Paris Gun

[prashantsingh]

Read about this fantastic piece of Artillery built almost a century ago.
Couldn't manage to download the snaps from the e mail I got on this amazing Gun which was capable of firing a 94 kg shell over a distance of 130 kms.

Pipe Kaiser Wilhelm (Long Range Gun)

Developed as a naval gun. Created for the bombardment of Paris from a distance. The first shot from the "Paris gun" landed at 7:18 a.m. March 23, 1918 . She was born to fight only until August of that year.



Overly long but relatively thin barrel weighing 138 tons. To prevent it from bending under its own weight ,It even had to be supported by steel cables.
As for caliber, then the "Paris Gun" had an interesting feature. Every shot, washed away a considerable amount of metal on the inside of the barrel, and the diameter on the inside became larger with every shot fired. Knowing this,the Germans numbered the shells - from 1 to 65, each of which was slightly larger than the previous one. They had to be let out in strict sequence, and after the 65-th - the gun was sent back to Krupp and reboared to a caliber of 238 mm.

Shells of the "Paris gun" were the first man made objects to rise into the stratosphere. This success was repeated only in 1942, by the German V-2 rocket.

Check out this amazing weapon. There is lots of info and some amazing snaps on the net.

Regards
Prashant

P.S. Would appreciate if someone
can put up those snaps here from
the net.

[DAN]

Hmmm last saw this on weaponology on Discovery Science, i think there was another gun of this type built by the Germans which was moved by two railway lines ... The show shows some decent things about guns, military organizations etc but we need more from where that came from

[CZHarry]

Here's the link from Wikipedia. Hope this helps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun

[hamiclar01]

Hmmm last saw this on weaponology on Discovery Science, i think there was another gun of this type built by the Germans which was moved by two railway lines ... The show shows some decent things about guns, military organizations etc but we need more from where that came from

I presume you mean the Gustav and it's sister the Dora. Unlike the Paris gun, whose effect was psychological, the Germans used the Gustav most effectively against the Sevastopol forts in the seige of Crimea during operation Barbarossa.

Then there was the Leopold, which was there at Anzio, and the Karl, also used to shell the Warsaw ghetto

[nagarifle]

i wonder how many perforated ear drums was accounted for when the gun was fired.

i did once stood next to a V2 rocket, vizz bang, man its awesome.

[Subal das]

all modern GPS and other kind of guided munition can be jammed, but artillery shell do care about radio waves and their spectrum allocation, much cheaper, not to mention " can rise into the stratosphere' too

[jonahpach]

More recently I remember reading about Saddam Hussein trying to develop such a 'super gun' with nuclear/biological capabilities. The european scientist who was commissioned to develop it was assasinated by the mossad.

-- Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:07 pm --

More recently I remember reading about Saddam Hussein trying to develop such a 'super gun' with nuclear/biological capabilities. The european scientist who was commissioned to develop it was assasinated by the mossad.

[timmy]

Then there was the Leopold, which was there at Anzio

Actually, there was more than one Anzio gun, as outlined by Wikipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp_K5

The Wikipedia article says there were two guns at Anzio, but I don't remember if that is the right number or not. You'll note the picture toward the bottom of the page from Aberdeen Proving Grounds; I have been there a couple of times and it is well worth visiting.

My Dad was at Anzio from the beginning to the end. He was in the 3rd Infantry Division. He had a few tales from those days (altho he seldom talked about his wartime experiences). I do recall him saying that there was no "front" at Anzio, because due to artillery and aircraft, and because of the small size of the beachhead, there was no safe place anywhere.

I also recall him saying that he was in a foxhole when a shell from one of these guns landed nearby, and that the concussion threw him out on top of the ground.

Regarding the Paris Gun, the Germans invested a lot of money in "fear weapons" that could achieve no real advantages in both wars, and this was a perfect example of such.

[prashantsingh]

Regarding the Paris Gun, the Germans invested a lot of money in "fear weapons" that could achieve no real advantages in both wars, and this was a perfect example of such.

Absolutely. The Wikipedia says this gun killed 250 people and injured 620.....(and all them I presume must have been civilian casualties). That's just not good enough for the time,effort and money spent on the making of this Gun.

[prashantsingh]

My Dad was at Anzio from the beginning to the end. He was in the 3rd Infantry Division. He had a few tales from those days (altho he seldom talked about his wartime experiences). I do recall him saying that there was no "front" at Anzio, because due to artillery and aircraft, and because of the small size of the beachhead, there was no safe place anywhere.

There are few people who take pleasures in talking about their wartime experiences (specially a long drawn war like the 2ndWW). The horrors of war are not only present during battle but remain forever with those who surivive.

Here's a tribute to all the Infantry officers and men (in the words of FM Wavell):

When it was Victory.
The Cavalier claimed it outright.
The Gunner boasted of his caliber.
The engineer and signalman published their worth.
But
The infantryman stood silent with victory below his feet.

[timmy]

Picking up on the Anzio railway guns and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, another very interesting "pop gun" there is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16%22/50_caliber_M1919_gun

(I did not link the pic because it is very large.) I have seen this gun and have seen it up close. My brother was with me on one of my visits and it was at Christmas time, significant because the army personnel who police the museum were mostly home. There must have been only one or two people in the whole place, something I figured out on my next visit when we got in trouble...

Anyway, with nobody to say otherwise and not knowing any better, my brother and I clambered up and over just about everything in the place. There were very new Soviet tanks from the first Gulf War there, with ominous holes patched with plates crudely welded over them -- results of testing ordnance against the tanks' armor. (That's one of the main purposes of the proving grounds.)

Anyway, we climbed all over the 16" gun in the wiki article, and I also tried to move the breech, but to no avail. You cannot have a real notion about how massive these guns are until you get up close to them.

Furthermore, as the wiki says, these guns were originally intended for the South Dakota class Battleships and the Lexington class Battlecruisers. If you enjoy naval history, you'll know that all of these ships were cancelled, save for the battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga, which were completed as aircraft carriers and for many years formed the backbone of the US Navy's development of carrier naval forces and doctrinal formulation.

These ships were cancelled and altered by the Washington Naval Treaty, which was one of the most important factors in ship design in the 20th century for all nations, but especially Britain, the USA, Japan, Italy, and France.

It was interesting, humbling, and sort of spooky to stand next to the gun that was shooting at my Dad, and also to stand on a gun that was such an integral part of naval and world history.

However, this was my favorite gun there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:QF2.9 ... inGun3.jpg

This little Vickers gun is described here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_2.95_inch_Mountain_Gun

It was in the back of the museum and there was only one person on duty at the front desk, a young soldier. My brother and I began to fiddle with this gun and since there was nobody to stop us, I decided to work the breech. The cosmoline on the interrupted threads made me unable to work the lever. After several tries, I finally gave up all care of getting caught and put my back against a wheel and forced the breech lever open with my foot. After that, I worked it several times!

I have never done something so brash in a museum before or since!

Anyway, the interesting thing was, that I am quite sure that, if we would have had a round of live ammunition, we could have made a heck of a bang right then and there!

I would have loved to have taken this cutie home with me. I think it liked me, too!