Can you identify this gun??

[luc désormeaux]

Anybody can give me information on this gun?? It is located in the Veteran park in Quebec city.

[luc désormeaux]

here is another pic:

Just a wild guess. 17pdr mounted on a 25pdr carriage. Approximately 100 of these were shipped to counter the tanks of the AFRIKA CORPS in the early 40s. The split trail carraige of the 17pdr was not available at the time.

[rob love]

It looks like someone has adapted a 40mm bofors onto a 25 pdr chassis. Never saw referance to that before. The barrel and breech ring look like normal bofors, but there is a bit more forward of the breech ring where the recuperator spring should be. Perhaps this set up was to make use of the 25 pdrs recuperator system?


Could it be someones attempt to use the bofors in an antitank role? Or just a bunch of spare parts thrown together to make a parlkguardian?

(I saw on TV the other day where you can do this kind of thing to crabapple trees and get two different kinds of apples from the same tree. )

[DaveCox]

The chassis is definitely 25pdr, I can't indentify the barrel though - the bofors suggestion looks pretthy good though. What a terrible thing to do to a 25!

[Godwin Hampton]

I would suggest a name for this gun - FRANKENSTEIN

Carriage definitely 25 pounder, Barrel and breech ring definitely Bofors L60, thrown together! At least they were saved!

[Robert Dabkowski]

When I visited the CWM Vimy House library several years ago I did read some test reports on Bofors firing specialty Anti-tank rounds so maybe this was the "test gun" that fired them ?

Luc, your first photo shows a couple of brass dataplates mounted on the carriage ... what is written thereon ?

Robert in Toronto

[Godwin Hampton]

Robert, I doubt this would have been the case. Why bother to knock together a Test Gun when they had hundreds of perfectly good Bofors guns? The advantage of such ammunition is that it allows the anti-aircraft gun to effectively engage tanks. A high rate of fire would in this case prove advantageous, and even at single shot the Bofors reloaded automatically.

The Bofors gun offered 360 degrees of traverse, and from 5 degrees depression to 90 degrees of elevation. Hard to beat with any other type of gun carriage. Keep in mind the effective use of the Flak 88 by the Germans, due in some measure to the flexibility afforded by the AA mounting.

The Bofors design was such that it fired from an open breech,unlike manually operated guns where the round is loaded and the gun fired at the opportune moment by releasing the striker. Too many modifications would have had to be carried out to even get this gun to fire.

[Robert Dabkowski]

I don't dispute your points but would like to mention that at the time EVERY single operational BOFORS was needed for AA work in England's "Battle of Britain". Maybe the test boffins could only obtain 1 spare barrel/breach assembly and cobbled together a carriage ?? Just guessing of course and trying to come up with a possible explanation for the existance of "Frankenstein".

After all you don't need an elaborate mount to horizontaly fire AP rounds at armour plate targets. And single shot is all you need to test penetration ability. Multiple impacts would just make the test results harder to interpret.

I suspect that it was just a bunch of spare parts thrown together as a gate guard but the photos do show that some thought/skill went into it and as a rule the Cdn Forces don't park crap at their front gates.

Robert Dabkowski

[luc désormeaux]

Here is some pictures of some markings found on "frankenstein"

[luc désormeaux]

another one,

[Jon Skagfeld]

So, from top to bottom as depicted, might this be:

QF 40 mm= Quick Firing 40 mm, self explatory

1942 ROF= Royal Ordnance Factory, but where...Fakazerly, Enfield, or is that a faintly observable "W"

Rifling = Mk 1?

Barrel =No 1 ?

[Godwin Hampton]

Jon, the markings I make out on the barrel are:

G V I

R I

Q.F. 40 mm Mk.1.

1942 R.O.F N

RIFLING Mk 1

BARREL NO. L

359

So it would seem that we have a British barrel ( N suggests Nottingham ) on a Canadian cradle ( C before the No. 4 ). It would seem a bit unlikely that a barrel would be shipped all the way from England for ammunition testing, because those produced in Canada were needed to protect England! And this was after 1942, well past the Battle of Britain. I would suggest that this barrel had been obtained from British stocks to replace another on a Canadian Bofors, and eventually accompanied the gun back to Canada after the War ended.

Of course, we are all speculating, and I hope that no-one takes offence with anything I suggested, as none was intended. What would the scope of a forum be if not friendly sparring? I for one have learnt a lot by going through these pages. Please keep them coming!!!

[REL]

Looks like a W to me. Weedon or Woolwich presumably?

My guess would be a gun built for ammo testing, perhaps shipped from the UK with the breech mech fitted?

The museum at Woolwich could probably say for sure.

[Gunner]

Hi All:

"Frankenstein is in fact one of the test beds from the Proof and Equipment Test Establishment (PETE) in Nicolete (Trois Rivieres), Quebec.

They had dozens of different field gun carriages with specifically made adapters to allow fitting all manner of barrels... I remember clearly a 75 Pack How with a .50 MG fitted... I found the missing bits in a store room and reassembled the Pack How which now resides in the Airborne Forces Museum in Petawawa. Years ago, I was also periferally involved in tests on 105mm APFSDS using an L7 tank barrel fitted to a Long Tom carriage.

Usually when a barrel and breech mech such as seen on Frankenstein were fitted to a field gun carriage it was to have the most stable platform possible for ammo tests. I would bet that a careful examination of Frankenstein will reveal a number of holes drilled into the barrel in various places (chamber, forcing cone, mid barrel) where pressure guages were fitted to measure internal ballistics. These tests (often to ensure old ammo had not exceeded its shelf life) were carried out from the early 40's to just recently. With reference to a recent thread; PETE was the largest concentration of Master Gunners in Canada!

A number of years ago they tidied up at PETE and alot of the wierdos ended up in the Valcartier area due to the lobbying efforts of a number of Gunners in the area to acquire monuments for the Base and local community.

Hope this clears up the confusion!

Jiff: How about moving this to the Gun Park.

Mike

[John McGillivray]

Originally Posted by Gunner

Hi All:

These tests (often to ensure old ammo had not exceeded its shelf life) were carried out from the early 40's to just recently.

Mike

Once when we were doing live firing in Valcartier (1973 or 1974) we were given some 105mm smoke rounds manufactured in the US during WWII. When we opened them up we found that the cloth of the charge bags was rotten, and they would fall apart, spilling cordite everywhere, at the slightest touch. Needless to say the ammo was marked N/S and was sent back were it came from.

[Snowtractor]

This gun has been the topic of discusion here before. I am not sure what thread it would be under though.
Sean