[22][26], The 7-inch and 8-inch guns and 12-inch mortars used a common carriage, with a depressed center and two 4-wheel or 6-wheel bogies. France'sMuse du Mar de l'Atlantique Battere Todt museum has the other surviving, and now restored, K5 on public #. It remains on display at the U.S. Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center at Fort Lee, Va. First proposed in the late 1840s, the railway gun didn't see combat until the American Civil War. [20] After delivery by ship, these trains were assembled in St. Nazaire in August[21] and fired a total of 782 shells during 25 days on the Western Front at ranges between 27 and 36 kilometres (30,000 and 39,000yd). Technical complications in the forging of such massive pieces of steel made it apparent that the original completion date of early 1940 could not be met. Der Panzerkampfwagen Tiger und Seine Abarten Walter J. Spielberger, 1997 The Dictator silenced the Confederate guns on Chesterfield Heights to prevent them from enfilading the right end of the Union line. Both the firms of Krupp and Rheinmetall-Borsig responded to the requirement. Faithful reproduction of the Heavy Gustav. In 1934, the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH)) commissioned Krupp of Essen to design a gun to destroy the forts of the French Maginot Line that were nearing completion. "Leopold" was one of two Krupp 28 cm K5 (E) railway guns that bedeviled Allied landing troops at Anzio, Italy, in June 1944. Wikimedia Commons A model of the Schwerer Gustav railway gun. A model of the Schwerer Gustav railway gun. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. To transport the K 5 Krupp chose the Panzer VI Tiger II chassis. Dragon Models 20153 1:144 Scale K5 Leopold in Winter Camouflage Paint Scheme, Hobbytrain H23600 1:160 N Scale K5 Leopold in Summer Camouflage Paint Scheme, Hobbytrain H23601 1:160 N Scale K5 in Wehrmacht Gray with Gun Barrel Rings, Hobbytrain H23602 1:160 N Scale K5 inWehrmacht Gray with Gun Barrel Ring, Hobbytrain H23603 1:160 N Scale K5 Leopold in Winter Camouflage Paint Scheme, Rivarossi HR6186 1:87 HO Scale K5 Bruno in Winter Camouflage Paint Scheme, Rivarossi HR6187 1:87 HO Scale K5 in Wehrmacht Gray with Gun Barrel Rings. Nothing further happened until March 1936 when, during a visit to Essen, Adolf Hitler inquired as to the giant guns' feasibility. line, special curved sections of track, or a turntable needed to be constructed These latter were mostly used by the Germans for the 21cm (8.3in) and larger railway guns and by the French for their Batignollesmounts. The only design of this type to become operational, the Karl Gert, remains a lasting symbol of Hitlers megalomania and the embracing of unconventional designs by the Third Reichs war machine. freight, refrigerator, and passenger cars, which carried the shells, equipment, Abc-clio. Own Stock. The 8-inch guns and 12-inch mortars were kept on railway mountings after the war, while almost all of the 7-inch, 10-inch, and 12-inch guns were returned to the coastal forts. On 14 April 1945, one day before the arrival of US troops, Schwerer Gustav was destroyed to prevent its capture. [4], The methods were often used in combination with each other. Repin (project, 1855), Pyotr Lebedev (who outlined the theoretical foundations of the railway artillery in Primeneniye Zheleznykh Dorog k Zashite Materika, 1857) and P. Fomin (developed a project of a large-caliber cannon, 1860). Panther Variants 1942-1945 Osprey New Vanguard, 1997 [22] Each 14-inch (36cm) projectile weighed 1,400 pounds (640kg) and was fired at 2,800 feet (850m) per second. [33][28], World War II saw the final use of the railway gun, with the massive 80cm (31in) Schwerer Gustav gun,[34] the largest artillery piece to be used in combat, deployed by Nazi Germany. The sleepers must be jacked up again to allow the gun to roll forward to its firing position. [35] 9.2-inch Mark 13 guns were located near Canterbury and Hythe, Kent; and 12-inch howitzers, Mk 3 and 5, located around Guston,[35] north of Dover on the Southern Railway line to Deal and Ramsgate. The gun was designed in preparation for the Battle of France, but was not ready for action when that battle began, and in any case the Wehrmacht's Blitzkrieg offensive through Belgium rapidly outflanked and isolated the Maginot Line's static defences, which were then besieged with more conventional heavy guns until French capitulation. United States: $7.99 (3-5 business days) Canada: $14.99 (7 to 15 business days) Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a5ee35585d9c6fa6e01e49667bf27b83" );document.getElementById("feb1e455b6").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The gun platform was lowered in the center, like a heavyweight railroad flatcar, but even so, the assembly was more than twice as tall as a normal Tiger tank when in transport configuration. Generally, for these emplacements the rails merely served to guide the gun into position and the gun was often mounted on a central pivot to allow up to 360 of traverse. The weapon would have a weight of over 1,000 tonnes (1,100 short tons). It is a Model 1918 railroad car mount for a 12-inch seacoast mortar. With few exceptions these types of mounts require some number of outriggers, stabilisers, or earth anchors to keep them in place against the recoil forces and are generally more suitable for smaller guns. While all the guns were scrapped in the early days of WW II this car survived at the Bremerton Navy Base. Were talking about the Germans! The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons), and could fire shells weighing 7t (7.7 short tons) to a range of 47km (29mi).[1]. Taiji, Japan Is A Little Town With A Big Dirty Secret, Couple Who Gave Dying Toddler Garlic To Cure Meningitis Will Get New Trial, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Possibly never fired. Alfried Krupp, after whose father the gun was named, personally hosted Hitler at the Rgenwalde Proving Ground during the formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in early 1941. Time left: 5d 22h . The line was elaborate and extensive, and as rumors of its strength traveled to Germany, Hitler began to believe hed need a miracle for his troops to break through it. In early 1937, Krupp met with Hitler and presented him with the design for the 33.5 in (80 cm) railway gun. In 1930 the US Army tested them at Fort Hancock, New Jersey, and Fort Miles, Delaware. With the destruction of the prototype, the K 4 project was canceled. They weighed nearly 1350 tonnes, and could fire shells weighing seven tonnes to a range of 37 km (23 mi). The K 5 Glatt had a 31 cm smoothbore gun tube that was designed to fire 136 kilograms (300 lb.) [citation needed], Top-carriage recoil is the situation in which the gun is mounted in an upper carriage that moves on wheels on fixed rails mounted on the lower. One end of the trees rested on the truck, the other end on a separate bogie, which is still in use today. Haha, no. [17] The largest French gun produce by Schneider of France the Obusier de 520 modle 1916, a 20-inch (520mm) railway "Fort Buster" to do what the German 16.53-inch Big Bertha had done at the outbreak of World War I and reduce the German forts in the final line of German defenses. Northern built military trackage. Coupled with the immense weight of the K 5, it is even more unlikely the mechanism for raising the gun into transport position and lowering the gun into firing position would be functional and reliable. Im really curious about it, but wasnt able to find anything by myself. The gun platform could be lowered onto its base plate and the Tigers driven away with minimum difficulty. Box 178 Lehigh Acres, FL 33970-0178, Packing Your N Scale Trains For Safe Shipment, US Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center, Muse du Mar de l'Atlantique Battere Todt, Trains N Scale Models and Prototypes Blog, A Quick Look: Intermountain Fox Valley Red Caboose Autoracks Review, A Quick Look: Athearn 2293 N UPS Wedge Trailers and Dolly, A Quick Look: Atlas N 1993 Ford Explorer SUV 5th Run Review, A Quick Look: Eastern Seaboard Models N Metal Wheel-Sets Review, A Quick Look: Jacksonville Terminal JTC NSC 53' Well Cars Review, The Krupp K5 [E] World War II German Railway Artillery Gun. Thank you for sharing this proof of concept. After that was canceled, the gun was moved to a set of tracks near Leningrad. Generally this is limited to a few degrees of traverse to either side unless an elaborate foundation is built with a centre pivot and traversing rollers. Germans Tanks of ww2. moved from side to side to aim; how the horizontal component of the recoil force will be absorbed by the gun's carriage and how the vertical recoil force will be absorbed by the ground. cordite, and large support crew that was needed during deployment. Hydraulic jacks were to be installed in place of the turret in the Tiger chassis; these would support large cylinders which in turn supported the gun platform. No definite commitment was given by Hitler, but design work began on an 80cm model. General Jim's 3846 Piece Army Building Blocks Toys - World War II Military Heavy Rail Cannon. Tank Encyclopedias own illustration of the 28 cm DKM 44 auf Panther Langholzprinzip by Jaroslaw Janas. The world's most powerful firearm database. The K 5 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Leopold this was the name of an individual railway gun rather than the name for this system) was the most successful railway gun of World War II; 25 pieces were built in total. Very good and Interesting. One was destroyed in trials and the other did not complete firing trials prior to the signing of the Armistice. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Be the first to write a review. Due to low production and shipping priorities, the Army's railway gun contribution on the Western Front consisted of four U.S. Coast Artillery regiments armed with French-made weapons. The second is to traverse the rail car body on its trucks, known as a car-traversing mount. It was deployed briefly against Stalingrad, where the gun arrived at its emplacement 15 kilometres (9.3mi) to the west of the city sometime in mid-August 1942. From the ground up it was almost four stories tall, was over 150 feet long including the barrel, and weighed over 1,300 tons for scale, the Space Shuttle weighs 2,000 tons. [3] The great advantage of this method is that it requires minimal preparation and can fire from any suitable section of curved track. It was designed by Herr Osthues, and the ballistician for the gun was Engineer Weber. Dora was the second gun produced. These eight guns were completed too late to see combat, and were designated the 14-inch M1920 railway guns. [15], The outbreak of the First World War caught the French with a shortage of heavy field artillery. Though no formal commitment was made by Hitler, the high command knew the design, known as the Schwerer Gustav, was their answer. Return to battery is effected either by gravity, through the use of inclined rails, which the gun and carriage have run up, by springs, or even by rubber bands, on some improvised mounts. These cars were built in the early 1920s to make obsolete seacoast artillery more mobile. When the Germans began their long retreat, they took Dora with them. On the 17th of December, 1942, the OKH (German Army High Command) sent letter Wa J R (WuG 6) Villa2 Nr. Video from a captured German World War II propaganda film showing their huge railway guns in action firing on positions along the Maginot Line in the Verdun . Wikimedia CommonsAdolf Hitler and other SS officers inspect the Schwerer Gustav. shells up to 49 kilometers (30.4 miles). Rheinmetall-Borsig was the primary, possibly only, firm conducting work on recoilless guns in the later half of the War. The Nazis Schwerer Gustav, The Biggest Gun Ever Built. Further information on Rheinmetalls design is unavailable; presumably, it was rejected early on due to the Karl Gert chassis being too slow and unmaneuverable. Wow, this is super interesting. The design of the foundation is the only limit to the amount of traverse allowed in this latter case. Seven shells fired. Heavy artillery pieces The railway carriages could elevate the guns to 43 degrees, but elevations over 15 degrees required excavation of a pit with room for the gun to recoil and structural steel shoring foundations to prevent caving of the pit sides from recoil forces absorbed by the surrounding soil. This same principle was employed on the 28 cm Dsenkanone auf Panther, with one tank taking the place of the truck, and the other taking the place of the trailer, leaving the payload slung between them. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. There are four primary methods to absorb the recoil force for railway guns: cradle recoil, top-carriage recoil, sliding recoil and rolling recoil. Little information is available on the K 4, other than basic measurements. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rgenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. Schwerer Gustav (English: Heavy Gustav) was a German 80-centimetre (31.5 in) railway gun.It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rgenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time.The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons), and could fire shells . The French Schneider 194mm (7.6in) and 240mm (9.4in) mounts and the British 9.2 inch guns and 12 inch howitzers used rail clamps or guys. The train carrying the gun was of 25 cars, a total length of 1.5 kilometres (0.9mi). 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