After WWII Finland bought a load of unarmored surpluss M2 half-tracks from White company in USA. These were used about ten years mainly to pull 15cm artillery, until replaced with modern trucks in early 1960s. At least this one was also equipped with the same 20mm gun as the Ford truck. Earlier I considered doing suggestion about it, but I couldn’t find stats of such lightened M2 half-track. Since it has no armor, the only difference would have been mobility. Certainly it would still be slower on good ground, but possibly slightly better on cross-country.
5 Likes
Dang, actually, I don’t remember ever seeing this before.
Not your fault, there is like 2000 vehicles in the game ;)
I know both are in game, I meant like, someone mounted at German 75mm on a M3.
ah sry, my mistake
Ur good
I like it a lot! It’d be a nice low-tier SPAA for Sweden/Finland. +1
1 Like
It’s quite rare to see since it was only obtainable during one of the battepasses, and you can’t find it on the market (at least when I last checked).
I wish Finnish Defence Force would release their pot war photo archive some day soon, so we could get more photos of this and bunch of other rare vehicles.
This month I’ll try to make a suggestion about another Finnish AA milk truck: Sisu with twin 23 ITK 61 or 95 (ZU-23-2). Any info would be appreciated, but these are now my top questions:
-which trucks are most common platforms
-which gun models are used
-official specifications of these trucks
-ammo and crew count
-stories about their usage
Added some more information about both the truck and the gun from additional sources and fixed few little mistakes:
-truck retirement year
-magazine racks on the gun mount
-ammo load
-Finnish made HEF-T
1 Like
+1 Milktrucks always welcome!!
3 Likes
There appears to have been at least one more 20 ItK/40 VKT carrier as well, seemingly some kind of Unimog truck? I’m not sure though. This is from the 1963 parade
6 Likes
That’s a great find! It’s most likely Unimog S 404.111. It would definitely have way better mobility than the old Ford and the folding cabin could allow firing low to the front. Also there appears to be more technical data about the truck itself. Unfortunately figuring out crew and ammo load would be even more difficult.
5 Likes
We need this for the SPAA lines!!
1 Like
I changed the truck designation from Ford V3000S to Ford 098T vm.40 as the latter was more numerous in Finland and since all of the V3000S were possibly handed to USSR. That part is somewhat uncertain. At any rate these were very much identical trucks as far as I have been able to dig.
3 Likes
Here is a good look around the gun and the ammo box as well.
The video is mislabeled. There was a small amount of L-39 converted for AA use, but externally the gun didn’t look that much like 20 ItK/40 and it only had a primitive single gun mount.
3 Likes
There was a second video where they demonstrate usage of the gun, though without firing.
Rotation seems very light from the handcrank and the commander behind gunner can freely turn the whole thing like you can see at 1:39.
1 Like
Absolutely +1. This AA is necessary for the Swedes at low ranks, because the Pbv 301, with its terrible fire control and low mobility with already weak armor, cannot be used effectively against aircraft, and at the BR 2.7-4.7 Swedes only have 40mm Bofors, which are difficult to hit aircraft with. I’m surprised that such a simple Finnish AA is still not in the game (or, at least, passed for consideration).
5 Likes