John Drain's Model PT-Boat Site

The SBoot 37mm Flak Cannon

(for the German S-100 Class Schnellboot)

There were are a number of weapons aboard the S100 boats, of which the largest gun was the 37mm Flak Cannon, (anything above 20mm is a cannon), and later in the war many were replaced by 40mm Bofors cannons. I have given dimensions below for the 1/20th scale.

My Drawing of the 37mm Flakvierling (the Flak Cannon) 37mm Barrel - John Drain's Model PT Boat Site

This is a drawing of the barrel only, there were a number of mounts used for these cannons but for the S-100 we are only interested in the "wet mount" or the M42 mount.

My Drawing of the 37mm Flakvierling (the Flak Cannon) 37mm Left Side Mount View - John Drain's Model PT Boat Site

Left side view of the Flak 37 on the M42 mount

My Drawing of the 37mm Flakvierling (the Flak Cannon) 37mm Right Side Mount View - John Drain's Model PT Boat Site

Right side view of the Flak37/M42

My Drawing of the 37mm Flakvierling (the Flak Cannon) 37mm Top View - John Drain's Model PT Boat Site

... and the Top view

Historical Photo

Historical Photo of the Kriegsmarine 3.7cm Flakvierling

The 3.7cm Flak M42 was apparently manufactured by Rheinmetal-Borsig and was essentially an improved version of the older Kriegsmarine 3.7 cm cannon and had a much higher rate of fire. It was recoil operated, air cooled and used five-round ammunition clips. These guns were fitted with forward armoured shields to protect the gunners.

The design of this gun was based on ease of manufacturing, it was constructed of a monobloc barrel connected to the breech ring by a bayonet joint to allow easy replacement, it used a vertical sliding breech block, a hydraulic brake and a spring recuperator.

This was the marine version of the 3.7cm Flak 36/37 and used by the Kriegsmarine on surface ships and U-boats. The 3.7cm Flak used several types of mounts and entered service around autumn 1943, it was manned by a 3-man crew, with a fourth crew member operating as the clip loader.

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