kingcrystal

Hello all, my name is Tom. I am an engineer from the Whitsunday Coast in Queensland, where naturally enough it is pouring rain at the moment. My main interest in military history is to do with artillery from about 1900 onwards.

I wonder if fellow forum members might be able to shed some light on a question which has been niggling me for some months now. There have recently been some 1/35 scale kits released of the Bofors 40mm L60 on the early rivetted style carriage. Some of the publicity shots of assembled models show the gun set up with the axles and wheels completely removed. Now I can see how this was quite normal on the later style carriages with the tubular outriggers, but was it routinely done with the earlier style as well? It seems to me that it would not be an easy task, what with all the balancing gear inside the frames of the carriage, and the fact that the axles seem to go right through the frame - they are not just clamped underneath as are the ones in the later series platforms.

Glad to be able to help. Some more pics of the 3in guns at North Fort. Both of these had the vertical sliding breech block. Pity that no sights are fitted.

Hello George Attached pics of 3inch 20cwt formerly at North Fort, Sydney

I did some more research, and it seems that the 3inch 20cwt on the 4 wheel platform displayed at North Head was one of 24 units locally made in Australia just prior to the outbreak of WW2. It is quite possible that the platform on this gun was built to a slightly different pattern from the older UK-made ones. Or it may have been "restored" using limited resources with readily available steel beam sections before being put on display. Either way, I can now see plausible reasons why the platform doesn't match photos from IWM and other places.

Did the 4 wheel platform have springs on both axles? I looked at the photos I took some years ago of the 3in 20cwt at the RAA Museum at North Fort in Sydney; the platform carriage there only seems to have had leaf springs on one axle.