When we had last left the Churchill with the Mk I-II, it had not yet made it to combat, but had by all analysis been a flawed tank, either in firepower or reliability or both. And in its first action, it did not prove to rise above these issues.

The Dieppe raid was one of the more tragic episodes in a tragic war, being a dramatic failure of planning and preparation that lead to one of the most one-sided Allied defeats of the war. The aim was simple, to land at a port and hold it for around a day, wreck the port to prohibit further German use, gather information, and lure the Luftwaffe into a cataclysmic battle. None of these goals were met, as the invaders immediately ran into stiff resistance, the Luftwaffe beat the RAF, and within six hours the Canadians had to retreat. In all 1200 Commonwealth and British men died, 2000 were captured, 100 planes were shot down, the royal navy lost 33 landing craft and a destroyer.

Most importantly to us though is the loss of 29 Churchill tanks. All were captured by the Germans, who quickly set to evaluating the capabilities of the tank. Of the tanks landed, 11 were Churchills I or II. But the remainder were the new generation Churchill III’s with the 6 pounder cannon.

These, along with Churchill’s IV-VI, will be the tanks that we will cover in this article.

As a spoiler, the German thoughts on the tanks they captured at Dieppe were damming. They started that it was an easy tank to fight in its current form, with poor armor quality, an obsolete gun, and mediocre mobility. We will see if this critique holds up to scrutiny.

Armor:

This section will take some time, because there is a lot to cover. We should first start with the hull.

Initially (and it is very important that you keep this in mind) the hull of Churchill III is completely unchanged in terms of armor from the Churchill’s I-II, which I had covered in depth here (add link to first article). As a refresher what we are looking at is 3 inches on the lower front plate, 3.5 on the upper front plate (with areas of overlap equaling 7 inches around the bow gun), 2.5 on the side and 2 at the rear, with a .5 inch mild steel frame behind the armor as backing and a small shield.

In the last article, we discussed the hulls near frontal immunity to the antitank gun of the Churchill’s introduction, the 5 cm Pak 38. However, by the time the Churchill starts entering combat in late 42 and early 43 the newer 7.5 cm Pak 40 is becoming commonplace, and by 1944 it is ubiquitous. So, we shall grade the Churchill’s hull against that weapon.
And it’s not good news.

The Pak 40 can penetrate a Churchill’s hull from the front reliably at about 1700 meters. The side, from 3 km flat on. Even at the optimum angling of about 30 degrees, the Churchill’s hull can still be reliably penetrated at 500 meters. The Kwk 40 L/48 (the gun of Panzer IV and Stug III) penetrates at 1500 meters dead on, but there is a small zone of immunity at 40 degrees.
This is about equal to how a Sherman would stand up to it. In fact, from the front flat on, the Sherman just does better in most cases, ranging in guaranteed pens by Pak 40 from 1700 on down to 1100 depending on the variant. This is not a good case for the continued use of the Churchill in combat.

The turret of the Churchill III is a bit if a departure from previous British designs, being assembled from welded plates as opposed to cast or bolt on frame construction. This was a big leap for the British, who initially believed that it would break at the welds upon being shot at and comically fall apart. In testing though, it did not. So, it went into production, 3.5 inches of rolled homogeneous armor at the front, and 3 inches at the sides and rear.

Against the 5cm Pak 38 APC, it can only be reliably penetrated at about 250 meters from the front and 600 from the sides and back. Even APCR only buys it 500 meters from the front and 800 from the sides. But against the Pak 40 APCBC, it fares worse than the hull. Frontally it can be reliably penetrated from over 2 kilometers, and from the side about 3. At an optimal angle of 30-40 degrees it still can be defeated from around 500 meters.

Again, the Sherman, once it gets its gun shield, can resist the Pak 40 at about 1200 meters. So, the Churchill again is not making a good case for it to be used in combat in 1943. A quick note though, against the 88mm flak guns the Churchill does do a bit better, still being penetrated from 2 km from the turret front, but now being nearly completely immune if angled at 30-40 degrees. The hull can be defeated frontally from 1500 yards but shares that same zone of near immunity.

The welded turret of the Churchill III did have issues apart from being easily penetrated by the enemy’s main anti-tank gun. Without the mild steel frame, it created far more spall when hit than the cast turrets of the Churchill’s I-II or the armor on frame hull. From that standpoint, the British determined that a new turret needed to be made that could support the 6 pounder. This would be a cast turret like the original turret for the 2 pounder tanks.

The turret for the Churchill IV, which was shared for the Churchill V and VI, shared the same armor thickness all around as the Churchill III. The only difference in terms of thickness was in the roof, on Churchill III thickness was .75 inches, but on Churchill IV it was 1.375. One could expect the same results were it not for a difference in the grade of armor.

You may have noticed that for past articles I try and post the Brinell hardness number for the armor, to determine if it is soft and better able to resist stalling, or if it is hard and better able to resist penetration, but more susceptible to spalling. I have not done this for Churchill because I cannot find this number, because as best as I can tell the British did not use this number. And that’s because this number is… kind of dumb. Brinell hardness measures a plates deformation under pressure, but that does not really simulate impact force. The Izod impact test however does. And that is what the British used. All hull plates and the plates of the welded turret are specified at IT 80 (in this case 80 ft-lbs./in^2) but the cast turret is specified at IT 90. Thus, it is tougher, less prone to spall, and better able to resist impacts.

So, the results are not the same. But they still are not impressive. The Pak 40 can still penetrate frontally from 2 kilometers away, and only at a 40 degree angle is the turret able to resist the shells at ranges greater than 400 meters. Against the Kwk 40 L/48 it is marginally better at 1.5 km for a pen.

And so, it looks like the Churchill’s armor is clearly overrated, and truly is becoming a paper tiger.

That is, until the British upgrade it.

Oh boy, it ain’t dead yet!

Following the Tunisian campaign, it was discovered that the most likely places that the tank would be struck would be the turret front or the hull sides. As a result of this, on some tanks 20mm were applied to the hull sides around the crew compartment (forward of the side mounted air filters), bringing the side armor to 83.5mm plus the 12.7mm mild steel backing. This creates a zone of immunity from the Pak 40 and late war flak 88 from 40 to 50 degrees of angling, and 30 to 50 degrees for the early 88mm APCBC shells and l/48 Kwk 40. This is something, something that can’t be replicated by the other tanks in the British arsenal.

^{Churchill IV in Italy with side hull applique, and the longer Mk V six pounder}

But wait, there’s more.

To address the shells hitting the turret front the Churchill III turret was identified as being a good candidate for up armoring, as more armor could easily welded on. Churchill III’s were thus enhanced in 1944 with an additional 30mm welded to the turret fronts, and 20mm to the turret sides, giving 120mm of frontal armor and 96mm of side armor. This created a zone of immunity from the Pak 40, Kwk 40 L/48 and flak 88 between 30 and 50 degrees at all ranges. Moreover, the Pak 40 was now only capable of defeating the turret from the front at just over a kilometer. Still not great, but an improvement.

^{The Churchill III in this film is adorned with side applique armor and the uparmored turret, illustrated by they square armor pieces welded to the front.}

So, how about Churchill IV?

One field modification for the Churchill IV or VI added a roughly 1 inch thick external mantlet, reducing the range a Pak 40 can penetrate the front to 1200 meters, and creating a zone of immunity between 30 and 40 degrees. However, as a rule, the turret of the Churchill IV was Ill suited to adding armor due to its shape.

^{hard to see, but this Churchill IV or VI has the external mantlet modification, behind is a uparmored Churchill III}

The best that could really be done would be to slap some tracks on it.

Time for a disclaimer. After this point, you should not take any of my word as gospel, because I am going to attempt to answer the age-old question of if adding tracks to your tank helps or hurts your armor. None of what I am about to tell you is confirmable, it is just a lot of assumptions and reasoning for them. Alright? Alright.

So, when you get right down to it, there is one argument for slapping tracks onto your tank as armor, and one argument against. The argument for is simple. The enemy shell must get through more material. The argument against is not. The track, if sufficiently soft, can act as a ballistic cap for armored piercing round and improve a shells performance against face hardened and sloped armor. This makes sense when you think about Panther. The Panther for most of its run has face hardened armor, and is fighting usually fighting against Soviet tanks that do not use soft steel capped shells, so tracks would act as a cap for those shells and help them defeat the face hardened armor, provided that the tracks are made of a softer grade of steel than the face hardened armor.

For Churchill, this gets a lot more suspect. For one, the Churchill did not use face hardened armor. So, there is a question of if it was using soft steel armor (which I do not know the answer to because they don’t post Brinell hardness numbers) and if it was whether adding tracks would even act as a cap. A soft steel ballistic cap only helps against face hardened or uniformly hard armor. Against soft steel, it is a hinderance.

So, while we do not know what sort of hardness the armor of the Churchill has, nor do we know the hardness of any of the cast steel tracks, we do know the hardness of the German shells. Its damn hard, and the ballistic cap, as opposed to being a soft cap as in American and British doctrine, is also damn hard, trying to just be harder than any armor it meets (including the Soviet 500 Brinell hardness plates on T-34). Thusly, any concerns about tracks acting as a soft cap for the round can probably be dismissed, as in this case a soft cap would be detrimental to the penetration abilities of the shell. The concern about improving performance against sloped armor is somewhat moot on Churchill, as it has flat armor. For shells hitting an angled Churchill this may be an issue, but Again that is predicated on the armor of the tank being much harder than the tracks. I do not know if this is the case.

But there is one set of tracks that we do know about, and that would be the manganese steel tracks that were murder to replace. A little background on these tracks. Manganese steel is well known for the following factors, number one being a very high resistance to impact. This sounds rather helpful so far. The second is its ability to be work hardened. Manganese starts out soft, but when force or impacts are put upon it the steel hardens rapidly. But it does not get any more brittle. The steel starts at around 200 Brinell hardness, but when work hardening occurs this will rocket up to 550 Brinell hardness. This also sounds rather helpful. As a rule, manganese steel has an IT rating of 100. This is better than both turrets so far. I don’t know how else to put this, but this track has all the hallmarks and things that one would look for in armor steel. It seems that the only reason that manganese is not used as armor is because the only material that can reliably machine it once it has been cast is diamond or carbide. Again, all of this seems like this is the ideal thing to slap on your tank in an effort to up armor it.

And there is anecdotal evidence that supports this. For one, in Tunisia as a part of the end of campaign report made by the 25th armor division they compared the tracks and stated quite unequivocally that the manganese track held up to enemy fire the best. The second bit of evidence is from a Cromwell tank, covered with track, that blocked 5 Pak 40 rounds from 300 yards. The Cromwell is not a well armored tank, but its tracks are manganese steel.

So, I have made my argument that if the tank in question has applied Cromwell, or the correct pattern of Churchill tank tracks, that they will function as effectively good quality armor plate. So, let’s see what happens if we slap this on the front, all over the turret, and on the sides of a Churchill. Note, the Churchill III turret with applique armor already applied and hulls with applique armor generally seem to not have gotten tracks slapped on them, likely for weight reasons.

With 30mm thick manganese tracks on the hull front and hull sides, and take this with a grain of salt, the Pak 40 can only penetrate the front dead on from a bit less than 1 kilometer. At 30 degrees, it’s looking pretty not possible. Between 30 and 50 degrees there is immunity. For a Panzer IV or Stug, 300 meters seems to be the max, and any angle puts the whole endeavor in doubt. Even the tigers 88 has a zone of immunity between 30 and 50 degrees (but can still pen the front from a kilometer and a half). For tracks on a Churchill IV turret the Pak can penetrate frontally at just over a kilometer, but with a zone of immunity from 30 to 50 degrees. Pretty similar to the Up armored Churchill IIIs turrets.

Again, take all of this with a grain of salt, or the whole shaker. And keep in mind that cast steel track will undoubtedly be a poorer performer than manganese at the same cost in weight. And Sherman tracks? Forget it. Lots of tanks armored with tracks most likely had the wrong sort to help it out, but the conditions existed that could allow the Churchill’s armor to be improved by tracks (again, in my opinion).

^{heavily tracked Churchills of the Coldstream Guards. lurking at the back of the column is a Panther. This is not a ambush, but the captured tank 'Cuckoo' named for the bird}

So, in conclusion, the Churchill’s armor cannot be called great. It can be penetrated from greater ranges than one would want a heavy tank to be penetrated from by common weapons because of the nature of its flat armor. However, with upgrades, a lot can be said for the fact that it has zones of complete immunity from the most common antitank guns of the enemy. Even Panthers and Tigers will have trouble dispatching a up armored and angled Churchill. And that’s better than can be said for most western tanks of the time.

^{mostly hidden by a map, this Churchill III with uparmored turret has suffered a intense gouge in the armor, but is still clearly in good condition.}

Armament:

In the beginning when the tank was being specified and designed, it was always the intent that the Churchill would carry the newly designed ordinance QF 6 pounder cannon as standard. However, with the Fall of France and the massive loss of equipment, the 6 pounder was delayed in introduction as production of the 2 pounder was paramount. So, the gun originally specified would have to wait until Churchill III to finally be mounted on the tank.

The six pounder as introduced on the Churchill III, and indeed the first one produced, was the Mk III. Mk I was specified to have a l/50 barrel, which with a 57mm bore meant that it would be 2.85 meters in length. Production issues and concerns with the manufacturability of the cannon necessitated that this be reduced to a l/43 (2.45 m) in order to be produced in greater quantities by more manufacturers.

But as usual, the shell is almost more important than the cannon that shoots it. In the case of the later war rounds, things are straightforward. However, the rounds first used on the 6 pounder are a point of contention due to strange naming practices.
The first round used on the 6 pounder was a AP shell. The problem I am having is determining which of the 8 different Marks of AP shell that existed were used. Worse yet, most of them have the same weight, diagrams are nonexistent, and all penetration tables that I have run into so far only specify 1 AP penetration value without specifying the shell used. And it gets worse. The shells are named sequentially. The Mk I AP. The Mk II AP. And so on. When we get to a new type of shell, the mark still changes sequentially. The Mk VIII APC. The Mk IX APCBC. The Mk X HE. But then, when we get to APCR and APDS, it drops back to Mk I. The Mk I APCR. The Mk I APDS. And finally, just to screw with future researchers, there are 2 rounds that break the rules entirely. First is the AP shell MK VIII, which shares the same numeral as the APC round, and the second is the HE shell Mk VII, which shares the same numeral as the AP shell Mk VII. So, either there are a total of 8 undisclosed HE rounds, 8 undisclosed APCBC rounds, and 7 APC rounds that are never touched upon and they just nailed the APCR and APDS designs on the first try, or their naming system is just nonsense.

So anyway, I must attempt to determine which AP shell is being referenced when all these trial reports say AP. Real fun. Especially when all the penetration tables that I have seen don’t reference the Mk of shell. They just reference the gun, the muzzle velocity and the mass of the shell. Oh, did I mention that there is a supercharge case for every one of these 8 AP shells. Combined with the long and short guns, that’s 4 unique and individual muzzle velocities possible for each round for a grand total of 32 marginally different penetration characteristics. Shoot me with one of them, I don’t much care which.

So, we’re going to give up, and quote the penetration values that we have for our AP shell. Which, based on the weight of the shell in the chart and the known weight of shells is either a Mk IV or Mk VI AP.

For the initial gun, which is basically the one we’d expect to be shooting AP, the round has a muzzle velocity of 2675 ft per second. It is capable of penetrating 117 mm of flat rolled homogenous armor at 100 yards (90 meters), and about 80 at 1000 (914 meters), which would be cool if, you know, the Germans didn’t use face hardened armor on everything. Against the Panzer III, it can penetrate at about 700 yards head on. If the tank angles at 30 degrees, it can’t beat the front armor, but the side at 30mm is so weak that any shots there, at a meager 30 degrees will go straight through up to (theoretically) 2300 yards or two kilometers. Against the Panzer IV with 50mm of frontal armor, it can penetrate from the front at 1500 yards (1400 meters), but angled at 30 degrees it is the same story as with Panzer III, the side armor is so thin that angling at 30 degrees, while it reduces the front armors ability to be penetrated to 1000 yards exposes the side to penetration. Against these vehicles, common in North Africa, the Churchill dominates.

However, once the Panzer IV G shows up, that domination begins to fade. The 6 pounder AP can barely penetrate the front plate at even 300 yards. The immediate answer was to supercharge the round up to 2800 ft per second. As with the 2 pounder of the Churchill I and II though, the supercharge is a mediocre solution at best, with the penetration range only going up to 500 yards or so flat on.

Luckily at this point, the British had already been producing a solution. The Mk VIII APC round was approved in October of 1942, and did offer improved performance, able to defeat 80mm at 30 degrees at 750 yards. This is a bit better than the following round, the MK IX APCBC introduced in January of 1943, which could only beat 80 mm of face-hardened armor at 500. This round however was better against homogenous armor and maintained its energy far better.

And indeed, the solutions just kept coming. The Mk III 6 pounder cannon was beginning to lose its edge against the new Panzer IV’s and Stug III’s but even in august of 1942 the longer barreled MK V was being produced, and by spring of 1943 were beginning to show up on the battlefield. Too late for Tunisia perhaps, but in time for Italy. AP fired from this cannon could penetrate over 100mm of homogenous armor at 30 degrees point blank but was again not so useful against the face-hardened armor of the enemy vehicles. The APC fired from this gun could defeat 80mm of flat face-hardened plate at 1300 yards and angled at 30 degrees could still do it at about 900 yards. The APCBC could do better though, penetrating 80mm of face-hardened armor at 1750 yards (1600 meters) and penetrating 80mm at 30 degrees at 1000 yards (900 m). Inside of half a kilometer, it was even possible to penetrate a Tiger frontally with this gun and round.

However, half a kilometer was not enough. So, the British made another solution. In January of 1944, the 6 pounder APDS Mk I was introduced. It was capable of penetrating 100mm of homogenous armor at 1500 yards and 30 degrees angled. Flat on it could do the deed at over two kilometers. The turret of the Panther was readily defeatable at any range with this round, and it is only the Panther front hull that can finally put a stop to it.

But if you read the Firefly article, you know that this is very dependent on if the round even hits in the first place. So, let’s try and see the accuracy.

The results that I have for this are both very practical, and very nonscientific. I cannot give a good account of the dispersion of the shell, in mils or in a distance at a range, but the test should serve as a good litmus test for the practical use of 6 pounder APDS.

In November of 1944 a Sherman Firefly, a Churchill IV with the Mk V six pounder, and a Comet for kicks and gigs lined up on a test range. Their target, a 2 ft tall by 5 ft wide imitation of a Panther turret. The goal shoot at it a bunch from 500, 800, and 1000 yards to see the odds of hitting it and compare the accuracy of APCBC to APDS for the guns. The 6 pounder had more ammo at hand, so at each range it would shoot 150 APCBC rounds, and 90 APDS. For comparison, the Firefly would shoot 100 APC rounds and 40 APDS.

At 500 yards, 6 pounder APCBC had a 74% chance of hitting, which seems low. This is the same chance that the 6 pounder APDS had. So far, the APCBC is looking kind OF bad, but the APDS is looking pretty good. For comparison, the 17 pounder was able to hit 88 percent of its APCBC, but only 42 percent of its APDS. Moving to 800 yards, the percent chance of hit with 6 pounder APCBC drops to 73%. The odds of hitting with APDS are exactly 50/50. By this test, the odds of hitting a Panther turret with 17 pounder APC is 66 percent at this range, and 21% with APDS. Note that APC seems to be less accurate than APCBC for firefly. Finally, at 1000 yards the 6 pounder APCBC hits 62 % of the time, and APDS 37%. The 17 pounder APC hits 52% of its shots, and the APDS a miserable 14%.

So, in all, it seems that the APDS on the six pounder is at least twice as accurate than the 17 pounders APDS. The argument is if it is accurate enough to be effective. I would say kind of. Because consider, this is just a Panther turret. Obviously against a Panther from the front a 37% chance to hit the only place you can penetrate from a thousand yards is not great, but it is a chance, which is better than you would get with a 75mm Sherman or a Cromwell. Second, let’s say that you run into a hull down Panther. In the Churchill, statistically, you will hit it within 3 rounds. In the Firefly, you will hit within 8. 8 rounds that take longer to reload mind you, and you only have 5 in the ready rack. Moreover, 37%, and this is just my opinion, makes me think that the 6 pounder is at least throwing shells into the ballpark, and against a not hull down vehicle there is probably better than 50% odds that you will be able to hit it. 14%, and again this is just, like, my opinion man, is basically praying for a hit and against a target twice the size there are still great odds against a hit. I would say, and again my opinion, that the 6 pounder crossed the barrier into being accurate enough. Not accurate, but accurate enough to at least be a somewhat serviceable at weapon against the big cats, provided they were within 1000 yards, as most tank on tank combat in Europe was.

So finally, after that deluge of antitank rounds (and exempting the ACPR, because it looks like that did not see much service) we come to the other rounds for the 6 pounder. These are the two HE rounds. The first is the Mk VII HE. Precious little is known about it apart from the fact that it was made in 1942 to early 1942 and was issues in north Africa and Tunisia. That, and after a lot of digging, it had an explosive content of about 180 grams.

Boo, weak. Better than nothing, but only just.

Which is why in early to mid-1943, a replacement was made, this being the Mk X HE.

And now, another disclaimer.

War Thunder is a horrible, horrible, primary source. Unless you have some evidence that backs what it is saying it should be treated with the same respect as far as historical accuracy goes as World of Tanks. Let me give you just the examples of inaccuracies that I have found confirming thoughts on this article so far. War Thunder thinks that the Panzer IV F2, G and H used homogenous armor plate on its frontal armor, when they just didn’t. The 6 pounder on the Churchill III is modeled as a Mk III, which is correct, but inexplicably fires all of its shells like they are coming out of the long barreled Mk V. And they won’t fix that obvious flaw in ballistics because the German captured premium Churchill III uses these buffed ballistics too and changing it would be a nerf to a paid for product. And these are real simple things to not screw up, but War Thunder does so anyway because it is a shit video game.

All that being said, it has the Mk X HE shell as firing with a muzzle velocity of 655 m/s (2150 ft/s) and an explosive filling of 590 grams. This is more than the 17 pounders first few HE shells, and 200 grams more than the American 76mm. This isn’t even too far off the soviet 76mm of the T-34 at 621 grams of explosive.

And despite everything that I said about War Thunder being a shit resource, I completely believe these numbers. They could be totally wrong, but I think they're right.

So why do I think that this shit video game is right and if I do think that it is right, then how the hell does a 57mm shell manage to carry as much or up to 50% more explosive than a 76mm?

The main thing that inhibits the amount of explosive that can be put into a shell is muzzle velocity. That determines how much material is needed to keep the shell from shattering due to the shock of being fired from a gun. The faster the shell, the stronger the case needs to be, and the less explosive you can fit in the void area. So, to drop the muzzle velocity we got to reduce that charge. That means less propellant. If you have less propellant, either you need an inert material to fill the rest of the casing, you need a smaller casing, or magical option c, you make the shell bigger to take up the space for the missing propellant. Suddenly, you are shooting a larger shell, at a slower speed with thinner shell walls, that can be filled with much more explosive. Makes sense, right?

This does fit with the War Thunder stats, slower round, more explosive. It also fits with how the final HE round of the 17 pounder and 77mm cannons was improved, the secretive and coveted reduced charge high capacity super high explosive Mk IT, or RCHCSHE IT for short. But I’ll string you along until I cover the Comet in a year and a half before I reveal the characteristics of that round. But, seeing how that is a documented (poorly, I may hasten to add) shell that reduces the charge, expands the shell, and ups the HE content I am content to believe that the 6 pounder did similarly. I may be wrong, but I’ll stand by this until proven otherwise.

So, that is the 6-pounder taken care of. In all, a perfectly suitable antitank gun that by the time of Normandy sits between the 75mm and the 76mm of the Americans, but with a clever party trick up its sleeve and a HE round that punches far above its weight. It is very close, one more accurate sabot round away in my view, to being flatly superior to the US 76mm in every conceivable way and going toe to toe with the soviet 85mm. This is a fantastic cannon. It is so good, in fact, that Montgomery explicitly requests that every Churchill troop in the European theater have at least one 6 pounder cannon Churchill in it. That means that until the end of the war, one in 3 Churchill’s was a 6 pounder.

But that isn’t the only gun that the Churchill III-VI used. Not a bit. Let’s cover the others in a speed round.

First, the Churchill VI used as standard the QF 75mm. It’s just a 6-pounder bored out to 75mm for American shells. Already talked about this when I talked about the Cromwell, just read all about it there. Quick note though. Because of the greater general utility of the gun over the 6 pounder ( you give up some anti-armor performance for the ability to create smoke and more HE boom, and that just matters more) the gun was added into Churchill IV’s and III’s as needed. So, a cast turret Churchill with a 75mm is not necessarily a Churchill VI.

Moving on to the Churchill V. the main difference between Churchill V and Churchill IV is the armament, with the Churchill V using the QF 95mm howitzer. I also covered this in the Cromwell article, and I said it was horridly inaccurate shit.

That’s because I’m dumb.

Time to eat some crow. the reason that I thought that the gun was so terribly inaccurate is because I did not understand how artillery indirect fire is measured. It is totally different from the direct fire measurement, because it is being accomplished differently. Indirect fire is not done by looking though a scope mount at the target and shooting at it. It is done by moving the gun to angles that should result in the shell hitting a coordinate on a map, and as such is going to be less accurate, particularly in the horizontal plane. So, that horizontal dispersion being measured in yards. Par for the course. That’s how essentially all WWII artillery is measured.

So, with that out of the way, time for a reappraisal, first as a direct fire weapon, and then against other artillery pieces.
Now, in the direct fire role, I cannot find a trial for this gun’s accuracy. So, he is what I will do. I have the accuracy of the Sherman firing the M48 in the direct fire role from the soviets. I have the dispersion of the Sherman firing the M48 in the artillery role from the British, and I have the dispersion of the 95mm howitzer. I will compare the dispersion of the two guns in the artillery roll, and then multiply the Soviet results by the percent increase or decrease in dispersion that the 95mm howitzer. So, here we go.

Alright, after a bit of math, I have the results. If you want, like most things in this article, you can completely disregard them, because they are doubtlessly wrong. This is only meant to give a approximation. Anyways, you could expect to put 90 percent of fire from the 95mm howitzer firing direct in a rectangle 1.5 yards in height and 1 yard in width at a range of 500 meters (457 yards). This is a damn sight better than what I had stated in the Cromwell article (which was .6 yards by 30 in length as a refresher). It is interesting to note the difference in which axis has less accuracy. It makes sense though. In indirect fire, the elevation is more accurate because you are measuring off the gun angle, but in direct fire range estimation is going to be the main cause of your error. Anyway, at 500 yards, this gun is plenty enough accurate. Moving on, we expect our 90% box to expand to 6 x 2.5 at 1000 meters, 11.5 x 5 by 1500, 20 x 7.5 at 2000, 25 x 9 at 2500, and 35 x 13.5 at 3000. After that, it is best to assume that the tank is firing in the artillery setup.

So, in the direct fire role, this gun is not blisteringly accurate, but for its intended targets of stationary structures, it does seem to be accurate enough for at least 2000 yards. My estimation, anyway. Interpret these results as you will. I suppose though that it would be worthwhile to compare this to other weapons in the artillery role. Against the M3 75mm, the most direct comparison that I have, it is about a third as accurate in the vertical plane, and about 2/3 as accurate in the horizontal.

Finally, I must say that the idea of a close support large howitzer mounted in a tank for direct fire against structures makes much more sense with a heavy tank that can resist fire like Churchill than a lightly armored tank such as Cromwell. Of course, in the artillery role, there is little to choose between the two, and having the option in a troop of Cromwell’s is nice, but in general the Churchill’s application is more viable.

To sum up, the guns of the Churchills III-VI are all in my view quite solid. The QF 75mm us a good all-purpose gun with abilities to defeat most armor it runs across, smoke, and good HE effect. The 6 pounder for its size is probably the best anti-tank weapon of the war, able to easily deal with all members of the Panzer IV and Stug families and able to put a dent in Tigers and even Panthers with its APDS, only let down by less than stellar APDS accuracy. Similarly, the 95mm howitzer fills the niche of having a heavy bunker buster adequately, being let down by its accuracy but still being useful. The Churchill III-VI not incredibly armed, but it is well appointed, especially considering the turret ring limitations.

Mobility:

For, the most part, we already know about the mobility of the Churchill. We know the Merritt Brown steering system provides high degrees of control and finesse, as well as the ability to neutral steer. We know that the tank can climb over obstacles up to 5 ft in height, the best of any tank in the war. We also know that it is slow, topping out at 15 mph, and that’s before we started adding applique armor and tracks to it. Further, we know the hp to ton ratio is a miserable 9.1, a terrible score, and again before we start adding tracks and applique to it. At the end of the day, there are but 2 questions to be answered.

The first is how the tank did in mud. After all, with its throwback design performance in mud is kind of what it was supposed to be good at. So, a trials report is in order. Mediterranean area AFV technical report 27, to be precise about it. This report focuses primarily on Sherman’s, with 6 taking part in the trial to determine how different types of extenders and grousers improve the tanks characteristics. As a control, there was a Churchill IV, and as a comparison, a Panther.

The trial involved the following. The tank would climb a 4-foot embankment onto a road, after which it would descend a 6 ft embankment into a ditch with 2 ft of standing water at the bottom. The ditch was about 9-14 ft wide and ended with a 3 foot climb out though the muddy bank. After this, 80 yards of hard going through a plowed field that had been saturated with water for 3 days. In all, quite the thick mud.

So, results, or at least the results that we care about. Sherman with regular tracks climbs the embankment, descends into the ditch, and that’s all she wrote. The Sherman with end connectors does better. It climbs out of the ditch and begins to make its way across the field of mud, but 20 yards in, and no more headway can be made. So now the Panther comes up. Crushes the embankment, charges down into the ditch and out the other side, and into the mud field. And then grinds to a near halt, treads spinning and kicking up mud but not really going anywhere, or at least not going anywhere quickly. After a while (no distance mentioned, regrettably) the gearbox breaks, and it’s done. Living up to the Panther reputation. Now the Churchill. Goes over the embankment, down into the ditch, out again, and 75 out of 80 yards across the field before getting stuck. So close. But then, under its own power, it reverses out of the patch it got stuck in, and crawls forward in first gear, ploughing through it and out the other side. It is the only vehicle that manages the course without special tracks.

Indeed, the vehicle proving grounds at Surry remarked that in mud the Churchill had better traction than any other German, British, or American tank. I suspect that the only reason that they didn’t lump soviet vehicles in was that they did not have them on hand to test.

So, performance in mud. Big check.

There is only one more question to be answered. And that is if the Churchills famed climbing ability is real. The stories about Churchill that it really builds its reputation on are that of Longstop Hill, and Steamroller Farm in Tunisia. In both cases, Churchill’s ascended hills that the defending Germans believed granted them immunity from tanks, and then, after shrugging off antitank fire, proceeded to lay waste to the entire enemy position single handedly. There are numerous accounts of the Germans being incredulous to the idea that tanks attacked these positions until presented with overwhelming evidence.
But, when something is heightened like this, that’s the time to look skeptically. After all, the Churchill weighs 40 tons and has an abysmal power to weight ratio. Its torque isn’t even as good as a M4A3 Sherman, and that tank has no real notes ability to climb. Things get more concerning when you see claims that the Churchill climbed hills as steep as 1:3 at longstop hill! But a quick search confirms that 1:3 gradient is an angle of only 18 degrees. That is kind of steep, but not anything too crazy. We really need a trials report to put this to rest.

And thanks to the Australians, we got one.

A Sherman with rubber tracks could only manage about a 26 degrees slope, similarly with steel tracks. With grousers, it could summit hill with a max slope of 34 degrees. And so could the Churchill. The next test was to see the maximum slope the tanks could climb. The Sherman with grousers could almost manage 40 degrees, but at that point the engine couldn’t haul the tank up. The Churchill, however, could. And it kept going, until at a 42 degree slope the trial was called off, not because the tank had stopped, but because it was no longer deemed safe to continue. The Churchill’s hill climbing ability is proven.

In fact, if the Churchill was magically able to go 30 mph, it would be the most mobile vehicle of the war. Bust as it cannot, it gets a 2-tiered result. In armored warfare against mechanized enemy’s, the Churchill is not particularly mobile. But against a static position, no vehicle is going to be as likely to get to it and destroy it as a Churchill is. In all, I think the mobility is good.

Reliability:

The reliability of the Churchill III, mercifully, starts at the level of reliability of the reworked Churchills I and II. To remind you, this means that a Churchill has about a 2/3 chance of going 1000 Miles without any major breakdowns. And in its first campaign in Tunisia, it did not really have a chance to test this. The 25th tank brigade, which was using Churchills, recorded in March of 1943 that so far their tanks had averaged 400-500 miles, with few issues. At this point at least one had reached 850 miles and it was still in decent condition. By the close of the campaign the average had risen to 1200 miles, 500 of that in the mountains and hills. And the tanks were still more or less combat capable. As a better comparison to German tanks that they get compared against, there is an instance of 9 Churchills of the 25th tank army brigade did a 100-mile continuous march on, and at the end of it all were still operation and ready to continue fighting. Such a trip has been shown to be a near death sentence for King Tiger, and 100 miles is greater than the average lifetime of a panther’s final drives. Even after the first rework, the Churchill is at least reliable enough for its role.

But reliable enough is never enough, and with data from the first trials of the reworked tanks plans were made for further improvements. First, they checked what the rework program had fixed.

The new manganese tracks had resolved the issues with the original heavy cast, and the newer light cast had solved the issue with replacing them. The changes made to strengthen the suspension had worked, and that component was now reliable and not expected to fall apart on long marches. The new air intake design, combined with the mud guards, largely eliminated the issues with mud the original design posed. The only spots of trouble that remained were with the engine and the transmission.
and so, they would receive refinements.

The engine, after the initial rework, received no less than 6 more major design refinements, the original rework would label the Bedford engine with the suffix R for rework. Any additional changes would be R1, R2, and so on. The items that were changed for each of these are essentially unknown to me, as David fletcher gets bored of discussing them. What he mentioned is a change of tappets from hydraulic to mechanical and using bolts as opposed to studs on the connecting rods.

The gearbox received even more modifications, from R through R8. Changes included but were not limited to changing the gear selector mechanism, changing gears 3 and 4 from double helical to a simpler spur gear (showing that the robust double helical is not strictly a better choice for everything).

So, with all these changes to the two most troublesome remaining elements of the Churchill, the question becomes what the tanks reliability is by the wars end. To this end, David fletchers best offering is a statement that no Churchills broke down during a parade at Kiel on VE day even after weeks of combat, a mediocre piece of evidence at best.
The best thing that I can find for it is a statement from the 21st army group on 7 May 1945. On a book about Comet of all things. It has the following quote in terms of conclusions.

“In general great confidence is expressed by all ranks in the effectiveness and reliability of British armour, both Cromwell and comet are compared favorably on the grounds of reliability and improved immunity under attack. The Churchill remains extremely popular, and as beaten its own previous record in distances run without mechanical trouble.”

This can mean one of two things. The first is that the Churchill is more reliable than it was before but has only set a personal record. The second is that the Churchill has set the record in 21st army group for longest distance run without failing and has broken that record again. The first means nothing, the second means the Churchill is now possibly the most reliable tank of the war. And I can’t figure out what exactly is meant, and it makes me mad.

Repairability:

While reliability may have improved, the ease of maintenance was not, at least not substantially. Apart from alteration to the engine brackets that facilitate replacement, the tank is unchanged. Perhaps we have finally found our annoying to repair but reliable tank.

Ergonomics:

The driver’s position is completely unchanged, a good position apart from miserable side to side visibility. However, late in the war taller periscopes start to be field modified onto the tanks, and standard on the Churchill VI.
As a note, many of the changes in Churchill VI from Churchill IV (75) will be covered here, as outwardly they are very very similar tanks.

^{take note of the raised periscopes up front, this is one of the few ways to identify a Churchill VI with some degree of accuracy}

The bow gunners seat is vastly improved simply due to the fact that the bow gunner is no longer doing everything, just bow gunning. Like on Cromwell, he has both a telescope (the same as the gunners with identical markings) attached to the besa, and a periscope, allowing for both precision and area suppression shooting. He retains the auxiliary steering controls. The main drawback, apart from the same visibility issues that plague the driver, is that the bears field of fire is limited by how much the tracks extend forward of the tank. In all, this position is much improved. Also, I did not mention the hull pannier hatches last time, but these provide not only a convenient place to restock the tank from, but also exits for both driver and bow gunner. Truly a handy addition.

Things get interesting with the gunner’s position. A few things have changed since last time. The first and most immediately obvious is that the 6 pounder/ 75mm is a much larger gun than the 2 pounder, and as a result, the already cramped turret gets even more so. The Soviets put this space at 18 inches wide. The average width of a 20-year-old male’s shoulders is 16 inches. That is tight. The second, and the main misstep as far as layout goes, is that the besa has been moved from the right-hand side of the turret to the left hand. While this does not affect the gunner’s room, it does increase his workload, because he now must at a minimum assist in loading the gun, and at a max do the whole process on his own. Any assistance from the loader must be done reaching over the cannon. The most interesting change is how the gun is elevated.

Initially, it was decided that the Churchill with the 6 pounder ought to transition from the free elevation of the 2 pounder to geared elevation. The first of these used straight cut gears and did not work particularly well at all. It was adjusted to use beveled gears, but this was also a bit of a disappointment. So they went back to free elevation. The first mount tried was of quite a clever design, using a pair of springs wrapped around a shaft to retain the guns elevation while also insulating the gun from hard terrain. Once it reached the manufacturers though, they denounced it as being impossible to build. So, a simpler rack and pinion elevation lock was made, and this would be the standard for most of the Churchill III's and Churchill IV's. The Churchill VI coming standard with the 75mm was slated to have geared elevation as standard as well but come the start of production it was not ready, so a free elevation with a different elevation lock was used instead. Finally, geared elevation started production, appearing on some Churchill VI's as well as some 75mm conversions of the Churchill III and IV. In all, free elevation was the rule as opposed to the exception. The free elevation used a pair of grips with one trigger each as its firing mechanism, the left one being for the besa and the right for the cannon. On the geared elevation the trigger was a foot pedal.

The 95mm Churchill V used geared elevation for its entire run. Initially they used the insufficient geared elevation that Churchill III started production, but when the improved one was introduced in late 1943 for Churchill VI, a similar improvement was added for the V. It is possible that this improved mount and elevation system increased the accuracy and some anecdotal evidence points to this, but without knowing when the trial from earlier occurred, there is no conclusion to be drawn.

The final and most disappointing change made was with the Churchill IV-VI. They took out the gunner’s periscope. Why? That’s a great question. I wish I had an answer. But all I have is evidence of British people discussing how important a gunner’s periscope is which makes this change even more confusing to me. this report that mentions how imperative the gunners periscope is was submitted in may of 1943 as a part of the end of the Tunisia campaign, one would hope that at that point there would be as a part of a rework or field modification program a move to cut a hole in the turret tops to mount a periscope, but to my knowledge this did not happen. It seems however that this change would have been not just possible but easy, especially compared to what needed to be adjusted to make the Churchill NA 75 (which I aint covering, but will show a picture of)

An attempt was made to account for the worst of the gunner’s blindness in the form of a vane sight for the commander. This was a bit of metal mounted in front of the commander’s hatch, that when looked though would show the commander the field of view of the gunner’s periscope, and thus if he could see the target or not. While crude and no replacement for a telescope it is more than the Germans ever received.

^{See that little thing between that air filter that should be moved and replaced with a periscope and the cupola? that's the vane sight.}

Finally, we must note the gunner’s sights. The 6 pounder and 75 mm guns got essentially the same sights, with only the range gradients changing between the two. During Tunisia these were 1.9 power with a 21 degree field of view, with experience gained from the combat this was adjusted to a 3 power with a 13 degree field of view, however both were available.
On Churchill III, the gunner’s seat is very middle of the road. Such things as well laid out controls and a periscope for general observation are positives, but the besa being on his side and the cramped conditions are a minus. In all it is workable but not ideal. On the Churchill IV-VI though, it is just not good. Missing that periscope has a decided mark against it, and after that… there really isn’t much going for it.

The loaders position may not be much better, if at all. The Soviets estimated that he had a area of 380 by 700 mm to work with. That 15 inches by 27. This is a tiny amount of room to work with. The best indicator of loaders ergonomics is most likely the rate of fire achievable. On Churchill, this appears to be about 10 rpm at a a dead stop, and 8 on the move. This about corresponds to a Panthers rof, and keep in mind that the Panther was no ergonomic dream for its loader, and the ammunition is far larger. The gunner does have a pair of ready racks, one of 4 rounds on the floor to his left and one of 21 to his right for a total of 25 easily accessible rounds. On Churchill VI These bins, and all others in the tank, are protected by 4mm of armor, helping to ward off ammunition fires. Apart from this, he has a rotatable periscope, smoke launcher (impeding on the little space he has) and a loaders hatch above him. Again, the main issue with layout of this position is the besa being moved to the other side, but mainly that lack of space is really cutting into the ability of the loader to do his job.

The commander’s position is essentially unchanged from that on Churchill I and II. He has a rotating cupola with two periscopes, and the number 19 wireless behind him. In all apart from the universally constrained room, this is a decent enough cupola. It also has a neat party trick and field modification. During the Normandy campaign there was a fear of snipers allowing the tank by and then shooting the commander, so it is documented that numerous Churchill’s had an bullet proof shield welded onto the cupola behind the split hatch, this combined with the split hatch being able to be locked vertical, allowed the commander to command at eyeball defilade with immunity from sniper fire in any direction but the front. It is something at least.

^{See how well protected the commander is while still having great vision to the front, and decent side vison due to the cupola periscopes. Also note the vane sight, and that the air filter has been moved to the center front of the turret. that thing with the 4 screws is the PLM mount, and we must never speak of it.}

Further than this, starting with the Churchill VI, but being field modified onto Churchill’s III, IV, and V was the excellent all-round vision cupola, used also on Cromwell’s and Sherman firefly’s, and to be covered next article. Suffice to say it was a major upgrade for the commander. Also introduced on Churchill VI was the infantry telephone at the back of the tank, a boon for infantry coordination.

^{This picture makes me want to travel back in time and kick the photographer. Anyway, the turret on this Churchill... IV 75mm? or VI, cant tell, has a ARV cupola as well as external mantlet.}

So, in all the Churchill’s ergonomics have taken a bit of a hit. It seems that every position save the commanders has at least one major issue, before we even get to how cramped the turret is. If they didn’t switch the besa around, at least it would only be a issue of space, but they did. As far as I’m concerned, the Churchill’s ergonomics barely squeak up to an average score for the Churchill III and are at least a bit compromised for Churchills IV-VI.

Production:

The Churchill III started production in February of 42, but the concerns with its turret cut it’s time short with only 675 built. In late 42 the Churchill IV began production, eventually reaching 1622 in total by mid 1943. The Churchill V had 241 units built in 1943, and the Churchill VI a further 242. 400 two pounder Churchills were converted to the standard of a Churchill IV. In all, that makes for 3,100 total Churchills of this family. In late ‘43 242 (again) Churchill III's were modified with the 75mm gun, as were 820 Churchill IV's.

Conclusions:

In looking at the mid production Churchill’s, I found myself in a constant… dissonance. This was because I have a bias. I do my best to not have an opinion on any of these tanks until the research guides me to one. The problem here though is that I already had an opinion on Churchill, a strong one.

I really dig this tank.

When I went to The Tank Museum in Bovington, after looking at every single tank there, at the end of it all I was drawn back to the Churchill VII in the front hall. It was my favorite tank. Went to the gift shop, and bought one book. ‘Mr. Churchills Tank’ by David Fletcher. I also bought a dinky 1 dollar fridge magnet. Guess what was on it? And now I have 2 reasons to go back, because they have a pair of runners from the Churchill trust and you get it. I’m biased.

So, when we have these results, I am going to give 2 arguments. I believe that both are bore out by facts.
The first is that the Churchill is a disappointing heavy tank in comparison to its German and Soviet counterparts. The second is that despite its flaws, it is a good tank.

In terms of armor, against the expected cannons it would face one has a hard time calling it incredible. When the most common antitank gun in the enemy’s inventory can penetrate the front of your tank, and at a decent range too, that’s not great armor. But, when considering the Churchill’s armor upgrades (which still did not grant it frontal immunity) or the effects of angling, no other western tank would have any zones of immunity against these guns, and the Churchill has plenty. You could argue that the armor is bad for a heavy tank, but good in relation to most others.

Similarly, with the guns you could argue that the 6 pounder is ineffective against the cats, with a sporadic apds, or that it is effective against 80 percent of the vehicles it encounters and has a chance against anything else. You could say the 75mm is weak against armor, or that it is a good multi role weapon. You could say the howitzer is too inaccurate to be effective, or the tank allows the gun to be used more effectively.

Mobility, you could say it’s too slow, or you could say if any tank is going to get anywhere, it’s a Churchill.

With reliability, you could say that nothing is proven, and 2/3 chance to go 1000 miles isn’t good. Or you could say it was enough for Tunisia and could only get better from there.

With repairability and ergonomics, you could say that it was a pain to repair and too cramped to reach full effectiveness, or you could say… nothing, really, there's no other way to put it.

So, in all, as a heavy tank the Churchill fails. Its armor isn’t enough to grant more immunity to fire and its cannon doesn’t do anything that the medium tanks of the time can do as well. If we look at it as an assault tank, a tank that offers greater survivability than a medium but roughly the same combat characteristics, all of a sudden it’s looking pretty good. It can resist fire. It does have the logistic advantages of using the same ammo as the rest of the tanks of the army. It can go were other tanks cannot and it does support the infantry probably better than any other tank in the British army. In its role, it’s good.

Is it the best tank? No. It has flaws, and issues. But it also has personality. It’s a stubborn tank, in all ways. It stubbornly ploughs through mud that stops all others. it stubbornly climbs hills that it should not. It stubbornly refused to be put out to pasture in 1942 as is probably ought to have based on its record to date. Vauxhall stubbornly supported it through all the issues of its adoption until it became a good tank.

Is it a Paper Tiger, though, or in this case a Paper Bulldog? No, I don’t think so. I think this tank is rated about right. It turns out that the Soviets, not the Germans, may have had the best conclusion when they inspected Churchills as a part of lend lease. It read as follows. “1. The English heavy tank Mk IV “Churchill” has sufficient armament, protection, and maneuverability to be capable of fighting German tanks effectively. 2. Currently, the Mk IV is an unfinished and unpolished design.” In both cases they are correct. The Churchill looks archaic compared to nearly any other tank of the time. But it got the job done.

To sum up, this is brilliant,

But I like this.

Nice article War Thunder isn't that bad there's much worse games out there. *looks at E.T.*

7134024
dude, its a shit video game. I mean, I'm playing it right now, but its still shit.

thanks for reading!

7134338
That's your opinion and I respect that, your welcome.