Welcome to the fourth episode of AMMO TECH series. The 2-pounder had been one of Britain’s leading anti-tank guns at the start of the war, but by the later years, heavier enemy armour had left it struggling. The Littlejohn adaptor offered an ingenious way to give this familiar 40mm weapon a new lease of life. Fitted to the muzzle, the adaptor used the squeeze-bore principle: specially designed armour-piercing ammunition was compressed as it passed through the taper, dramatically increasing its muzzle velocity and armour-penetrating performance.

It was a compact solution that helped light tanks and armoured cars keep their 2-pounders relevant when fitting a larger gun was not practical. In this episode, we examine how the Littlejohn adaptor worked, the ammunition it required, and why this clever British innovation (invented by a Czech) was both an impressive answer to a growing battlefield problem and a compromise with real limitations.

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00:00 Introduction

01:00 Early war AP shell

01:45 The Turret Problem

02:15 The Littlejohn Adaptor

03:01 Shell Velocity Chart

03:15 2pdr HE Shell

05:12 Armour Penetration

06:14 Downsides