Hello everyone. I have spent most of last night trying to find the elevation of the 3in Howitzer mounted in the hull of the CHurchill Mk I Tank, the Turret mounted 2 pdr has elevation of -15 to +20 degrees, but nothing on the 3in. Can anyone help? Regards Yan.
Yan, I've got the manual downloaded....but sadly it ignores the actual armament in almost every respect! Except position in the vehicle, stowage diagrams for spares and ordnance etc.. I've got a David Fletcher article on it floating around the "filing system"....ahem....so once I excavate below the last month's dirty dishes I'll see if he says anything...!
Thanks Phylo, a few sites that I have come across give only the -15 to +20, I wonder if this could be the same for both weapons? I really appreciate any help though, because this data is really not available anywhere. You also have to be careful, a lot of sites give the max elevation for the Churchill armed 95mm Howitzer as +37, now I found this guy who reckons that this is impossible as the max elevation cannot be more than +25. Yan.
"The 3" Howitzer mounting, to the left of the driver, ... was controlled by gears and handwheels but movement was limited. Max Elevation was 9° & Depression 5°." Fletcher - Mr Churchill's tank - Schiffer 1999.
Von you are a star mate, a star, I have been all over the shop trying to find that data. Just got to find what ammo the 3in fired, the turret mounted 2 pdr fired the Mk. I Shot (APHE) weighing around 1.18 kg, the 3in would fire a 3in HE shell I would guess, but again data is lacking. Its the same with the 95mm Howitzer mounted on later models of the Churchill (and the Centaur), all I can find is that it may have fired a 11 kg shell. Thanks Yan.
Yan, you're going to have a LOT of trouble finding any good data on what the 3" howitzer or earlier 3.5" mortar howitzers fired! I've been trying for years...as part of my ongoing pry into the history of the Army's "CS" tanks... What I CAN tell you is - according to the manual - the Churchill MkI was supposed to carry ONLY HE...for, being a howitzer of course, its range would depend on the high angle which it COULDN'T achieve in it glacis fitment to fire smoke over any distance! In the Churchill the 3" was intended as a direct-fire HE weapon....it even had the same sight telescope with the same graticule as the direct-fire 2pdr!... But by the time the North Irish Horse were using the MkI in Tunisia a couple of years later (and saved the Churchill's reputation), the load-out had become somewhat "mixed" with the NIH carrying different percentages of HE vs smoke rounds on different occasions. In the absence of anything else they were having to use their MkIs as CS tanks on occasion. They officially had their MkIs taken off them in favour of 6pdr-armed MkIIIs for Italy...but a local field expediency programme saw Sherman 75mm guns crowbarred into MkIs as the Churchill NA75...AND the NIH retained a number of MkIs with the armament reversed - the 2pdr in the hull and the 3" howizter in the turret! Which gave them a full CS tank fiunction.