WWII British Northover Projector 2.5 inch weapon with various options 1-56 scale 28mm

This model represents the Northover Projector; designed by Home Guard officer Robert Harry Northover to act as a makeshift anti-tank weapon, and was put into production in 1940 following a demonstration to the Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The weapon consisted of a hollow metal tube attached to a tripod, with a rudimentary breech at one end. Rounds were fired with the use of black powder ignited by a standard musket percussion cap, and it had an effective range of between 100 and 150 yards. Although it was cheap and easy to manufacture, it did have several problems; it was difficult to move and the No. 76 Special Incendiary Grenades it used as one type of ammunition had a tendency to break inside the breech, damaging the weapon and injuring the crew. Production began in late 1940, and by the beginning of 1943 nearly 19,000 were in service.

This model began as a request from a regular customer of our printed models. He explained he was wanting to do some Home Defence themed dioramas in 1/30th scale and did I have files for the Northover Projector. Helpfully he sent images and a link to a great website article on the weapon. Unable to find the model as a digital file on the web I offered to attempt to create the 3D files myself. Scaling was an issue but I did get some accurate measurements from various WWII era documents.

The resulting model is close to historical measurements but there is still an element of designing by eye and my software skill limits kept the models simple in comparison to some images I found.

Inspired by the images I found on the web I have provided three methods of mounting a single or double barrelled version of the Projector.

This model will need to be printed in resin it is very delicate and has a lot of small thin parts.

The ground, bicycle and car pulled limber mounts all printed well first time. I have played around with the placement of supports to seek to avoid supports adhering to the prints. Cleaning of the gun mounts has generally proved easy from the start. I use water washable resin so the hot water used to clean the prints also weakens the supports so that they generally can be pulled off as opposed to being clipped.

The single and double barrelled guns do now print reliably but I have had to harden a number of the very small parts of the weapons to survive the cleaning process.  That said cleaning requires care. The levers to open and close the breach need freeing from supports very carefully. The raised sights should be clipped free carefully. The trigger lever arrangement needs careful freeing from the supports. I have had to print the guns a few times to get ones that tend to survive the cleaning process, so be prepared to print a few.

You will receive the following files for printing in resin:

Ground Based Mount

Bicycle Mount

Car  towed Limber Mount

Closed Ammo Box

Open Ammo Box

Single Barrelled Projector

Double Barrelled Projector

All of the above files are also provided in a pre-supported version.

These models were designed by Neal Bowskill Copyright July 2022, no printing for commercial gain permitted.