3D Printed 1/76 Churchill Gun Carrier Mk. 1

Bringing the boom with the 76!

The Churchill Gun Carrier...

What do you get when you mix a Churchill Mk III, a 3 inch gun, and the impending doom of Operation Sea Lion? Why, you get this of course, the Churchill Gun Carrier!

The Gun Carrier was born out of urgency. At the time of its inception in 1941, Britain had just lost a tremendous amount of their tanks and other armored vehicles to the German war machine's slaughter across France. Even worse, Germany seemed to need no rest, and the future seemed to be all but lost. Thus, The production of any heavily armored and armed vehicles to counter the german panzer threat was deemed vital.

The Gun Carrier was born out of urgency. At the time of its inception in 1941, Britain had just lost a tremendous amount of their tanks and other armored vehicles to the German war machine's slaughter across France. Even worse, Germany seemed to need no rest, and the future seemed to be all but lost. Thus, The production of any heavily armored and armed vehicles to counter the german panzer threat was deemed vital. But what to make?

Heres a solution: Take the Churchill Mk III chassis, widen the hull, remove the turret, and drop a 3-inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft gun into a big fixed casemate. Boom. You now have a tank destroyer... kind of. Now, to be fair, the gun wasn’t terrible. It could punch through 88mm of armor at 1,000 yards, which was decent at the time—in theory. But by the time this heavy machine was trial-ready, the gun was already becoming obsolete, and the Germans had moved on to thicker armor and better tanks. So while the Churchill Gun Carrier looked intimidating, it was more of a late guest to a party that had already moved on to dancing with Panthers and Tigers. But hey, panzer 2s, 3s, and 4s beware. The Gun carrier could certainly carve them a new one.

And mobility? Oh boy. The Churchill platform was famous for being able to crawl over trenches and rough terrain, which was impressive. But it was veeeery sloooow. We’re talking 15–18 mph on a good day, downhill, with a tailwind. The added weight of the superstructure and gun didn’t help either. Let’s just say you weren’t going anywhere fast in this thing.

The armor was solid, though. With up to 89mm of frontal armor, it could take a beating from most German anti-tank weapons of the time(save for the heavy flak guns!). But let’s be honest—no turret meant it had to turn its whole body to aim. That’s fine if you're in a shooting gallery, but in a real fight? Not ideal.

So what happened to this monster? Well, only 50 were ever built, and none saw combat. They were all quietly tucked away, relegated to training and testing roles. By the time the Allies were deep into tank development, the Gun Carrier was just... obsolete.

But you gotta hand it to British engineering. The thing looked like a brick with a cannon, but it had heart. In an alternate universe where it was deployed earlier, maybe it would’ve had a fighting chance.