How to Indentify the WW2 or Mk.I, Mk.I or Mk.III Bofors 40mm ?

[maple_leaf_eh]

I've got a 1943 Popular Science magazine that has a story on welding, and how progressive welding is winning the war! Plenty of war production stories, including one on how to weld. There are pictures of some AA gun carriage that was improved over riveted construction. More to follow.

[Kurtis Tsang]

Hi Tony,

Thank you very much for the info. It is exactly what I want to know. Thanks.

Kurtis

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by maple_leaf_eh

I've got a 1943 Popular Science magazine that has a story on welding, and how progressive welding is winning the war! Plenty of war production stories, including one on how to weld. There are pictures of some AA gun carriage that was improved over riveted construction. More to follow.

April 1943 Popular Science (Vol 142 No 4) .25 cents, (cover story, 'Shall we quit building battleships?' complete with a hard steaming battlewagon firing a broadshide from a storm-tossed sea and jaunty a Navy floatplane banking overhead) p. 82 'War Drafts the Man in the Mask' by Russell C. Holslag. On pp. 86 and 87 are photos with captions describing the carriage for the 40mm Bofors and how this is the progressive use of modern welding and fabrication techniques in the rest of the article. In an American use of the English language, there are no periods after the last word in the captions.

From the captions it seems that a Bofors gun was reverse engineered, or with drawings for product improvement.

Caption top page 86, "At left, the elevating arc sector of the gun in its original riveted form and as it is now being welded. At far left, the same comparison is shown in part of one of the gun's outriggers" Forty-one rivets counted as received, vs zero in new production.

Caption botton page 86, "A good example of the vital role welding has played in war production is found in the American manufacture of the Swedish Bofors 40-mm automatic antiaircraft gun. Originally its gun carriage was riveted throughtout. By the substitution of welding, enormous savings in time, manufacturing costs, and materials have been effected. At above left is shown the welded front, or swivel, end of the gun chassis as compared with the riveted end, below"

Caption top page 87, "Because of its unusual effectiveness in defending troops against low-flying enemy planes, the Bofors gun has now been widely adopted by both British and Americans"

Caption mid right page 87, "Above, the carriage as it appeared when first imported into the U.S. to serve as a model for American builders, and at left, the carriage as it now appears, welded"

On page 87 is a small font credit, "Data and illustrations from study submitted to James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation by Dr. John L. Miller of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co."