Thread: The greatest GIANT guns ever built...

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

How was the gun moved, by rail?

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...

So just send a dozen heavy bombers against the mountain. If it doesn't collapse the mountain, the roof of the cave should collapse...

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.

What about Naval Artillery? That didn't work either?

Anybody here know what happened?

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.