As DAF had never before produced armoured fighting vehicles, the planned interval of just four months between order and the first delivery had been very optimistic. Production was soon delayed, largely because components were not made available on time. Ougrée Malhaye could only send the armour sets five to seven weeks later than DAF had expected. The electrical components had been ordered from the German manufacturer Bosch but their delivery stagnated after the outbreak of war on 1 September. France halted export of military goods at the start of the war, including the prismatic episcopes and visors intended to be fitted in the M39. The Dutch Philips company started a crash programme for production of a suitable prism but this would take several months to come into effect. The worst delay was caused by changed Army specifications for the machine gun mounts; these had been received by DAF in April and new drawings were only ready in August. The special steel pieces again had to be produced by Ougrée Malhaye, but the only steel oven capable of casting them happened to be in revision for several months. In November the entire production process was halted for some weeks because of the Venlo Incident: the German "Abwehr" had abducted two British intelligence officers from Dutch territory and it was feared that the Dutch protests regarding the incident would be used as a pretext to invade The Netherlands; all vehicles were temporarily evacuated to Rotterdam, as Eindhoven, where DAF was based, was dangerously close to the German border.