(Premier Login nuyt) Forum Owner Posted Dec 30, 2006 12:06 PM
Of the 37mm - with non-standard longer barrel - probably very few were purchased. The 47mm afaik was only bought for testing (the picture is from the Gander/Chamberlain factfile). The German designations for two 47mm Dutch anti-tank guns is intriguing and I have been wondering about it for some time. Maybe they meant to distinguish between the Boehler and its slightly differing Hembrug copy?
The Rheinmetall 37mm AA guns were probably not delivered (at least according to De Jong, but you never know). Some say 20 were ordered, I have also read 36. The Germans received 2 million guilders worth of butter. They were intended as subsititute for Bofors 4cm no longer on sale in Sweden by that time.
Holland became a Rheinmetall customer just before WW2: besides the handfull of anti-tankguns, the 37mm AA guns, the Solothurn at-rifles they also ordered 120 10,5cm lFh 18 light field howitzers. Rheinmetall I believe was also in the running to provide the future Dutch battlecruisers (after Scharnhorst/Gneisenau design) with their main guns. During the occupation in WW2 they had an eye on State Arsenal Hembrug (which was actually acquired by Rheinmetall in 2000 after the privatisation of Eurometaal, as Hembrug was known by then. See also here: http://www.nieuwsbank.nl/inp/2000/05/0511E064.htm. Eurometaal was closed down in 2002).