40 mm Bofors AA gun

Thank you! But don't forget to send them by email.

BTW. Who is Col Drakenberg

Technical data (of the Hungarian-made version, which should be identical to the original one) already listed in one of my previous posts.

Gen. Dénes

1) Pictures & facts - will mail tomorrow when I can control my computor properly.

2) Col John Drakenberg (then LtCol, now Ret) was my CO in 1st Bn 38th (Guards) Inf Bde in the late 1970-ies. He was a soldiers CO and liked to share their lives acting as a MG gunner under the name "Dragos". Also nicknamed "Jonny the Rocket".

When my Btn CO was serving as MG gunner "Dragos" I had as 2/C run the Batallion! A Fantastic man who thought me how to be an Infantry Bn commander. (The rotating price for the Guards foremost Inf Bn commander stopped to rotate - i can see it from where I am sitting right now).

BOJ

This post has been edited by Stellan on October 15, 2004 09:53 pm

Gen Dénes!

Agree. But Sw official manual says: Dmax 1200 m, elev - 5 + 90, weight 2150 kg. Everything else = Sw documents.

BOJ

This post has been edited by Stellan on October 15, 2004 09:34 pm

It would be good if you guys would post sources for the photos.

Done!

Stellan

Thanks.

Polish troops which crossed the Romanian border after Soviet aggression from 17 September 1939 had 18 (or - according to another sources - 16) 40 mm AA Bofors guns. You might be sure that Romanian army took possession of this guns and used during the war.

BTW: Does anyone know where were used AA Bofors guns produced in Poland during WW2 (apart from Poland, of course)? I found some mentions in war memories (Norway - spring 1940, Malta?, may be Dutch Indies?). But - do you know anything about Eastern front ("Polish" guns in Romanian service)?

This post has been edited by woj on October 16, 2004 08:33 am

Polish gun. Unfortunately - I have no copyrights for this photo. :-( I must get another scan - soon (but not today)

This post has been edited by woj on October 16, 2004 09:33 am

Attached Image

Interesting. What are these sources ?

Report of Polish military attache in Bucharest from 25 February 1940 (now: London, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum) and summary of data concerning Polish troops which crossed Romanian border in 1939 year (document dated 15 January 1948; now - Warsaw, Central Military Archives)

Thank you!

That would raise the number of Bofors AA guns available to Romanian Army in June 1941 to 54+18 = 72.

...if not 54+16 = 70.
Do you know anything about war "career" of mentioned guns?

This post has been edited by woj on October 16, 2004 07:24 pm

Enclosed is a photo of a Hungarian Flak 40 towed by a caterpillar type tractor, in retreat.
Photo taken in late September 1944, in Eastern Transylvania, close to Sepsiszentgyörgy (in Rumanian Sfântu Gheorghe).

This post has been edited by Dénes on October 17, 2004 02:51 am

Attached Image

I was wrong. Sorry. I read report of Polish military attache mentined above once again and...
Romanian border crossed in September 1939 not 16-18, but 20 Polish 40 mm AA guns. 16 arrived with Polish troops (and this information was right). From this amount: 5 or 6 received (according to report) "AA regiment in Bucharest", 8 was in Ploesti. I hadn't additional information about the rest.
But there was next 4 Polish AA guns in Romania. These guns served during first weeks of September probably as AA defence of H. Cegielski Works in Rzeszow and were purchased by this firm, not by Polish army, so were mentioned in report separately.