Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), also known as Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers is the title given to a series of armoured military engineering vehicles operated by the Royal Engineers (RE) for the purpose of protecting engineers during frontline battlefield operations.
In protecting engineers, the vehicles also became a mobile platform for a variety of combat engineer tasks including mounting large calibre weapons for demolition, carrying engineer stores, mine clearance explosives, a variety of deployable roadways, and assault bridges for gaps that the related Armoured Ramp Carrier ("ARK") vehicles could not overcome.
Extremely high casualty rates among engineers was one of the primary reasons for the failure of the Dieppe Raid of August 1942. Sappers were tasked to get the tanks off the beach, destroy obstacles and build ramps over the concrete sea wall. At Dieppe, the sappers drew fire and became a priority target for the German defenders. As well, they lost significant amounts of their supplies on sunken landing craft. With the tanks unable to leave the beaches, the raid stalled and failed.
Following the failure of Dieppe, an RCE officer, Lt J.J. Denovan who was attached to the Department of Tank Design, proposed a vehicle to protect engineers during assault operations. While the idea received praise, their were higher priorities and development could not be supported. Determined to do it on his own, Denovan 'procured' a Churchill tank and with the assistance of friends at 1st Canadian Mechanical Equipment Company, and the connivance of the upper levels of the Royal Canadian Engineers in Britain, set out to build a prototype. The Churchill proved to be the ideal chassis. It had lots of space inside for demolition stores and side exit doors to allow sappers to get in and out as necessary. The tank gun turret basket and ammunition storage racks were removed and replaced with stowage for demolition supplies and tools. The turret was retained and a large calibre petard mortar replaced the main gun. The petard could fire a 44-pound demolition charge up to 110 yards. There was a crew and five sappers and an armoured corps driver. In January 1943, the prototype was demonstrated successfully and orders swere placed for what would become a fleet of nearly 600 vehicles. Deliveries to frontline units started in early 1944 to British Forces in Italy.
The AVRE could also be equipped with numerous other attachments. For breaching minefields, it could tow or push a pipe ‘Snake’, tow a trailer with a ‘Conger’ (a form of a flexible snake which could be launched by a rocket and then filled with liquid explosive under compressed air). It could cross small gaps with the Small Box Girder bridge carried at the front of the tank and laid across ditches or narrow rivers up to 30 feet wide. The Canadian Indestructible Roller Device (CIRD), an early mine plough, could be used to protect the tracks of a tank from mines. The AVRE could also carry huge fascines, large bundles of wood carried on the front of the tank and dropped into trenches, devices to place explosive charges against obstacles, and Bobbins, massive rolls of canvas rolled on a drum that unrolled in front of the vehicle to help it over soft terrain and to serve as a trackway for following vehicles. Production started in 1944 based on a mixed fleet of Churchill III and IV vehicles. Over 180 vehicles were ready by June 1944 and many were used during the Battle of Normandy to support British and Canadian divisions and throughout the Northwest European campaign.
Note: A petard is a small bomb used for blowing up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. It is of French origin and dates back to the 16th century.[1] A typical petard was a conical or rectangular metal device containing 2–3 kg (5 or 6 pounds) of gunpowder, with a slow match for a fuse. Pétard comes from the Middle French péter, to break wind.