The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Thorney wrote:Cool.

I'm on the hunt for a Bofors as there was one in my garden in WW11 that shot down a bomber.

Ah, now that is an anti aircraft gun (if you are talking classics, forget all the modern stuff).

We had a 40/70 (?) at Bulford, big old gun, may be a bit large for a garden.

Then the Navy had the 40/60 near home. All gone now but the rhythic thumping of the things used to wake me up when I was on leave.

The run up to the Falklands was...err....noisy as we had 4.5 Mk 6 and 8 as well and they did a lot of night firing...cool....but noisy.

I reckon in various guises the 40mm Bofors was probably one of the most widely used mediums ever. IIRC even the Nazis used them

How it all started was when we moved here at the end of my garden was a weird looking shed type thing, open fronted, we looked to take or or move it and found underneath it was a significant amount of concrete, ie 3m deep! A bit of research showed that it was in fact an AA emplacement for defence of the numerous airfields we have round here, specifically SIlverstone and Turweston which were both bomber and spitfire training airfields. We live on a run between the two so were a prime spot for a gun emplacement. The Germans spent quite some time bombing training airfields as it was easier (relatively) to attack pilots when they were green and sadly many were killed in taxiing on the ground. However, we understand that one bomber was shot down during one such raid, it crashed about 2 miles away and the belief is that the crew from the emplacement in our garden claimed the kill. All of this is with the help of local researchers and a couple of guys who lived here as children at the time.

What I'd like to do is get a bofors (replica if necessary) and mount it in the field next to my entrance (and ideally next to the shooting range I'm trying to get permission for) to act as a memorial for the pilots and ground crew for all the local airfields who did the country proud in the war. End of the day a lot of these guys were killed before they had a chance to make a difference in the war but training them to be ready for combat is just as important as the combat themselves, if not as noteworthy as actual raids (if you get my point).

The hard thing is finding a Bofors that isnt mad money, only one I've seen is nearly £9k.

Three of us were operating a Bofors a few weeks ago, they are hard physical work to operate and not the easiest of things to track with. We were mostly 'shooting' pigeons which seldom stay flat and level for more than a second or two.

Should have a picture somewhere..

I seriously regret not buying these, if the sale falls through for any reason please PM me.

Thorney wrote:How it all started was when we moved here at the end of my garden was a weird looking shed type thing, open fronted, we looked to take or or move it and found underneath it was a significant amount of concrete, ie 3m deep! A bit of research showed that it was in fact an AA emplacement for defence of the numerous airfields we have round here, specifically SIlverstone and Turweston which were both bomber and spitfire training airfields. We live on a run between the two so were a prime spot for a gun emplacement. The Germans spent quite some time bombing training airfields as it was easier (relatively) to attack pilots when they were green and sadly many were killed in taxiing on the ground. However, we understand that one bomber was shot down during one such raid, it crashed about 2 miles away and the belief is that the crew from the emplacement in our garden claimed the kill. All of this is with the help of local researchers and a couple of guys who lived here as children at the time.

What I'd like to do is get a bofors (replica if necessary) and mount it in the field next to my entrance (and ideally next to the shooting range I'm trying to get permission for) to act as a memorial for the pilots and ground crew for all the local airfields who did the country proud in the war. End of the day a lot of these guys were killed before they had a chance to make a difference in the war but training them to be ready for combat is just as important as the combat themselves, if not as noteworthy as actual raids (if you get my point).

The hard thing is finding a Bofors that isnt mad money, only one I've seen is nearly £9k.

Jeez, you ought to talk to my father in law, he was a boy in Buckingham (Maids Morton) during the war, he remembers a lot of the "less than skilfull" arrivals

ovenpaa wrote:Three of us were operating a Bofors a few weeks ago, they are hard physical work to operate and not the easiest of things to track with. We were mostly 'shooting' pigeons which seldom stay flat and level for more than a second or two.

Should have a picture somewhere..

Then lay off the pork pies mate, it will traverse a bit quicker then :55:

The naval variant I was on about worked with a nice little yoke and was powered, god they whipped round.