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Abbeyman

Thats a churchill "Crocodile" tank!

Abbeyman

This Churchill tank was one of Hobarts "funnies"; Major C. Hobbart was given the task of creating a range of tank-borne beach landing equipment. This consisted of folding bridges, sommerfield matting laying tanks, tanks with bulldozer blades, tanks with cranes mounted instead of a turret, tanks that carried caissons for crossing deep ditches, tanks with chain flails for clearing mines on beaches. The British used these to an advantage though the Americans didnt use them at all!

This Churchill tank was one of the "funnies"; what mounting i dont know, but some "crocodiles" towed a tanker of fuel and hoses that fuelled a big flame-thrower, others, because of the equipment mounted on them had to lose the main gun. Some however were able to mount a large bore mortar after dispensing their equipment on the beach. This is one of those.

Abbeyman

Its a Churchill Crocodile with a Petard Mortar rather than a normal main gun.
If the churhill had a petard mortar fitted then more than likely it was used to destroy bunkers and concrete beach defenses. Often the petard was fitted to one of "hobarts funnies", that could lay matting with the bobbin, or drop caissons to bridge deep holes, they were also used to carry entire bridge sections; once the track/matting was laid, or the bridge/caisson was laid the tank still had the Petard to use against the concrete beach structures! The Petard could fire a "flying dustbin", a mortar shell of about 10" diameter and a foot in length fitted with a tail flight. It could fly about 230feet so was ideal on the beaches. The shell was assembled and fed from within the tank from below it. the gun fired and the barrel swung upwards ready for the next shell to be loaded. It was fired when a rod pushed it from the rear, coming from the turret.

Abbeyman

I reckon that if the American army had used more of the funnies (the did use the Sherman DD "swimming tank" but they launched them from three miles out and all but three made it.) they would have lost allot less men.

The caisson is still used today, is a big bunch of tubing about 8ft wide that is bound together by wire, and when dropped into a hole or trench across a road, allows many other vehicles to cross the gap without getting stuck. In ww2 it was made of a big bunch of branches bound by wire, but it did a very important and effective job even then.
They have a special flail (or "crab")vehicles for mine detection and destroying now rather than fitted to a tank. In WW2 they adapted what they had, and did very well with it too.
The german army has a fantastic bridge set up in the modern battlefield, for allowing tanks to cross rivers, they look like big ten ton lorries, but they fold out from above making the vehicle twice its own width, they are driven into the water to float. They drive alongside and the deck above them folds out to lock each vehicle to the other, and after half of them on one side of the river and the rest of them on the other, they swing out into the river and meet in the centre, again the deck sections fold out and interlock the vehicles together, the suspension on each vehicle lowers, and the bridge is very quickly completed and ready to bear the weight of a modern battle tank such as the Leopard tank rolling over it.
When the tanks are all across the deck sections all fold up and back to their own vehicle hull and the bridge is very quickly dismantled, the vehicles then follow the tanks looking like a big ten ton truck again! fantastic!