CHURCHILL MK IV AVRE WITH SBG BRIDGE

The Churchill A22 was a British heavy infantry tank of the Second World War. The first prototypes were built in 1940, and serial production was carried out in the period 1941-1945. In total, about 7,400 copies of this tank of all versions were produced, which makes it one of the most produced British tanks during the Second World War. Churchill it was powered by an engine Bedford 350 hp. The armament of the vehicle is - depending on the version - a single 40mm, 57mm or 75mm cannon or a 95mm howitzer and two 7.92mm Besa machine guns. Tank Churchill was constructed on the basis of a modified design of the A20 tank, which was built before 1939. Due to the huge losses in equipment suffered by the British army in the French campaign in 1940, the new vehicle was quickly put into mass production. It turned out to be a big mistake, because the first versions of the tank Churchill were underdeveloped, emergency and not very friendly to their crews. However, by 1942 most of the tank's defects revealed in the course of its operation had been removed and it turned out that the Churchill was quite a successful design. It had strong armor, good ability to overcome terrain obstacles and a low silhouette that facilitated the camouflage of the car. The disadvantages were poor armament and low top speed - only 13 km / h in the field! A dozen or so versions of this tank were made in the course of serial production. Chronologically, the first was the Churchill I, armed with a 2-pounder 40 mm gun in the turret and 76.2 mm howitzer in the hull of the vehicle - but it was highly underdeveloped and had a high failure rate. Churchill III soon followed - it had only the new 57mm ROQF 6-pounder gun in the turret and better armor. The version IV was very similar to version III - the most widely produced version, differing only in the method of turret production. Another major change came with the Churchill VII version, which received a 75mm main gun and clearly reinforced frontal armor. There was also a version VIII with the main armament of the 95 mm caliber howitzer in the turret. Specialized versions of Churchill also appeared. One of the more interesting ones is the Churchill AVRE, armed with a powerful 290 mm Petard mortar and designed to destroy enemy fortifications, or the Churchill Crocodile with a flamethrower at the front of the hull. Churchill tanks were sent to the USSR as part of the Lend-and-Lease program, and they were also used by the Canadian army and the Polish Armed Forces in the West (PES).