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The greatest GIANT guns ever built...

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  • The greatest GIANT guns ever built...

    The Schwerer Gustav:
    http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/trob.../pictures.html
    Great site



    800mm /range 48 km / 7.5 ton projectile



    Monumental waste of resources for the small payoff, H#ll of an engineeringjob, though. Gotta love Krupp!
    sigpicUSS North Dakota

  • #2
    The Paris Gun



    210mm monster used in the 1st WW to Shell Paris from behind German lines. Since Paris was over 70 miles from the lines, this brought some consternation to the Allies. The shelling began on March 23rd of 1918 and ended 139 days later on August 8th. To Quote Ian Hogg: despite the best efforts of the allies, "The Paris gun continued to fire as, and when, it liked..." Until the germans were pushed back towards the end of the war. The barrel was so long that a cantilever support was fixed to the top to prevent barrel droop. When fired the muzzle flexed up-and-down as much as a meter for over a minute. Every time it was fired enough steel was melted out of the chamber and bore that the shells were sequentially numbered in increasing diameter, and the chamber had to be measured, and volumes and chamber pressures recalculated to allow accurate shooting. Barometric pressures, temperatures, the earths curvature, all had to be calculated. The Barrel had to be lowered and straightened after every shot, and the shells were preheated in an underground chamber, while the powder charges were prepared in an environmentally controlled room. After 65 rounds the barrel was worn out, and returned to Krupp's for relinering to 240mm. Spies on the French side had to report across the lines on the fall of shot, Paris being beyond the Horizon 3 times over. About the best they could manage was a shot every twenty minutes. (fire for effect????). When all was in readiness, a telephone call was made, and thirty artillery batteries in the area around the Paris gun were fired in sequence before, during, and after the mighty gun spoke. All to confuse allied auditory locators, for there was no mistakeing the voice of such a giant. Remember that all of this was done before computers. She fired a shell weighing 500 pounds, and had a range of eighty-one miles!

    The gun was manned by german sailors, and commanded by a full admiral.

    After the war many efforts were made to find the gun, but Krupp wouldn't say, and Krupp's workers, normally willing to answer any question, kept their silence about the greatest gun in the world to their dying days. Some say the gun was hidden, buried under rubbish at the Krupp's works, against the day germany would need her again. If this is the case. she never showed up in the Armory of the 3rd Reich, and Hitler was a fan of truely giant ordanance. Others say the barrel was stood on end, and bricked up to look like a chimney, but no evidence ever turned up. If the gun was melted down, no record of such has ever surfaced.
    So, the longest range conventional rifle ever built ends its story as it began, in a country at war, and shrouded in mystery.


    1. The Guns, 1914-1918 by Ian V. Hogg

    2. The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968 by William Manchester
    sigpicUSS North Dakota

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    • #3
      Re: The greatest GIANT guns ever built...

      Originally posted by 2DREZQ
      The Schwerer Gustav:
      http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/trob.../pictures.html
      Great site



      800mm /range 48 km / 7.5 ton projectile



      Monumental waste of resources for the small payoff, H#ll of an engineeringjob, though. Gotta love Krupp!
      Where was it positioned? And what, if anything, was it unleashed on? It kinda looks like the guns on navarrone.

      A few of those stationed at Normandy could of spelled trouble for the USN & British Navy on D-Day.

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      • #4
        How was the gun moved, by rail?
        Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

        Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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        • #5
          maybe it wasent? Something that big is kinda hard to move 8)

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          • #6
            I asked cuz on the pic it's on rails. Besides, you'd have to move it, it' be kinda dumb to attack the exact same spot over and over again...
            Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

            Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by bigross86
              I asked cuz on the pic it's on rails. Besides, you'd have to move it, it' be kinda dumb to attack the exact same spot over and over again...
              The Japs had a RR Gun on Iwo Jima, when they spotted US planes they would move it back into a huge underground tunnel so we couldent bomb it.

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              • #8
                So just send a dozen heavy bombers against the mountain. If it doesn't collapse the mountain, the roof of the cave should collapse...
                Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by bigross86
                  So just send a dozen heavy bombers against the mountain. If it doesn't collapse the mountain, the roof of the cave should collapse...
                  They tried, dident work, remember this was 1944, they dident have the MOAB or daisy cutter.

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                  • #10
                    Yeah, but they did have B-17's, B-24's, and B-29's. Plus they had fighter bombers, like P-47 and P-51. If carbet bombing don't work. Send ina couple Fighter Bombers and loft a bomb or two into the mouth of the cave. Forward momentum of the bomb should do the trick.
                    Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                    Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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                    • #11
                      I dont remeber exacally what happend (i read this in a book), but the airstrikes couldent get the gun, so we had to do something else

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                      • #12
                        What about Naval Artillery? That didn't work either?
                        Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                        Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by bigross86
                          What about Naval Artillery? That didn't work either?
                          Dont remember :roll:

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                          • #14
                            Anybody here know what happened?
                            Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                            Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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                            • #15
                              Schwerer Gustav was broken down and moved by rail, when set up, it was on a special set of dual rail/multi-truck cars. The whole operation took over a thousand men, I believe. It was indeed used. In the seige at Sevastopol (sp?). I've heard stories that a near miss in the harbor (not sure where) capsized a destroyer escort. Another shot went all the way to the bottom of the harbor and blew up an ammo cache.
                              sigpicUSS North Dakota

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