Churchill Tank

The Mk IV (A22) was named after Winston Churchill who was, at that time, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was also involved in the development of the tank as weapon during World War I.

The Churchill was a heavy British infantry tank used during World War II. It was well-known for its heavy armour and large longitudinal chassis with all-round tracks along with multiple bogies. It was also used as the design basis of many specialist vehicles.

All units were built by Vauxhall Motors from 1941 to 1945. A total of 7,368 units were produced. It weighed 38.5 tonnes with measurements of 7.4 metres in length, 3.3 metres in width and 2.5 metres in height. The crew consisted of a commander, gunner, loader, driver and co-driver/hull gunner. It had armour of 16 to 102 millimetres thick. The armaments included a QF 2 pounder and two 7.62 millimetre Besa machine guns. It was powered by a Bedford horizontally opposed twin-six petrol engine that was capable of 350 horsepower. The tank used a Merritt-Brown 4 speed constant mesh epicyclical gearbox. It had an operational range of 90 kilometres and maximum speed of 15 miles per hour.

The first Churchill prototypes were insufficiently tested and because of it the tank had several mechanical faults. The most obvious limitation was its underpowered, unreliable and inaccessible engine. Another major drawback was the weak armament which added to the poor performance during its first combat in the Dieppe Raid in August of 1942.

The Mk IV (A22) had over a dozen variants.