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A REALLY rare AA gun


Cobrahistorian
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Cobrahistorian

Hey all,

 

Just got a number of macro artifacts from Ft. Bliss and Aberdeen Proving Grounds. One of the pieces from Bliss is a previously unidentified 37mm anti aircraft gun. It had a number of features from interwar anti-aircraft weapons and being a non-automatic gun, it had to predate the Colt automatic 37mm cannon, which revolutionized that class of weapon. With some help, we were able to identify it as an American Armament Corporation M2 No. 1 AA gun.

 

As it sits now, the barrel is in full recoil and it needs some work, but this is one of three known to exist. While never formally adopted by US forces, it did serve with the Dutch Navy on a number of their patrol boats in WWII. US use was limited to trials and this was one of those trial weapons. Traverse and elevation on it are still fully functional. I didn't realize that the barrel was not secured, and while elevating it, the entire barrel and breech assembly fell out the back of the gun! We've reinstalled it now and need to compress the equilibrator over the gun to get everything back in place.

 

Enjoy!

 

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Really cool, Cobra. It looks like it is a single-shot semi-automatic mechanism. Am I correct? Unusual for an AA gun in a caliber this small, I think anyway. Can't wait to see it fully restored.

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Cobrahistorian
Really cool, Cobra. It looks like it is a single-shot semi-automatic mechanism. Am I correct? Unusual for an AA gun in a caliber this small, I think anyway. Can't wait to see it fully restored.

 

That was our assessment as well. It actually doesn't need much restoration. It's missing a couple parts (mainly bolts) that we can replace fairly easily. The big issue is just going to be compressing the mainspring so we can bring the recoil rod back into battery and pull the barrel/breech assembly forward again. Other than that, it's in remarkably good condition!

 

Jon

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Cobrahistorian

Etienne,

 

The P-39's gun was an automatic gun, while this was strictly semi-auto. From what I understand, the rounds were similar, but the casing for this gun was a bit shorter.

 

Jon

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Cobrahistorian
Very nice.

 

Are you restoring it ?

 

It actually doesn't need much restoration. There are a few pieces that need to be replaced, but overall I'd say it's about 95% complete in its original paint. What we need to do now is compress the main spring so we can put the barrel and breech assembly back in battery.

 

Jon

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Cobrahistorian

We've done a bit of work on the gun over the past few days. The firing mechanism has what looks like a bicycle chain on it, so we replaced the damaged one with... a bicycle chain. Yeah, that didn't work. When it cammed forward, the chain just snapped. However, we did get the equilibrator pinned back to the body of the gun. I was hoping that doing so would enable us to force the recuperator to collapse, but no dice. SO, the gun is now at max elevation (where it looks rather cool, I might add) with the barrel in full recoil. We're getting there though. Definitely making progress on getting it back to near-functionality.

 

Between this and the disaster we had with the delivery of our T3 105mm AA gun last Friday, it's been an interesting week.

Jon

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In the 90's there were 3 of these for sale this looks much like the same gun at some point a hopper was added to them,

for automatic loading.... the three had this "feature" removed as they were Registered as DD's and not as machineguns......

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Cobrahistorian

In the 90's there were 3 of these for sale this looks much like the same gun at some point a hopper was added to them,

for automatic loading.... the three had this "feature" removed as they were Registered as DD's and not as machineguns......

 

 

Yep, there was a drum magazine that could be mounted on top of the breech for semi-auto fire, but it was never an automatic weapon (hence the reason it was not adopted by the US military), so DD would make sense. The Colt 37mm Auto Cannon made the M2 No.1 obsolete before it was adopted.

 

Jon

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In the 90's there were 3 of these for sale this looks much like the same gun at some point a hopper was added to them,

for automatic loading.... the three had this "feature" removed as they were Registered as DD's and not as machineguns......

 

Was there a mechanism to ram the new shell in after the old one was extracted? If it was just a hopper that held rounds to be manually rammed, that does not qualify it to be a machine gun. Also, since it is a semi-automatic breech-loading artillery piece, the firing pin is not automaticly released when the breach closes if the trigger is held.

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