The Bofors 40mm gun is one of the outstanding designs in light artillery – it was originally designed in 1932, and is still in use today with only minor modifications (and much improved targeting controls). It uses a long recoil action and a sliding breechblock, and the WWII versions fired about 120 rounds per minute.
In the 40mm Bofors Vault page, we have added a very detailed Navy manual on the Bofors, describing the mechanism, firing procedure, disassembly, and maintenance.
Today’s post was written by a Swedish reader named Arne Bergkvist, about a very early Swedish automatic pistol I had not been aware of. It is particularly interesting as one of relatively few examples of […]
Thanks to reader John D, we have a chance today to look at a very scarce Danish-made copy of the AG-42B Ljungman rifle. The Madsen company in Denmark made about 50 of these rifles for […]
Thanks to Carolus L., we have a batch of Swedish military manuals for you today. We always enjoy getting international mail, and the package from Carolus was no exception. The most interesting piece of material […]
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The Bofors 40mm L/60 has long since been replaced by the L/70 version with a longer barrel, higher rate of fire, belt feed options ( instead of the standard clips ) and sundry other detail improvements to make an already outstanding automatic cannon even better. The water-cooled version of the L/60, typified by twin ( as in the illustration heading this article ) and quadruple close-in AA installations pioneered by the U.S. Navy during the Second World War, is now virtually extinct. Modern naval applications of the Bofors generally involve air-cooled L/70’s instead, which in some ways would seem to be a retrograde step, since naval vessels usually have the capacity to afford a water cooling system for the guns, a distinct advantage when prolonged firing is involved.