They were designed
to be the best… they met enemies face to face, endured tragedies and
enjoyed victories… they went down in history due
to the bravery of their crews… they are the ships that
deserve to be called “Naval Legends!” Bofors US battleship Alabama, British cruiser Belfast, and Polish destroyer Błyskawica— these ships are very different, but
they all have one thing in common. The Bofors L60, one of the best automatic
antiaircraft guns of World War II. It is estimated that
this model of 40-mm automatic cannon shot
down more airplanes than all other antiaircraft
guns put together. Caliber: 40 mm Barrel weight: 103 kg Barrel length: 56 calibers 2,250 mm Loading principle:
clips (4 shots each) Rate of fire: 120 round/min Shell type: primarily
fragmentation Shell weight: around 900 g Maximum vertical range: 7,160 m Guns were installed in single, coaxial, quadruple, and six-barreled mounts. It became a very efficient gun for antiaircraft and
surface targets. As time progressed, the
first of the Bofors that came online with
the Royal Navy were hand driven in terms of elevation
and training. And they had a very basic
sight system and again, like a lot of early systems,
they were reliant on training, ability of the
aimers, and the gun crew. The specifics of
World War II artillery relies on the fact
that the smaller the caliber is, the more it
depends on the gun crew, on their cohesion in combat. The performance
characteristics of light guns, antiaircraft guns, and Bofors in particular, are a combination
of the artillery mount itself, and the training and
coordination of its crew. Especially in battle, when
tensions are running very high, there’s no time to think
and you need to move very fast, turn around, load new
shells, and start firing. And all this happens
automatically, without thinking. After a battle, sailors often
couldn't even remember what they were doing. That level of performance was
achieved through constant training. This weapon is
operated by a crew of four. Three on the mounting: the Gun Layer,
the Gun Trainer, the Loader. The fourth member carries the ammunition
from the magazine, and loads them into
the clips on the side of the gun. The L60 was developed
in neutral Sweden. Bofors, a metallurgy company, started manufacturing
cannons around the 1870s, then it was owned by the famous
Alfred Nobel for a while, and after World War I,
Bofors actively cooperated with the German
Krupp consortium. In March 1932, the official
trials of the automatic antiaircraft cannon L60 were completed, and it was put on the market. In 1933, British and
American military engineers studied the gun and were quite impressed— the Swedish system was more effective than the
obsolete British Vickers "pom-poms" and had more firepower than the
"Chicago pianos" used by the US. The maximum vertical
range of Bofors was almost twice that
of the British gun and, though the Swedish system
had a slightly lower rate of fire than its American counterpart, the shells it used
were twice as heavy. Great Britain, the USA,
and 10 other countries purchased a license
to produce the gun, and by the beginning of World War II, Bofors exported their L60
to 18 countries on different continents. In particular, Denmark, Greece, Egypt, Siam,
Australia, and Argentina. It wasn’t just the Allies
that used the Bofors L60. Japanese forces captured several
British guns in Singapore and only their
underdeveloped industry prevented them from mass-producing them. The German Navy used
L60s captured in Poland, Norway, and France from 1939, under the designation Flak 28. They were installed
on submarines, and cruisers Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen. However, the Swedish gun wasn't
ideal and required modernization. After 300 rounds it would be too hot and require the barrel to be changed. The barrel is air-cooled and therefore the ambient
temperature plays a great part in how long it would
actually require to cool down. During an intense battle, several hundreds or even
thousands of shots are fired. That's why the issue of barrel
replacement is so vital. This is why the gun crew was trained to carry
out this maintenance under combat conditions. They could complete this
procedure in mere seconds. The mechanical drive system on
ship-based antiaircraft mounts would break down due to its
exposure to salt water, and needed to be replaced
with a hydraulic one, the air-cooling of the barrel also had to be replaced with water cooling. Also, some design
modifications were required to mass-produce the gun. One of the main problems of
the Bofors L60’s application was a high
reliance on the training and skills of the gun crew. The job of the Loader is to carry or load the
gun by lifting the clip and dropping it
into the weapon so. Once he’s done that he then taps the Gun Layer on his head to let
him know that the gun is loaded. Loading a gun
like this wasn't easy. Ammunition had to be taken out of a box and carried to the gun. As the gun constantly rotated, the carrier had to run around it
with a clip of shells in his hands, to pass it to the Loader. This position on the gun is known
as the Trainer’s position. And these handles are
turned or reversed to allow the gun to move
backwards and forwards on the target using the graticule
sight in front of you. Following the tracer
being fired from the gun, we can adjust for the aim of, if we are too far in front
or too far behind the target to allow the other side of the gun, which is the Layer’s side, to then manufacture the
elevation for the target. As time went on, the gun developed and so that we could come
away from the hand driven gun, she was turned into a
hydraulic driven gun. So she had pressure tanks
and oils and suchlike, which sped up the training and
the elevation of the gun, so that they could lock
onto targets quicker. This is
the Gun Layer’s position. He was also the
captain of the gun and responsible for giving
orders to the rest of the crew. He would, for instance,
initiate the loading sequence by telling the loader to
bring the gun to half-cock. This means that the
weapon can then be loaded with rounds into the auto feeder. He was also responsible
for aiming the weapon using the 300 Knot
sight in front of him, using the tracers from the
rounds to adjust accordingly. The sight arrangement
was going away from the spider web type of
sight to a mirror type of sight, which was basically what we
call a head-up display today. On small-displacement ships, antiaircraft guns
were aimed manually. But on cruisers, battleships,
and aircraft carriers, the firing data was
produced by directors— special systems that controlled
antiaircraft artillery by calculating targeting parameters
and sending them centrally to
the receiving devices on guns. The information on
target parameters was supplied by
antiaircraft rangefinders and, later, by gun radars. The command to engage or fire comes directly from the Command. And without further ado the Gun Captain would
press the firing push. As long as he held his foot on the firing push the gun would
continue to fire as long as it had enough ammunition
in the hopper to keep feeding it. The guns created a fire barrage, which was almost impossible for a single aircraft or
entire squadrons to penetrate. You can see it in old newsreels— there's literally a wall of fire in the air and some plane trying
to get through it. The probability of an aircraft
breaking through to its target, for example, an aircraft carrier or
some other ship, is very very small. The Bofors L60 proved its
worth during World War II. The antiaircraft gun Bofors L70
became its logical continuation. The human factor is crucial in wars. 230817GUNSFORANYSHIP A man can become frightened, may be poorly trained, or something unexpected
can happen to them... As a result, the
struggle to minimize the influence of the human element and to increase the gun's
survivability and rate of fire, led to development
of the modernized Bofors L70, which required
minimal human input, if compared to the very first
Bofors guns, such as the L60. However, the L60 remained
in use on some ships. In 1982, during the
Falklands War, which involved
Great Britain and Argentina, the British managed to shoot down
a jet plane using this Bofors gun! Even in the 1970s, when artillery was gradually
replaced by missile systems, Bofors cannons
remained in service. Not only the upgraded L70s, but also the veteran L60. It can still be found on
some German minesweepers and the heavily
armed US AC-130 gunships, which provide fire
support to ground units.
And in honor of the development and use of the Bofors, we should return AA animations!
"May bofors be with you"
URL guy at it again!
In Game Bofors:
"One the best automated anti aircraft weapon of WWII".
"... So let's make the successful 57mm version of this gun (complete with automated FCS and radar guidance) on the upcoming tier 10 French cruiser terrible!"
-WG logic
They are all premiums?
...And of course the very first bit of the video has to be a shot of the Alabama...
Do these shells have some kind of timed fuse? Or do they explode on contact?