Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Guns such as this one really only have a psychological effect, their actual combat worth is negligible. Still running up a gun that is basically twice the size of the 16" guns on the Iowa Class and firing at targets from 25 miles away is bound to have an effect on enemy morale.

That thing might have been worth a lot more if built into a hardened bunker on the Atlantic wall...it could reach out and touch the covering BBs on D-Day if it had been.

But they would have had to guess correctly the landing beaches, and the Wermacht & its leaders were not that good at guessing the DDay landing site.

In one of AH's brighter moments we might have seen it buil at Tromsofjord!

Actually Wdolson, they were working on something much bigger. The V3 concept at a facility at Mimoyecques, near Calais. A 25 Gun monstrosity that was kept in check by British Tallboys. German historian video documentary in the link (In German of course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97nyIePE07o

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

German artillery crews were known to chant "Grond! Grond!" when preparing to fire.

I about spewed my tea when I read this entry! Suddenly saw a burning city and about a bajillion Orcs!

ORIGINAL: Shark7

That thing might have been worth a lot more if built into a hardened bunker on the Atlantic wall...it could reach out and touch the covering BBs on D-Day if it had been.

With a one-hour reload rate, they'd better be outstanding marksmen or have laser-guided shells [;)]

If you're are firing a 32" Rifle then I don't really think you need laser-targeting!  Could you imagine the crater?!!!

Aiming the thing would have been very difficult if built into a bunker.  The field of fire would have been very narrow.  Might have been able to scare the hell out of some sailors with even not so near misses.  A 31 inch shell would make a large splash when it hit the water.

Bill

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

German artillery crews were known to chant "Grond! Grond!" when preparing to fire.

Ooohh, a Fineous Fingers reference. [:)] That's rare.

Now a heavy cruiser or a battleship,

Sure. But then he would never have allowed the Wehrmacht to deploy it. You know, a White Elephant In Being is more useful than a White Elephant At the Bottom Of The Sea errm. A Flying White Elepha.... um. OK, a White Elephant In Being is more valuable than a pile of White Elephant Steaks.

A Laser Shark though....

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
According to the link provided by topeverest, the gun was used several times including the Siege of Sevastopol and the Warsaw Getto uprising.

Actually, the use of Dora during the Warsaw uprising(s) is not confirmed. Probably it was 60-cm Karl Gerät 040 that have been used. But...... two days ago the workers prepping the National Stadium in Warsaw for EURO 2012 have found a dud of a diameter of 80 centimetres, so...

Dora was planned for different targets. Germans thought that they'd eventually have to go through the Maginot Line.
Such a giant gun was better off killing the French forts from the distance, than fighting the naval vessels during invasion in Normandy.

Don´t know, but wasn´t one of those used shelling the beachhead at Anzio?


Btw, The source http://www.5ad.org/gun.htm is wrong. It wasn´t captured in Metzendorf but in Metzenhof, a small village near Grafenwöhr. There was a training area before the US Army used it.

http://www.battlefield-travel.com/site/ ... uetz_dora/

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I have read that it required laying double track where ever it went.  To get the thing to Sevastapol, they had to run double track across Russia and only run it on certain double track lines in Germany.

That's not correct. The gun was transported disassembled on normal rail lines. Three trains for the gun parts, plus several trains for crew, tools, and materials. It needed double track in the firing position, plus two additional tracks at the assembly site for the needed cranes; the assembly took several days. Not a problem considering the intended targets; bunker forts don't move around much. This was a siege gun intended for use against the Maginot Line and the Rock at Gibraltar. There were hardly any other targets that would have needed a gun of that size; however, at Sevastopol, a shell from that gun penetrated 30 metres (100 feet) deep through earth and rock to explode an armored magazine.

Frank, "Anzio Annie" was a K5 280 mm gun with a range of 65 km, a much more plausible type of railway gun. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, has one that was captured in Normandy in an incomplete state. A 310 mm smooth-bore derivative of the K5 demonstrated a range of 160 km, about 100 miles, firing fin-stabilized projectiles on trial.

BTW, the first "Dora" (three were built in total) was a personal gift from Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (the owner of Krupp) to Hitler. A most extravagant piece of brown-nosing, but Gustav had already developed that to a fine art with the Kaiser (not to the Company's disadvantage). One can only speculate to what degree the production of more useful artillery was disrupted when the Dora guns tied up the Krupp workshops for more than half a year.

I have read the Germans were also working on a rail gun at Calais that would have been able to shell London.

Menser has already covered the V-3, but this may also be confusion with the K12(V) railway gun, which was used by Eisenbahn Batterie 701 in 1940/41 for some desultory shelling of Dover, but which also managed to land a shell at Rainham, only a few miles short of Chatham Dockyard (likely the point of aim, IMO) and the Shorts plant at Rochester Airport with the Stirling production line (the Shorts seaplane works on Rochester Esplanade were on the reverse slope of a hill and would probably have been immune). The potential to inflict some measurable disruption with existing technology was there if they had gotten their act together.

Nor were the Germans alone in producing large calibre siege pieces, and we can validly argue for one of them to appear in game The US planned to deploy the 914mm Little David mortar during Operation Downfall for use against heavy fortifications. The wikipedia article has film of it in use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_David

ORIGINAL: dwg

Nor were the Germans alone in producing large calibre siege pieces, and we can validly argue for one of them to appear in game The US planned to deploy the 914mm Little David mortar during Operation Downfall for use against heavy fortifications. The wikipedia article has film of it in use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_David

Slight difference. The Germans DESIGNED these monster siege guns for military use. The "Little David" was designed for testing bombs..., then someone suggested adapting it as a siege gun, and studies were done.

[left]For what it was designed for i dont think its a waste , the first gun was even free ( so thats 0 tigers) ...It could fire on the  Maginot line making things quite unconfrotable...[/left][left] [/left][left]

[/left][left]Two types of projectiles were fired using a 3000lb. charge of smokeless powder: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile. Craters from the HE shells measured 30-ft. wide and 30-ft. deep while the concrete piercing projectile proved capable of penetrating 264-ft. of reinforced concrete before exploding! Maximum range was 23 miles with HE shells and 29 miles with concrete piercing projectiles. Muzzle velocity was approximately 2700 f.p.s.[/left][left] [/left][left]

[/left][left] [/left][left]At Anzio i believe it was placed in a rail way tunnel to hide against air attacks (though it may not have been the 800mm) . I also believed it was quite effective at Sevastapol destorying an under ground ammo Depot durring the Siege. 1 hit and a small fort is gone 300 rounds fired is 2 weeks of non stop fire. 
[/left]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

ORIGINAL: Shark7

That thing might have been worth a lot more if built into a hardened bunker on the Atlantic wall...it could reach out and touch the covering BBs on D-Day if it had been.

With a one-hour reload rate, they'd better be outstanding marksmen or have laser-guided shells [;)]

It would pretty much be a one hit wonder...but imagine the damage or a 30"+ AP round. [X(]

Who knows what that is ?

ORIGINAL: bklooste

[left]For what it was designed for i dont think its a waste , the first gun was even free ( so thats 0 tigers) ...It could fire on the  Maginot line making things quite unconfrotable...[/left][left] [/left][left]

[/left][left]Two types of projectiles were fired using a 3000lb. charge of smokeless powder: a 10,584 lb. high explosive (HE) shell and a 16,540 lb. concrete-piercing projectile. Craters from the HE shells measured 30-ft. wide and 30-ft. deep while the concrete piercing projectile proved capable of penetrating 264-ft. of reinforced concrete before exploding! Maximum range was 23 miles with HE shells and 29 miles with concrete piercing projectiles. Muzzle velocity was approximately 2700 f.p.s.[/left][left] [/left][left]

[/left][left] [/left][left]At Anzio i believe it was placed in a rail way tunnel to hide against air attacks (though it may not have been the 800mm) . I also believed it was quite effective at Sevastapol destorying an under ground ammo Depot durring the Siege. 1 hit and a small fort is gone 300 rounds fired is 2 weeks of non stop fire. 
[/left]

The guns used at Anzio were the Krupp K5 280mm. There were 8 built and they got use in several places around the Reich. Because they actually could be built into one rail carriage, they were more useful than the super guns like the 800mm monster.

Wikipedia article on the K5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp_K5

Bill

ORIGINAL: bklooste



Who knows what that is ?

2B1 Oka

Looks like it will fall over...

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I knew about the gun, but when I looked it up again, I didn't realize they actually thought about building a SELF PROPELLED VERSION! Only 1500 tons. Why not just put a Destroyer on tracks and wheel that around?

It was drawn up, but cooler heads prevailed.....

No word on if a turreted version was considered

The germans did build and use something like this but not quite as big. The 42/54/60cm Karl-Gerӓt Mӧrser (super howitzer) was self-proprepelled and could travel 40-60 km. A train was used for long distances and it could loaded onto a Culemeyer-Strassenroller (a big 16-wheel trailer) and towed by, I think an SdKfz 8, shorter distances. Typical crew size late in the war 155 men. Would be more in the earlier years.