Lithuania supplying Ukraine with 36 Bofors 40mm L/70 anti-aircraft guns to fight Russian Geran kamikaze drones POSTED ON FRIDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2023 11:53

 

Training of the Ukrainian military on Bofors 40mm L/70 anti-aircraft gun in Lithuania, 2023 (Picture source: Lithuanian Armed Forces/Tomo Kavaliausko)

Lithuania has prepared 36 L70 Bofors anti-aircraft guns for transfer, and also trained Ukrainian military personnel in the operation of these anti-aircraft systems. At the same time, the Lithuanians did not directly train the crews of anti-aircraft guns, but trained instructors who will train the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/70 is a multi-purpose automatic cannon developed by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors (today BAE Systems Bofors) during the second half of the 1940s as a modern replacement for their extremely successful World War II-era Bofors 40mm L/60 gun-design. It was initially intended as a dedicated anti-aircraft weapon, being sold as Bofors 40mm Automatic A.A. Gun L/70, but has since its conception been redeveloped into a dedicated multi-purpose weapon capable of firing both discarding sabot projectiles and programmable ammunition. The Bofors 40mm L/70 design never achieved the same popularity and historical status as the original L/60 design but has still seen great export and popularity to this day, having been adopted by around 40 different nations and even being accepted as NATO-standard in November 1953. It is still being produced and sold (since March 2005 by BAE Systems AB), and several variants exist for both field and naval applications. A notable variant is the Bofors 40/70B "light armored vehicle variant" which is in use on the Swedish Strf 9040 and Korean K21 infantry fighting vehicles.

The Bofors 40mm L/70, like most Bofors autocannons, is based on the same core action as the original Bofors 40mm Automatic Gun L/60, basically being a fire-on-closing, self-ejecting gun with a recoil-operated autoloader in the same receiver, and thus looks visually similar. Despite this, the Bofors 40 mm L/70 is a separate design with a number of major changes compared to its predecessor. The most superficial changes are the longer L/70 barrel, double cooling vents on the jacket and the fact that the weapon comes chambered for a more powerful 40×365mmR cartridge (vs 40×311mmR for the Bofors 40 mm L/60). Most important, however, is the new ejection system which ejects the empty cartridge cases out from the opposite side to the feed, compared to the ejecting system on the 40 mm L/60 which ejects the cases straight out the back of the gun. This system change almost doubled the mechanical rate of fire from the previous system.

In spite of the Bofors 40mm L/70 being a separate development to the older Bofors 40mm L/60-design, the similarities and success between the two guns have caused them both to be widely known simply as "the Bofors" or the "Bofors 40mm gun", which at times causes the guns to be confused as one and the same weapon.