Finnish 20 mm anti-tank rifle being used in an anti-aircraft role, Continuation War, WW2, 1942
Finnish 20 mm anti-tank rifle being used in an anti-aircraft role, Continuation War, WW2, 1942
4 comments
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Oooh, lovely detail about this beast: to counter the murderous recoil, the massive spring inside is so big the gun comes with an arbalest-like cocking mechanism instead of a normal handle.
Also, 20mm is .78 inch for those of you who hate metric, which explains the above.
Any more context on this image? My understanding is that AA guns are shockingly inefficient, and I'd expect a tank gun to be almost useless unless it's a specific tactical scenario.
I imagine it was most used against close air support, not high-altitude bombing. Seeing what to bomb in the dense woods would require flying pretty low and slow, which makes you a great target for a big semi-auto gun like this.
Another good motivator is that a bigass rifle is really flexible (sort of). You can shoot at vehicles, bunkers, snipers, harass tanks, and apparently also planes.
A twin-mounted full-auto variant was kept in service till the late 70s, mostly for anti-helicopter purposes, so it's probably a pretty decent piece of kit.
It probably was almost useless, but in WW2, such ad-hoc anti-aircraft measures were still attempted against dive bombers and the like.