From August 2010 copy of BIRDS from RSPB, page 68. captioned : submerged turret of Churchill tank at RSPB Broadwater Warren. pdf all about it, with maps & aerial photos & grid refernces. tank in quarry, photo on there too http://217.205.94.37/pdf/eng-see-bww-appendix-9.pdf/$FILE/eng-see-bww-appendix-9.pdf Churchill is BW213 grid ref TQ 55343702
Fascinating mate. Should someone tip off the Churchill register... The Churchill Register I see the report's from a few years ago - wonder if they have gathered up the scattered turret ring bits and moved 'em to Bovington or similar, as suggested.
Owen / Adam - must be a late model Churchill from the size of the Commanders hatch indicating all around prisms - which came around Mk VII - ? whole thing looks a bit odd .... Cheers
I know it's an old thread I noticed another member looking at it earlier. Tom that turret isnt a late one , it's of one of the early models, see this series of photos of the turret from a Mark I here. >>> Churchill MkI
It's a MkII (I think). Still there as of April this year: Churchill remains | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
It's also clearly marked on their map of the reserve . http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/broadwaterwarren_tcm9-274988.pdf
another pic of it here. History Trail Walk enjoyed by enthusiastic group - Broadwater Warren - Broadwater Warren - The RSPB Community New History Trail Opens! - Broadwater Warren - Broadwater Warren - The RSPB Community
Just noticed this pic on Twitter. https://twitter.com/sussexPillbox/status/464887372065554432/photo/1
V-P, there's no way to tell from the turret Both used the same American casting... One of the little-known factlets about the Churchull I/II is the government ordered just over a 1,000 turrets from the U.S., from American Steel Foundries and Pressed Steel for them! And as production of BOTH types never reached 1,000 somewhere in the UK, there was a batch of unused turrets...the Americans built them, heat-treated them, subjected them to ballistic tests, then shipped them - all without guns or internal fittings, which were applied here in the UK. All of which gives a new slant to the general refusal of the Americans to construct British tank designs... (Also according to David Fletcher, the same sources were supplying a number of Matilda II turrets!) AFAIK the only way to definitively tell a MkI from a MkII is the hull-mounted 3" gun...or absence of it!
