This "scaling-up" process was not entirely successful, as it left the mechanism rather light and prone to faults such as rounds falling out of the belts. The original models fired from hand-loaded fabric belts, although these were later replaced by steel-link belts. It was ordered in 1915 by the Royal Navy as an anti-aircraft weapon for ships of cruiser size and below. It was a 40 mm calibre gun with a water-cooled barrel and a Vickers-Maxim mechanism. The QF 2-pounder Mark II was essentially a scaled-up version of the QF 1 pounder Maxim gun produced by Vickers. Posed photo of Mk II guarding a train against air attack, Mesopotamia, 1918
#Pompom gun full#
This was trialed in the Arethusa-class light cruisers HMS Arethusa and Undaunted, but did not enter full service, being replaced instead by a larger weapon, the QF 2-pdr Mark II (see below). The first naval pom-pom was the QF 1.5-pdr Mark I, a piece with a calibre of 37 mm (1.46 in) and a barrel 43 calibres long. ĭuring the First World War, it was used in the trenches of the Western Front against aircraft. The Boers used them against the British, who, seeing their utility, bought guns from Vickers, which had acquired Maxim-Nordenfelt in 1897. This "auto cannon" fired explosive rounds (smokeless ammunition) at 450 rounds per minute. The barrel was water-cooled, and the shells were belt-fed from a 25-round fabric belt. It fired a shell 1 pound (0.45 kg) in weight accurately over a distance of 3,000 yd (2,700 m). The first gun to be called a pom-pom was the 37 mm Nordenfelt-Maxim or "QF 1-pounder" introduced during the Second Boer War, the smallest artillery piece of that war. This QF 2-pounder was not the same gun as the Ordnance QF 2-pounder, used by the British Army as an anti-tank gun and a tank gun, although they both fired 2-pound (0.91 kg), 40-millimetre (1.6 in) projectiles.Īustralian troops with a QF 1-pounder Maxim auto cannon captured from the Boers The name came from the sound that the original models make when firing. The 2-pounder gun, officially designated the QF 2-pounder ( QF denoting "quick firing") and universally known as the pom-pom, was a 40-millimetre (1.6 in) British autocannon, used as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy. Quadruple 2 pdr MK VIII guns on Mk.VII mounting aboard HMAS Nizam August 1941
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