"David" high-velocity anti-tank gun

[rob love]

I pulled the 2 pr off the golf course a week or two back, repaired both tires and gave it a quick coat of paint before it moves over to the main museum. I thought I would put some photos on here. I could not find the EX number. The carriage number does not match the documents Colin showed and I didn't spot a breech ring number. The number may well be on the breech end of the barrel, covered by the stuck breech block, so it will remain a mystery for now. Note it has the groove and keyway for the littlejohn attachment (I believe).

I had a look earlier in the week.....as can be seen it is raining now with possibly some snow flurries today, so the details did not come out that well.

[tankbarrell]

Breech ring number is usually stamped vertically on the right hand rear face of the ring. There should be two numbers, one starting FL which is the part number and one starting B/R Lxxxxx which is the serial number.
The barrel will have its own number stamped on the rear face.

The ring is stamped as a tank ring rather than an AT gun ring.

[rob love]

OK, so I scraped away the paint in the area of the markings at the back of the breech, and here is what I found. Still no EX numbers.

[David Dunlop]

Rob. The end section of the barrel in Ed’s photo from Kapyong looks a lot longer than the one on the gun you just posted pictures of. Are they two different guns by any chance?

David

[rob love]

Same gun. If you blow the photo up you can see the groove on the end of the barrel.

[tankbarrell]

Originally Posted by rob love

OK, so I scraped away the paint in the area of the markings at the back of the breech, and here is what I found. Still no EX numbers.

With a blank serial number!

[rob love]

Originally Posted by tankbarrell

With a blank serial number!

Yep. I'm going to have to touch up the paint in that area and the mystery will have to wait for someone else to solve it someday in the future. Perhaps when the entire gun is stripped or sandblasted, the numbers will show up. In the meantime, I'll copy and insert some of the relevant information into the gun's electronic file.

[rob love]

I went back to my old emails that I had with Doug Knight on this gun from when I first (re) discovered it. His opinion was :

This is the 2-pounder “David” high velocity experimental gun. Somebody must have plunked it on a standard 6-pounder carriage.........

He finished the email with:

The muzzle brake is missing - interesting in that I have never seen the end of the barrel inside the brake - didn’t know it had a keyway.

So, in Doug's learned opinion, this was one of the Davids, but now installed in a 6pdr carriage. Trials went on through to at least 1945, so possibly, when the 2 pounder system with 360 traverse was abandoned, they moved it to a more conventional carriage to continue to perform tests on that style ammunition. I'm not so sure this was gun no. EX54, in that the material Colin found talks about it being a 6 pdr barrel bored to only 40mm. This is not a 6pdr barrel.

Hopefully one day the gun will get a proper paintjob, at which time the EX number may come up.