Bob's Black Bulls 11th Armoured Division.

For the History Grognards reading this , the Churchills Shown above are not part of the 11th Armoured Division as Infantry tanks were put in the independant Tank Brigades or part of Infantry Divisions. So these will be painted up as ^th Guards Tank Brigade.

From wikipedia

The 6th Guards were originally equipped with the A13 Mk III Covenanter; but in early 1943 the Brigade was reequipped with the Churchill tank. The early Churchill tanks were deemed a dismal failure due to its rapid development and being hurried into production. It was so dreadful that it got mentioned several times in heated debates in the House of Commons. For example, early models would flood in heavy rain as it had no drainage channels. However, modifications were ongoing, and by the time the Brigade went into action over 71 alterations had been made. These along with its heavy armour made the tank an extremely good infantry tank.

Heavy losses suffered by the 6th Guards in Italy between June 1943 and January 1944 nearly caused the 6th Guards to be disbanded. Due to indecision regarding the Brigade’s fate, the entire Brigade had its Churchill VIs replaced by Churchill III and IVs.

Prior to the Normandy landings, all of the 6 pdr guns were replaced with 75mm guns at the Brigade’s workshops; oddly this prevented the Brigade’s deployment in Normandy. Montgomery had a preference for 6 pdr armed tanks. Finally the Brigade’s commanding officer, Brigadier Verney, complained to King George, who in turn took the complaint to Prime Minister Churchill. Montgomery was persuaded to deploy the 6th Guards. This was further aided by the fact that a third of the tanks had been converted back to 6 pdrs, to meet Montgomery’s requirements.  Finally on the 20 July 1944, the 6th Guards were landed at Gold and Juno beaches.

One of the things I didnt notice till beginning to build the 3 Churchills from the Desert war box , is they were different sprues, you didnt get the ones with the 75 mm and the Crocodile trailer but these had the 2pdr turret and 6pdrs of the earlier part of war. Plus for the real Grognards the side escape hatches are round on the MkVII Churchill as they were square on the earlier models (they were changed as it was found the blast and hit damage could deform swaure hatches making them hard  or impossible to open).

So I made on with a 6pdr (it fits orbit in the Bulge British FOW book) one with 95mm Howitzer and on with 75mm , both of which were supplied by extra bits in a FOW Cromwell box I brought some years back.