20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

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20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#1

Post by Juha Tompuri » 06 Oct 2011, 21:08

Here a scan from a Swedish booklet I Österled.
The item is about the Swedish volunteers in the Winter War.
Interesting is the Nils Ahlström written article mention where he mentions of two 20mm AT-weapons at Swedish use 1940.
Wonder what guns they were AFAIK there were no Lahti AT-rifles, so Madsen or Bofors type?

Regards, Juha
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John T
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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#2

Post by John T » 06 Oct 2011, 21:48

Juha Tompuri wrote:Here a scan from a Swedish booklet I Österled.
The item is about the Swedish volunteers in the Winter War.
Interesting is the Nils Ahlström written article mention where he mentions of two 20mm AT-weapons at Swedish use 1940.
Wonder what guns they were AFAIK there were no Lahti AT-rifles, so Madsen or Bofors type?

Regards, Juha
Hmm, I know SFK had Madsens.
But I though Bofors had their own Detatchment in Finland with one or two 20m PvLv m/40 more or less as a demo-unit as AAA behind the front.
So either he talks about Madsens in different mountings or SFK had some Bofors guns too.

The organization did on paper contain a large number of 20mm guns but never got enough.

Cheers
/John


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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#3

Post by JTV » 06 Oct 2011, 21:59

Juha Tompuri wrote:Wonder what guns they were AFAIK there were no Lahti AT-rifles, so Madsen or Bofors type?
Interesting piece of information. I'm afraid it could have been either Madsen or Bofors.

During Winter War the number of 20-mm Madsen guns in Finnish use was still very limited and there were no antitank-version (20 PstK/40) version among them yet. But its known that some of the anti-aircraft guns were equipped with improvised sledge mounts for antitank-use. However nothing that I have read or heard suggests that SFK would have received any of these guns equipped with sledge mounts. In fact what I remember most if not all of these improvised antitank-guns were issued to Finnish cavalry.

If it was a Swedish gun, the best candidate seems to be PansarVärnsLuftVärnskanon m/40 (PLVN), which according to what I could find was adopted to use of Swedish Army in year 1940. Could be that either Bofors or Swedish military used the possibility for field-testing their new gun in Finland. There is at least one known later case of doing just that:
http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/MORTARS3.htm#47GrK40

Bit more info about PLVN: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Bofors.htm

EDIT: Apparently John was bit faster to reply. I am going to add my reply as well, even if he succeeded covering the matter well.

Jarkko

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#4

Post by Esa K » 07 Oct 2011, 10:19

Hi!

Translated a bit of the text that mentions the AT-guns:

"Besides 37 mm AT-guns the SFK had 20 mm guns and 13 mm AT-rifles, of wich the name used was "elephant guns". The first mentioned belonged to the heavy companies, the latter mentioned belonged to the rifle companies. Two 20 mm AT-guns was subordinated at the front to the 1:st AT-platoon and was put in position. Theese was automatic guns and had magazines with 15-rounds, thus they could develope a considerable firepower."

So, should it be Madsens then, cause if I got it correct the Bofors 20 mm guns had magazines with 28 rounds?


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Esa K

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#5

Post by Philip S. Walker » 07 Oct 2011, 11:48

Some more information here on the Madsen 20 mm. It's in Danish but should translate well through google, otherwise feel free to ask. http://www.chakoten.dk/cgi-bin/fm.cgi?n=640

Also some info here (substantially different from the English version of same): http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_mm_Madsen_maskinkanon

The efficiency of this weapon is illustrated by the fact that during the very brief fighting in Southern Jutland on the morning of 9 April 1940, the Danish army destroyed two German Panzer I tanks and eleven armoured cars using it.

It was produced by Dansk Industri Syndikat (commonly referred to as "Riffelsyndikatet"), who subsequently sold weapons to the Germans (and the Finns) during the occupation of Denmark. The factory was blown up in a massive sabotage operation by the Danish Resistance on 10 May 1943. http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISA

As John T says (assuming the whole world knows what SFK stands for!) the weapon was bought and used by the Swedish Army before WWII, making it more than likely to be the one mentioned in the article.

Regards, Vely

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#6

Post by JTV » 07 Oct 2011, 15:15

Esa K wrote:So, should it be Madsens then, cause if I got it correct the Bofors 20 mm guns had magazines with 28 rounds?
I'm afraid it is not that easy - 20-mm Madsen delivered to Finland were issued with 40- and 60-round drum magazines. No idea if Swedish military used smaller magazines though.

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#7

Post by Juha Tompuri » 07 Oct 2011, 18:44

Philip S. Walker wrote:As John T says (assuming the whole world knows what SFK stands for!) the weapon was bought and used by the Swedish Army before WWII
I don't read that claim at John T post.
JTV wrote:
Esa K wrote:So, should it be Madsens then, cause if I got it correct the Bofors 20 mm guns had magazines with 28 rounds?
I'm afraid it is not that easy - 20-mm Madsen delivered to Finland were issued with 40- and 60-round drum magazines. No idea if Swedish military used smaller magazines though.
The AT-Madsen versions also had 10 round drums and the first Finnish 20-mm Madsens ordered and delivered for Finnish Navy early 30's had 15 round magazines.

So...one perhaps a bit far-fetching theory could be that the SFK 20mm AT-guns could in theory been the Madsens, taken from (docked for winter time) Patrol Boats VMV-1, VMV 2 and/or submarines Iku-Turso, Vetehinen or Vesihiisi ?

Regards, Juha

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#8

Post by Vaeltaja » 07 Oct 2011, 20:14

Navy reportedly had grand total of 6 20/60-M guns (3 on subs and 3 on VMVs) and 10 20/60-L guns (M = Madsen, L = Lahti) (all on VMVs). Though AFAIK the navy 20 mm AA guns were transferred to ice breakers instead of being sent to ground pounders.

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#9

Post by John T » 07 Oct 2011, 21:36

John T wrote:
Juha Tompuri wrote:Here a scan from a Swedish booklet I Österled.
The item is about the Swedish volunteers in the Winter War.
Interesting is the Nils Ahlström written article mention where he mentions of two 20mm AT-weapons at Swedish use 1940.
Wonder what guns they were AFAIK there were no Lahti AT-rifles, so Madsen or Bofors type?

Regards, Juha
Hmm, I know SFK had Madsens.
But I though Bofors had their own Detatchment in Finland with one or two 20m PvLv m/40 more or less as a demo-unit as AAA behind the front.
So either he talks about Madsens in different mountings or SFK had some Bofors guns too.

The organization did on paper contain a large number of 20mm guns but never got enough.

Cheers
/John
Sorry I didn't read the text good enough. Nothing is said about more than one type of gun.
So it should be two of the twelve Madsens delivered from Denmark to SFK with Sweden as proxy.

Madsens.jpg
"Stationofficeren Haparanda" simply means Svenska FrivilligKåren (SFK) Swedish Volunteer Corps.


The document also lists that
2 guns where to be sent to Höckertz Eftertr. / Colonell Voss-Schrader/ Torneå
2 guns to Amus. Raumo Via Torneå and
2 guns to Tulitikku Oy. Jokela
All these where moundet in "universal mounts". (AA?)

Cheers
/John T

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#10

Post by JTV » 07 Oct 2011, 21:43

Vaeltaja wrote:Navy reportedly had grand total of 6 20/60-M guns (3 on subs and 3 on VMVs) and 10 20/60-L guns (M = Madsen, L = Lahti) (all on VMVs). Though AFAIK the navy 20 mm AA guns were transferred to ice breakers instead of being sent to ground pounders.
Yes, Navy wasn't exactly forthcoming to transferring its very few modern automatic cannons to Army use. Althought one can't really blame them, considering shortage of practically everything. While back I did some serious digging trying to find out exactly how many 20-mm Madsen Finland succeeded acquiring during Winter War, the best could come up with:
- Navy probably succeeded getting 19 additional guns.
- Army and Finnish industry probably succeeded getting 8.
According Palokangas (Suomen Panssaritorjunnan tykkiaseistus, Sotahistoriallinen aikakauskirja 17, page 255) the guns installed to sledges (ahkio) were in use of URR in last weeks of the war. The guns acquired during Winter War included versions with naval mounts, "version with gun mount that had two axles" (apparently 20 ItK/36 M) and "version with multipurpose gun mount" (apparently 20 ItK/40 M). It seems the version equipped with multipurpose mount would have likely been most best suited of these to be used against ground targets - with wheels attached and legs of tripod attached to each other to form a gun trail.

Image

BTW, unlike Philip S. Walker claimed, 20-mm Madsen wasn't particularly good 20-mm automatic cannon. German 20-mm guns and Finnish 20 ItK/40 VKT were all superior designs compared to it. The reason why Finnish military used 20-mm Madsen in large numbers wasn't because it was particularly good weapon, but had much more to due with that fact that there were not enough better automatic cannons easily available at that time.

Some info loaned from my website:

"Ammunition of Madsen automatic guns was its own kind (20 mm x 120) and had lower armour penetration than 20 mm x 138 B ammunition used in other 20-mm AA-guns (with exception of Oerlikon guns) used by Finnish military. However, that was not the worst problem of these guns. The real problems of Madsen gun were reliability issues and high explosive shells cooking off and exploding while inside breech. This very serious and dangerous problem was relatively common especially with older versions. About 120 - 150 shots of constant automatic fire was enough to make the weapon dangerously hot and as the gun left live round to chamber when shooting was paused the resulting danger was fairly obvious. HE-ammunition cooking off in chamber caused several accidents - and several Finnish soldiers died for these accidental explosions during World War 2. Various methods were tested to solve the problem, but no fool-proof solution was found. While the guns acquired during Winter War were already much better reliability-wise than the ones bougth in early 1930's, the reliability issues still appeared now and then also with them."

Jarkko

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#11

Post by Juha Tompuri » 07 Oct 2011, 22:10

Vaeltaja wrote:Navy reportedly had grand total of 6 20/60-M guns (3 on subs and 3 on VMVs) and 10 20/60-L guns (M = Madsen, L = Lahti) (all on VMVs). Though AFAIK the navy 20 mm AA guns were transferred to ice breakers instead of being sent to ground pounders.
Aha, otherwise the Lahti L-34 with it's also 15 round magazine would also been a probable candidate.
Image
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... i#p1424884

Possible, 20mm bore and 15 round magazine, candidates at those days were also the two VKT manufactured L-35 and L-36 prototype guns for aircraft.

Regards, Juha

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#12

Post by JTV » 07 Oct 2011, 22:21

John T wrote: Sorry I didn't read the text good enough. Nothing is said about more than one type of gun.
So it should be two of the twelve Madsens delivered from Denmark to SFK with Sweden as proxy.

The document also lists that
2 guns where to be sent to Höckertz Eftertr. / Colonell Voss-Schrader/ Torneå
2 guns to Amus. Raumo Via Torneå and
2 guns to Tulitikku Oy. Jokela
All these where moundet in "universal mounts". (AA?)
Thanks, really nice info. Finnish sources seem to lack accurate information when it comes to weapons that SFK brougth with it. Universal mount might likely be the same as multipurpose-mount (tripod with removable wheels, photo shown in my last post)? Hmm... kompanilavett - I have vague recollection of seeing old Madsen cannon manual that used that term, but I'm no longer 100% certain which mount version it was? Do you have any info?

Jarkko

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#13

Post by JTV » 07 Oct 2011, 22:23

Juha Tompuri wrote:
Vaeltaja wrote: Aha, otherwise the Lahti L-34 with it's also 15 round magazine would also been a probable candidate.
Image
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... i#p1424884

Possible, 20mm bore and 15 round magazine, candidates at those days were also the two VKT manufactured L-35 and L-36 prototype guns for aircraft.
Seems highly unlikely, since there is no mentioning what so ever about them ever seeing ground use.

Jarkko

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#14

Post by Esa K » 07 Oct 2011, 23:36

JTV wrote: Finnish sources seem to lack accurate information when it comes to weapons that SFK brougth with it.
Yes, and, Isn't this the crucial point here! And at moment we must find the most beliveble facts, or how to put it, that it was Swedish bought 20 mm Madsens with 15 round mags that the text is about
So. We need Swedish sources about the weapon in use, in Sweden and in SFK, to confirm the statement in the original text...

Best regards

Esa K

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Re: 20mm AT-weapon at Winter War

#15

Post by Juha Tompuri » 08 Oct 2011, 08:34

JTV wrote:Seems highly unlikely
I was just listing the possible guns from Finnish inventory that would fit to the parameters given at the I Österled booklet.
And I posted my post without noticing the John T post.
JTV wrote:since there is no mentioning what so ever about them ever seeing ground use.

From Pitkänen&Simpanen book:
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