3in 20cwt - A trick missed?

[phylo_roadking]

Some more information on the Churchill Gun Carrier project in this month's CMV, David Fletcher has updated his earlier article on it...

The Gun Carriers appeared FIRST with S-numbers as belonging to the RA....then were issued T-Numbers. The other way round from previously thought. When the wooden prototype was first viewed, the Director of Artillery put his spoke in and started a protracted argument which seems to have resulted in them being allocated to the artillery during the period when the long-delayed production was taking place...then taken away again!

The aforementioned delay in the project, of some 6-8 months...was cause by Vauxhalls themselves! They really didn't want to beinvolved originbally...and some 6-8 months after the preliminary work, when no Gun Carriers appeared for viewing in either a finished prototype or a mild steel version, someone at the WD contacted Vauxhalls and was told that THEY were told the whole project was cancelled! A follow-up investigation revealed noone who had told Vauxhalls this....

Wishful thinking....or sub-carpet sweeping until it maybe just went away?

And finally - backing up what originally came from the Mapleleafup website and forum - there was indeed 24 volunteers from the Calgary regiment who spent some time away from their unit trainig on the Gun Carrier...presumably the "troop" that we were told originally were absent fron the operation at Dieppe. There's no indication of how long this detachment existed, but the Carriers were eventually withdrawn again.

[Sheldrake]

The classified WO publication Pemberton's Development of Royal Artillery Tactics and Equipment (1950) states that 10 3" 20Cwt guns were mounted as anti tank weapons as an interim solution pending the deployment of the 17 pdr. 50 of these were to be given SP mountings on the Churchill, with a very limited traverse. 50 were to be mounted on field carriages (25 pdr?), with 25 for Home use and 25 for use in Africa. None of these weapons seem to have been used. The development was very tardy and inexcusably so, given the problems the 8th army experienced because of the lack of a suitable long range anti tank gun.

On a different thread I have posted the responsibility that Alanbrooke played in getting Anti tank ammunition developed for this ordnance. I have also commented on the friction between the RAC and RA over the ownership of SP anti tank guns.

In the end the British return to a very similar solution, but two years later, with the Archer, a 17 Pdr gun (same calibre as the 3" 20 cwt( in a limited traverse mount on a different British tank - the Valentine.

[phylo_roadking]

50 were to be mounted on field carriages (25 pdr?), with 25 for Home use and 25 for use in Africa. None of these weapons seem to have been used.

They do indeed seem to be remarkably transparent. Were they actually ever assembled, do you know?

[Sheldrake]

50 were to be mounted on field carriages (25 pdr?), with 25 for Home use and 25 for use in Africa. None of these weapons seem to have been used.

They do indeed seem to be remarkably transparent. Were they actually ever assembled, do you know?

Pemberton p127 says that they "were mounted in Churchill tanks and allotted for home use and that the remainder were mounted on the 17 Pdr carriage production of which was in advance of the gun". This I find odd because the production of 17 Pdr carriages seems to have been behind that of the guns as 100 were manufactured on 25 Pdr carriages in North Africa, because the barrel production was in advance of the carriage.