Made as part of the WWII war effort by Chrysler, THE BOFORS GUN TEAM shows the manufacture of the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun then in use by the Navy and Army. This was one of the most stunning manufacturing feats of the war, since the Bofors was an extremely intimidating weapon to mass produce and many believed it could not be produced in quantity, in time to make a difference in the war. Within 3 years however Chrysler had shipped over 40,000 complete mechanisms and 75,000 barrels.
At 1:55, the Swedish-designed gun is seen in its “Americanized” configuration — made for mass production in a Chrysler factory. At 2:30, new blueprints are made from Swedish originals which were in metric measure. At 2:45, a diagram shows how the manufacture of the gun was split between Dodge, DeSoto, Plymouth and other Chrysler plants. Production lines are seen for breech casings and other parts in the gigantic plants, which were formerly used for automobile manufacture. At 8:55, blocks are shown being made through mass production techniques. At 9:11, quality inspection is made of the blocks. At 13:30, the manufacture of the gun barrel is seen. At 16:20, breech blocks are assembled and tested.
The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun,is an anti-aircraft/multi-purpose autocannon designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. It was one of the most popular medium-weight anti-aircraft systems during World War II, used by most of the western Allies as well as by the Axis powers. A small number of these weapons remain in service to this day, and saw action as late as the Gulf War.
In the post-war era the original design was not suitable for action against jet powered aircraft, so Bofors introduced a new model of significantly more power, the 40 mm L/70. In spite of sharing almost nothing with the original design other than the calibre and the distinctive conical flash hider, this weapon is also widely known simply as “the Bofors”. Although not as popular as the original L/60 model, the L/70 remains in service, especially as a multi-purpose weapon for light armored vehicles, as on the CV 90.
In order to supply both the Army and Navy with much greater numbers of the guns, Chrysler built 60,000 of the guns and 120,000 barrels through the war, at half the original projected cost, and filling the Army’s needs by 1943. Over the lifetime of the production, their engineers introduced numerous additional changes to improve mass production, eventually reducing the overall time needed to build a gun by half; most of these changes were in production methods rather than the design of the gun itself.York Safe & Lock also produced the weapons, though its attempts to coordinate drawings across the program were unsuccessful, and this responsibility was transferred to the Naval Gun Factory in July 1943.There were many difficulties in producing the guns within the United States, beyond their complexity (illustrated by the use of 2,000 subcontractors in 330 cities and 12 Chrysler factories to make and assemble the parts).
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