The Swedish Weapon That Shot Down More Planes Than Any Other in History….

Neutral Sweden created the deadliest anti-aircraft weapon of World War II, then sold it to everyone. The Bowfor’s 40mm gun shot down more aircraft than all other anti-aircraft weapons combined, protecting both Allied invasions and Nazi strongholds with equal efficiency. This is the story of how a peaceloving nation accidentally armed the entire world.

 In 1928, Swedish Navy Captain Victor Hammer watched his fleet anti-aircraft guns fail miserably during exercises. Every shot missed. Frustrated, he approached Bowfors, a Swedish steel company making everything from kitchen sinks to artillery. His demand was simple. Create a gun that could actually hit aircraft. What emerged would destroy over 20,000 planes across six continents.

 The secret lay in Swedish precision engineering. The Bowfors fired 2 lb explosive shells at 120 rounds per minute, four times faster than comparable weapons. Its automatic ammunition feed meant continuous fire. The hydraulic controls allowed one man to track diving stucas or racing zeros with fingertip pressure.

 But the real innovation was the Swedish designed predictor site that calculated where a plane would be, not where it was. Here’s where the story gets complicated. Neutral Sweden happily sold manufacturing licenses to anyone with cash. By 1940, Britain, Poland, Norway, and Belgium were producing Bowfor’s guns.

 So were Hungary and Finland, German allies. The United States paid $1 million for production rights. Japan reverse engineered captured guns. Germany used Norwegian-built bowors to defend Berlin. Swedish businessmen counted profits while their guns shot down aircraft on both sides. The numbers are staggering. American factories produced 60,000 bowors guns.

 Britain built 19,000. The Soviet Union without a license copied thousands more. Japanese type 5 guns were identical bowors copies. German flack 28 guns. Bowfors built under occupation. By 1943, Swedishes designed guns defended every major port, airfield, and warship worldwide. USS Enterprise gunner James Morrison recalled his first Bowfors experience.

At Pearl Harbor, we had old 3-in guns that took 30 seconds to reload. The bow fors never stopped firing. First kamicazi came in. I held the trigger down and watched it disintegrate 50 yards away. Those Swedish engineers saved my life. The gun’s effectiveness bordered on absurd. During operation overlord shipmounted bowors created a steel curtain over Normandy beaches of 435 Luftwafa facities on D-Day.

 Bowfor’s guns claimed 312 kills. At Okinawa, 19-year-old Seaman Robert Baker shot down five kamicazis in four minutes with a single bow for mount. The gun was so effective that pilots changed tactics, attacking from higher altitudes where accuracy dropped, but survival rates improved. Sweden’s neutrality created surreal situations.

 Bothour’s technicians in Escalstuna received combat reports from both sides, improving designs based on German and Allied feedback simultaneously. Swedish factories worked over time filling orders from London and Berlin, sometimes shipping guns to opposing forces on the same day. When Allied bombers emergency landed in Sweden, crews were amazed to find their aircraft guarded by the same Bowfors guns protecting their bases in England.

 The 40mm shell’s 2,000 meter effective range filled the crucial gap between machine guns and heavy artillery. Its proximity fuse, added in 1944, detonated shells automatically near aircraft. This Swedish innovation increased kill rates by 400% overnight. Japanese pilots called them black dragons for the dark puffs that preceded death.

 Postwar analysis credited bowor’s guns with destroying more axis aircraft than fighters and heavy flack combined. The bitter irony, Swedish guns also shot down thousands of allied planes. Neutral Sweden had created the ultimate equal opportunity killer. When war ended, surplus Bowfor’s guns armed 90 nations. Modern variants still protect warships today.

 The Bowfor’s 40mm remains history’s most successful anti-aircraft weapon because Sweden perfected what others thought impossible. A gun accurate enough to hit aircraft. Simple enough for mass production and reliable enough to function in Arctic cold or desert heat by maintaining neutrality while arming humanity’s deadliest conflict.

 Sweden proved that in war, the best business is selling shovels to both sides, especially when those shovels shoot explosive shells at 2,000 ft per Second.