(Now With Poll) Mass-Ammunition Rework For All 40mm Bofors L/70 Users

15_940px_briefing

Hey everyone!

Some of us have been digging into the Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/70 ammo across different nations in-game, and I’ve noticed a bunch of inconsistencies. After comparing stats and plotting the data, it’s clear that some of the ammo doesn’t line up with how the L/70 was standardized in real life.

I want to point out what seems off and get the community’s help in gathering better info—this could really improve both realism and balance in-game.


Affected Vehicles

Ground Vehicles:

  • USA: Sgt. York M247
  • Italy: Leopard 40/70
  • France: AMX-13 DCA 40
  • Sweden: Lvkv 42, VEAK 40

Naval:

  • Germany: Jaguar, Köln, Hugin, Pfeil, Schütze, Lübeck
  • Italy: Saetta P-494, Albatros, Alcione, Freccia P-493, Baleno MC-492

Disclaimer:
This Post doesn’t cover the CV-90 Akan m/70 or any late 1990s–2000s upgrade including the L/70 Mark III. These fall outside the era of the ammunition used in this post.


1. Issue

Currently, all 40 mm belts are just listed by category, not by actual round designation. That leaves us guessing which real-world shell each stat is supposed to represent.

Detailed In-Game Values: Performance Chart. (Here)

Swedish 40mm Bofors L/70 (Designated “Lvakan 48” In-Service for Sweden)

Edit: Lvakan 48 is known to be incorrect an Bug reported(Here) is currently suggested to the developers as a “Historical error”

French 40mm Bofors L/70 (French License production designated “40mm Mle51 T1”)

Note: The values for this SPAA seems to line-up with Real life Statistics.

Italy 40mm Bofors L/70 (Italian License production designated “Breda-Bofors 40mm L/70”)

Note: Its strange these rounds share the exact same stats (Aside from Explosive filler & Armour piercing capability) Despite being different ammunition types, and could be potentially incorrect.

USA 40mm Bofors L/70 (American License production designated “40mm M226”)

Note: Its strange that all rounds are performing exactly equally to each other. There could definetly be a potential error involved.

I’m aware that naval and army L/70 ammo aren’t identical, but I don’t have a solution for that yet. If anyone has an idea, it would be a huge help. But aside from that issue, even fixing a single set of L/70 guns seems to take forever. Take the Lvakan 48 Using Wrong Ammunition bug in War Thunder—it’s been reported since 2020~ in different stages and still hasn’t been fixed.


1.1 Possible Solutions

We basically have two ways to approach this, but both come with trade-offs:

A: Rebuild every shell with accurate, sourced stats

  • Pros:
    • Most historically accurate solution
    • Each vehicle gets ammo that truly reflects real-world performance
  • Cons:
    • Extremely time-consuming to research and implement
    • Could take years to complete for all vehicles
    • High risk of inconsistencies if sources conflict or aren’t clear

B: Introduce one standardized ammo set

  • Pros:
    • Much faster to implement
    • Immediately improves consistency and gameplay balance across all L/70 guns
    • Easier for players to understand what to expect from each gun
  • Cons:
    • Less historically precise—some vehicles won’t match the real-world ammo they actually used
    • Naval and army guns might behave the same even if their real-world ammo differed

3. Currently Documented Ammunition. (IRL performance)

IRL Ammunition (here)

Oerlikon (Swiss)

High-Explosive (HE)

Name Explosive-Filler Velocity (m/s) Notes
40mm SSB/K (HE-I) 140 g HEXAL 30 1000–1005 HE Incendiary
40mm SSBL/K (HE-I-T) 140 g HEXAL 30 (Tracer -18 g) 1000–1005 HE-I Tracer

Armour-Piercing (AP)

Name Explosive-Filler Velocity (m/s) Notes
40mm PKLH (APBCHC-T) None 1120 AP Ballistic-Capped Hard-Core Tracer
40mm PSBLH/B (APHE-I) 52 g. HEXAL 30 ~1000 AP High-Explosive Incendiary
40mm PLH (AP-T) None ~1000 AP Tracer

Penetration (AP) (100m)

Round 90° 80° 70° 60° 50° 40° 30° 20°
PKLH 98 95 89 80 70 58 45 N/A
PSBLH/B 58 55 52 49 44 40 35 30
PLH 60 59 58 55 53 50 45 40

DIEHL (Ger)

Name Filler Velocity Notes
DM81 A2 (HEI-T) N/A N/A HE-I Tracer
DM31 A3 (HEI-T) N/A N/A HE-I Tracer
DM68 N/A N/A Training round

Bofors AB (Swe)

High-Explosive (HE-T)

Name Propellant Mass Projectile Filler Velocity (m/s) Round Weight
slsgr m/483 Nc 105411,2 500 g 965 g 110 g Trotyl 980–1010 2520 g
slsgr m/484 Nc 105411,2 500 g 983 g 110 g Hexotonal 980–1010 2520 g

Armour-Piercing (APDS-T)

Name Propellant Mass Projectile Mass Core Velocity Round Weight
Slrppj m/49 480–500 g 705 g 24 mm 1200 2250 g

Penetration (AP) (100m)

Round 90° 80° 70° 60° 50° 40° 30° 20°
Slrppj m/49 120 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 40 N/A

Any information to add? Comment use this formula below:

Nation/Company:
Round Type:
Specs:
Source:

Then Ping “karnitin75”(Author of post) So i can see it and look at it and determine if its relevant and can be added to the right section.

Reminder: Do not post or share any classified, export‑restricted or otherwise restricted military‑technical documents on the War Thunder forums Documents/Pictures you have definite proof the material has been officially declassified. See Guidelines For more information


4. Sources:

US. L/70 documentation

image
image
SGT. York








Unknown Origin/Information


Oerlikon L/70

IMG_6453|710x1000















5. Polls:

What option sound the best to you?
  • A
  • B
  • Other (Comment)
  • None. Leave it as it is
0 voters
13 Likes

A mix of both options would be ideal.

While the small differences between irl and in game performance would not really be noticeable, ground vehicles could play quite differently depending on the specific ammunition type

2 Likes

I feel like if you introduced the basic HEI-T & AP-T munition for all Bofors L/70s since the game already has a hard time naming each and every round and keeping track of them anyway, And for higher tier vehicles with radar capability like the Sgt. York and VEAK 40 you could even introduce a slightly better AP round, Not APDS since that would be super controversial from the get-go.

Since i have no information on the Sgt York HE-VT it will have to keep that. And the VEAK 40 didnt use it so.

1 Like

ngl apds for the sgt bork would be quite silly

1 Like

ae1l7g

2 Likes

Might aswell give it proxy while at it

And remove its Ammo box, Congrats you have a time-Limited Destroy all in a small package

1 Like

Now that would be funny

Invisible beam of death

Yes, Again with the limited ammunition, its very time limited. And considering it would get the 1100m/s HE-VT since the VEAK 40 HE-VT was wildely inacurate. Would make it a lethal enemy to planes lol- Anyway, Back to the post. Enough foolin around

1 Like

Now all i can think of is a Ostwind II with AHEAD

1 Like


tried to AI generate that xD

1 Like

xD Amazing

I wouldn’t mind honestly. The M247 is too sluggish to truly take advantage of anti-tank rounds like the 35mm SPAAGs do. And besides I think a lot of frustration comes from how the SAP-HE can overpressure MBTs from the front, whereas APDS or a 95mm pen solid shot wouldn’t do this at all. You could take side shots on MBTs and destroy light vehicles, and that’s completely fair for a SPAA I think.

2 Likes