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Posted: 7/3/2014 4:10:04 AM EDT
The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun,[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_40_mm_gun#cite_note-NAVWEAP-1][1][/url] is an anti-aircraft/multi-purpose autocannon designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. It was one of the most popular medium-weight anti-aircraft systems during World War II, used by most of the western Allies as well as by the Axis powers. The cannon remains in service (as the main armament in the CV 90) making it both one of the longest-serving and most widespread artillery pieces of all time. Bofors itself has been part of BAE Systems AB since March 2005.
In British service: In US Navy Service Japanese Airplane victim of USN Bofors Fire Bofors 40mm in German Service Brits defending against a Stuka raid In Argentine Navy service Against the Japanese Navy: combat photography by the USN and USCG at Okinawa (with some M2, and 5 Inch as AAA thrown in for good measure) |
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What a gererous gift. Could you please IM tracking info? Thanks!
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They also put them in the AC130 Spectre to shoot from the sky.
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Japanese Airplane victim of USN Bofors Fire
Looks like a F4F Wildcat to me.... |
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The Bofors is my absolute, all-time favorite projectile launching device.
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Quoted:
There's a cool vid on YouTube of a cv90 test firing the bofors gun. It had some time delay fuse thing on the ammo. The best part of the vid is watching the thing fling it's spent casings 30ft in the air. http://youtu.be/Nj0q-sxKrvg View Quote when they show the VW minibus blown to shit and the narrator says "Mission accomplished" I laughed. |
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Did we have the proximity fuse for the 40 mm Bofors? I know it was one of our secret weapons of WW II.
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Man that VW bus was worth a lot of coin.
What was that tank thing they used in Vietnam with the twin 40's? |
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I toured the Lexington last Friday, they have a couple quad 40mm mounts that still elevate / traverse and are open for you to crawl all over. I think the exhibit said there were like 7 guys working on each mount, one gunner handled elevation and the other traversed. All hand crank, shit would wear you out quick...
Oh and the trigger was a big red foot pedal. |
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Quoted: I toured the Lexington last Friday, they have a couple quad 40mm mounts that still elevate / traverse and are open for you to crawl all over. I think the exhibit said there were like 7 guys working on each mount, one gunner handled elevation and the other traversed. All hand crank, shit would wear you out quick... Oh and the trigger was a big red foot pedal. View Quote Anyway, the vet they interviewed told about the waves of Kamikazies and they just kept coming. After several hours of this there was a lull between waves. According to the vet their ship had already been hit, but the damage control team had it under control. One of the unwounded AA gunners stood up, said something like, "Ive had enough" and jumped off the side of the ship. Obviously, they didn't go back and get him and he was never recovered. Dead. ETA: got tired of dealing with this, I guess A "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and smoke November 25, 1944. |
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We had a couple of Dusters near us up north in '68. I loved those things.
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If manning a twin Bofors mount against incoming kamikaze planes doesn't get you hard - nothing will.
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View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Japanese Airplane victim of USN Bofors Fire Looks like a F4F Wildcat to me.... http://modelingmadness.com/review/axis/j/wolfn1k1a.jpg I don't think so, look at the original picture and see how there are bulges on the side of the airframe under the wings. It has to be a Wildcat. |
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Quoted: View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Japanese Airplane victim of USN Bofors Fire Looks like a F4F Wildcat to me.... http://modelingmadness.com/review/axis/j/wolfn1k1a.jpg I don't think so, look at the original picture and see how there are bulges on the side of the airframe under the wings. It has to be a Wildcat. Another site had a pretty persuasive comment on the picture for it being a Shiden. In the pic, you can see the "bulges" midway across both wings. Which is probably the nacelle mounted wing cannon visible here. I wouldn't swear to it in court, but I do think it's a Shiden. |
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Quoted:
I was watching a show on AHC, and they were talking about anti aircraft gunners on USN ships late in the war. It was either Okinawa or Saipan. Anyway, the vet they interviewed told about the waves of Kamikazies and they just kept coming. After several hours of this there was a lull between waves. According to the vet their ship had already been hit, but the damage control team had it under control. One of the unwounded AA gunners stood up, said something like, "Ive had enough" and jumped off the side of the ship. Obviously, they didn't go back and get him and he was never recovered. Dead. ETA: got tired of dealing with this, I guess http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/D4Y_Yoshinori_Yamaguchi_col.jpg A "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and smoke November 25, 1944. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
I toured the Lexington last Friday, they have a couple quad 40mm mounts that still elevate / traverse and are open for you to crawl all over. I think the exhibit said there were like 7 guys working on each mount, one gunner handled elevation and the other traversed. All hand crank, shit would wear you out quick... Oh and the trigger was a big red foot pedal. Anyway, the vet they interviewed told about the waves of Kamikazies and they just kept coming. After several hours of this there was a lull between waves. According to the vet their ship had already been hit, but the damage control team had it under control. One of the unwounded AA gunners stood up, said something like, "Ive had enough" and jumped off the side of the ship. Obviously, they didn't go back and get him and he was never recovered. Dead. ETA: got tired of dealing with this, I guess http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/D4Y_Yoshinori_Yamaguchi_col.jpg A "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and smoke November 25, 1944. The Lex was hit by a kamikaze zero on the aft side of the island, there is huge exhibit on that. If anyone gets the chance to see her I HIGHLY reccomend it, just take more pictures than I did, this is the only one I got |
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Quoted: My dad was on the New Jersey during WWII and part of the gun crew for the Bofors, except he called them quad mount 40's. I never could get him to talk about his experience during that time other than he loved his ship and shipmates. He's the one on the left. http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac176/seasprite/Navy%20pics/cleangreese40mmshells.jpg View Quote |
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My dad was on the New Jersey during WWII and part of the gun crew for the Bofors, except he called them quad mount 40's. I never could get him to talk about his experience during that time other than he loved his ship and shipmates. He's the one on the left. <a href="http://s897.photobucket.com/user/seasprite/media/Navy%20pics/cleangreese40mmshells.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac176/seasprite/Navy%20pics/cleangreese40mmshells.jpg</a> View Quote Cleaning the rounds and loading clips... Very cool picture... |
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Quoted:
I was watching a show on AHC, and they were talking about anti aircraft gunners on USN ships late in the war. It was either Okinawa or Saipan. Anyway, the vet they interviewed told about the waves of Kamikazies and they just kept coming. After several hours of this there was a lull between waves. According to the vet their ship had already been hit, but the damage control team had it under control. One of the unwounded AA gunners stood up, said something like, "Ive had enough" and jumped off the side of the ship. Obviously, they didn't go back and get him and he was never recovered. Dead. ETA: got tired of dealing with this, I guess http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/D4Y_Yoshinori_Yamaguchi_col.jpg A "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and smoke November 25, 1944. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
I toured the Lexington last Friday, they have a couple quad 40mm mounts that still elevate / traverse and are open for you to crawl all over. I think the exhibit said there were like 7 guys working on each mount, one gunner handled elevation and the other traversed. All hand crank, shit would wear you out quick... Oh and the trigger was a big red foot pedal. Anyway, the vet they interviewed told about the waves of Kamikazies and they just kept coming. After several hours of this there was a lull between waves. According to the vet their ship had already been hit, but the damage control team had it under control. One of the unwounded AA gunners stood up, said something like, "Ive had enough" and jumped off the side of the ship. Obviously, they didn't go back and get him and he was never recovered. Dead. ETA: got tired of dealing with this, I guess http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/D4Y_Yoshinori_Yamaguchi_col.jpg A "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and smoke November 25, 1944. FWIW..........I believe the guy your talking about said, "Man is it hot" before he jumped overboard. He was probably suffering heat stroke and just flipped out. Imaging the heat of the south pacific coupled with a ton of 40mm bofors and 20mm Oerlikon cannons firing like there is no tomorrow. Just the heat off the barrels of those Bofors had to have been insane. |
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Quoted: FWIW..........I believe the guy your talking about said, "Man is it hot" before he jumped overboard. He was probably suffering heat stroke and just flipped out. Imaging the heat of the south pacific coupled with a ton of 40mm bofors and 20mm Oerlikon cannons firing like there is no tomorrow. Just the heat off the barrels of those Bofors had to have been insane. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I toured the Lexington last Friday, they have a couple quad 40mm mounts that still elevate / traverse and are open for you to crawl all over. I think the exhibit said there were like 7 guys working on each mount, one gunner handled elevation and the other traversed. All hand crank, shit would wear you out quick... Oh and the trigger was a big red foot pedal. Anyway, the vet they interviewed told about the waves of Kamikazies and they just kept coming. After several hours of this there was a lull between waves. According to the vet their ship had already been hit, but the damage control team had it under control. One of the unwounded AA gunners stood up, said something like, "Ive had enough" and jumped off the side of the ship. Obviously, they didn't go back and get him and he was never recovered. Dead. ETA: got tired of dealing with this, I guess http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/D4Y_Yoshinori_Yamaguchi_col.jpg A "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and smoke November 25, 1944. FWIW..........I believe the guy your talking about said, "Man is it hot" before he jumped overboard. He was probably suffering heat stroke and just flipped out. Imaging the heat of the south pacific coupled with a ton of 40mm bofors and 20mm Oerlikon cannons firing like there is no tomorrow. Just the heat off the barrels of those Bofors had to have been insane. You may be right and I don't think the Japanese planes helped either. |
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Back in the day, when the AC-130 Spectre patrolled over the Ho Chí Minh trails every night, nothing rained down hellfire on our enemy like the 40mm Bofors.
They had the 20mm GE Vulcan cannons, but to get close enough to the ground to be accurate, the aircraft was taking too many groundfire hits. They had to circle the target area higher. So that left the 105 Howitzer which was very accurate. But that was used for only certain targets. The Bofors cannons were deadly accurate on vehicles or anything else that could be spotted. They would fire looking out the side window circling the area at a steep angle shooting downward. |
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Thanks guy's, I did a lot research on the USS New Jersey awhile back and if I remembering this right she did the most fighting out of all the battleships and didn't even take a hit from enemy fire or no one got hit. (can't remember ) The one thing I do remember is that when the New Jersey shot down one of the Jap planes it crashed into another american ship and this might be why he never could talk about his experience. This only speculation though because we all know that it can hard to talk about battles that you have been through and I never pushed the issue.
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Me neither and me too. Early one. Rare. IJN aircraft too. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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I wouldn't swear to it in court, but I do think it's a Shiden. Me neither and me too. Early one. Rare. IJN aircraft too. Either way, whatever it was, it was unlucky. |
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The AC-130 that flies today still carries the Bofors 40mm cannon. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130-spectre-44.jpg View Quote I thought they replaced them with the 25mm bushmasters. |
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40mm Bofors was the main AA gun in my father's Anti-aircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion in WWII.
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Quoted:
My dad was on the New Jersey during WWII and part of the gun crew for the Bofors, except he called them quad mount 40's. I never could get him to talk about his experience during that time other than he loved his ship and shipmates. He's the one on the left. <a href="http://s897.photobucket.com/user/seasprite/media/Navy%20pics/cleangreese40mmshells.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac176/seasprite/Navy%20pics/cleangreese40mmshells.jpg</a> View Quote Are they oiling the brass? |
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I really enjoy shooting it even though its finicky at times. I like to look at the headstamps on the brass we still shoot today, I'm in awe that we still use the brass and rounds from WW2.
ETA: In fact I broke one in the last 24 hours |
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PWS built a 40mm cannon out of an L/60 Bofors barrel <a href="http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s484/jestertooo/IMG_0597.mp4" target="_blank">http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s484/jestertooo/th_IMG_0597.jpg</a> View Quote WANT!!!! It's the perfect Jeep accessory! |
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I really enjoy shooting it even though its finicky at times. I like to look at the headstamps on the brass we still shoot today, I'm in awe that we still use the brass and rounds from WW2. ETA: In fact I broke one in the last 24 hours View Quote (Napoleon Dynamite) Luhhhcky!!(Napoleon Dynamite) |
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