[Juha]

Tony
So that was your reason on Crocodile
"They lost pressure after half an hour IIRC and had to retire, and the couplers suffered breakages"

But if needed Crocodile could easily jettisoned its trailer and continued as normal Churchill Mk VII minus its hull-mg.

"But more seriously they provoked an extreme reaction. Whenever they were used everything was focused on destroying them."

And the reason? Because they were so effective against dug-out infantry.

"One Crocodile was used in Kervenheim after the main resistance was broken, but it only got 100 yards before a Panzerfaust blew the head off the tank commander whose blood-gushing body fell down into the turret. The driver, unsurprisingly, withdrew backwards - not an easy feat with a trailer. The crew were then placed on a charge for motoring out of battle."

Same may had happened your "Super Churchill". In late war one great danger to tanks were the RPGs. And it was difficult to protect tanks against them and probably impossible to give protection against multiple hits in same region. And forests and towns were best places to RPG ambushes. And in ambushes you tended to aim the sides of tanks.

"The super-duper Vengeance would have been used according to circmstances, and primarily against strong-points and dug-in weapons that were holding up the advance."

Problem in thick forests was/is that it is very difficult to pinpoint enemy weapons and impossible from air. One can always try to use smoke but a clever enemy would use same coloured smokes to confuse pilots.

"In cases like Hillman, which was unexpected but extremely important, there was no Flak. The super-duper Vengeances would have timed their attack with the infantry who could have got close during the dive bombing. You could not risk that with a Typhoon or Bombphoon."

The was no forward observer, that was the problem, if there had been he could have called naval firesupport. And IIRC 1st Suffolk didn't suffer very bad casualties at Hillman, Norfolks suffered more.

"The 88-mm Pak L71 could penetrate 187-mm of vertical armour at 500 metres"

But that was with 30 deg from vertical angle. It penetrate more if hit was from right ahead. And one must also uparmour at least turret sides.

I doubt that Churchill Mk. VII had lower ground pressure than StuG III and I'm sure that StuG III with Ostkette had lower ground pressure than Mk VII.

Juha