3.7 cm Flak M 39a (r)

[jopaerya]

Hello All

Here some pictures of the 3.7 cm Flak M 39a (r) as you can see it was based on a Bofor gun .

Photo= Ebay.de

Regards Jos

[Alkali]

Hi

Nice pictures. Other photo this gun -


Alkali

[jopaerya]

Here some more picture's of this gun in German use
http://cgi.ebay.de/17-Orig-Xj-Pimpf-Fla ... 240%3A1318

[Sturm78]

Hi Jopaerya,

Great photos!! . According to photocaption they are Bofors guns but it is obviously an error. This photos were taken in Holland in 1944. It would not have been better for the Germans to use these captured guns in Russia and not transported them thousands of miles to Holland??


Regards Sturm78.

[kriegsmarine221]

transported them thousands of miles to holland?! if the germans would ever capture a bofors then they would have captured it from the americans. the americans invaded in france. so it would be logical to use them close to where they were captured eg. holland. im not saying its a bofors though it looks extremely like one.

[jopaerya]

Hello

The photo's showes us young Lufwaffehelfers ( as sort of Hitlerjugend ) so it's could
be in Germany , this is pure speculation but in the background it looks a shipyard ??

Regards Jos

[kriegsmarine221]

well it must have been very late in the war because hitlerjugend wasnt really used in combat till about 1944. the shipyard place must ve been a port town in germany and i dont know why their using a bofors.

[Jens Andersen]

transported them thousands of miles to holland?! if the germans would ever capture a bofors then they would have captured it from the americans. the americans invaded in france. so it would be logical to use them close to where they were captured eg. holland.

That is not true. There were many other sources for the Germans to aquire Bofors gun from as they were in very wide use. So, during their campaign in 1940 they had the chance to aquire quite large amounts of the guns. And in Norway the lincensed production actually continued under German control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_40_mm_gun

Concidering the general situation in Normandy, I guess it is not very likely that the Germans got any Boforses there at all.

Best regards
Jens

[Sturm78]

Hi all,

First, the guns shown by Jopaerya are Russian 37mm M1939 AA guns based on the Bofors design, but they are not "Bofors". So, these guns were captured in Russia and transported to Germany or to the Western Front.

More photos from Ebay shown this guns destroyed in Crimea and with a rare camo. Top superstructure. For what?

Regards Sturm78

[Martti]

Top superstructure is probably to protect the gun sigths from tarpaulin. I served my conscription in Finnish army with ZU-23 AA gun, and it had a somewhat similar detachable frame from light tubular steel. The gun tarpaulin would be draped on top of the frame so that the gun sights and their associated components (bars turning the sights and the gears they are connected to) would not be subjected to the weight of the tarpaulin. Especially for long term warehousing the weight of the tarpaulin might be detrimental for a mechanical predictor. Even if the sights are detachable (as in ZU-23), the bars they are attached would still suffer from the weight.

[kriegsmarine221]

so some tarpaulin can bend that piece of metal?

[TISO]

It was acctually developed on the basis of 25mm Bofors gun model 1933 bought by VMF (navy) in 1935. Initialy soviets wanted 45mm but army felt that 45mm is a bit much for automatic AA gun. I'm just guessing here but could be that in German use they were modified to use German 37mm AA ammo? What were the differences between Soviet and German 37mm AA ammunition?

BTW full soviet name is:
37-мм автоматическая зенитная пушка образца 1939 года (61-К)
37mm automatic antiaircraft gun model 1939 61-K - ussualy 61K model 1939
(61 being the lenght of the barell i.e. 61 times caliber of the gun)
more than 20.000 produced in SSSR + large numbers produced in China, North Korea and Poland. So it was common as dogshit on the eastern front, Korea and Vietnam (+ all other communist states).
IRC i saw one of them in some pic in the newspapers during the last years Peking olimpics as "ready to repeal 9/11 like terrorist attack".

a few articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/61-K

Russian article with good details of the gun:
http://www.battlefield.ru/content/view/134/66/lang,ru/

Walk around galleries (you just have to ask scale modeller for info - did one & still have one in stash :roll: ):
http://www.thetankmaster.com/ENGLISH/AFV/37mm61K.asp
http://www.thetankmaster.com/ENGLISH/AFV/37mm_1939.asp
http://www.primeportal.net/artillery/yu ... _mod.1939/
http://www.primeportal.net/artillery/carrey/37mm_zap/

Re tarpoulin. It is not good to risk the damaging the optics or parts of sightning mechanism who knows you might need them someday . Supported tarpoulin also served as rain/snow protection during the transport and open storage hence support (weight of tarpoulin + weight of snow). Such supports are most common on all soviet light AA guns like 37mm 61-K, 25mm 72-K or a bit more modern ZU-23-2 (Rogatka) or ZPU-2, ZPU-4 (2 or 4 KPV-14,5mm) mounts.

BTW quite a good number of 40mm Bofors guns served in Polish army in 1939 and BEF in 1940.

Martti a Rogatka gunner, eh? Any good pic's of your gun? I'm working on a model of rogatka mounted on a truck.

[kriegsmarine221]

an automatic 45mm a bit too much? they were capable of making one because they already had the yak-9K armed with one. the germans even made a 50mm autocannon! and to think of all those semi automatic 37mm guns.

[TISO]

Yak-9K with 45mm gun, came into being in second half of GPW only. We are talking here about second half of 1930's when they were developing this 37mm gun.

[Sturm78]

Hi all,

Another photo of 37mm M1939 soviet AA gun captured by germans from Ebay:

Regards Sturm78.