolete but production of the 6pdr was delayed until mid 1941, investigations into how to up gun British tanks to carry the new 6pdr were carried out and by February the first 6pdr armed Mk III tanks were produced - the first British tanks to carry a 6pdr gun. Later the 6pdr was changed to a 75mm so the vehicles could fire a more efficient HE shell at the loss of some penetration ability.

Churchill tanks first saw action at Dieppe where MkI, II, and III tanks were used. Performance was not great as they struggled to get off the beach - it must be remember that all tanks would have probably suffered the same fate. A number of vehicles were sent to North Africa where performance was much better, the tanks thick armour and ability to climb extremely steep hills was put to good use. In fact it was the Churchill's performance in Tunisia that kept the tanks in production as the project had been scheduled to end in 1943.

Production of Churchill Tanks by year (UK Only) 

Sources - AVIA 46 188, AVIA 22 456-514, WO 194