Landships II

CharlieC · Legend

Another request

Roger Todd · Legend

Charlie's post may be a victim of hasty editing! The French developed that absurd 52cm railway howitzer as a response to the Dicke Berta, and the Pi�ces � longue (L.P.) et tr�s longue port�e (T.L.P.) as a reply to the Paris Gun. Incidentally, it's amusing that a number of webpages about the Paris Gun use a photo of the experimental French gun to illustrate them!

-- Edited by Roger Todd on Friday 14th of June 2013 02:14:40 PM

MLW · Lieutenant-Colonel

I think Guy Francois is member of the forum here as AVLF. You could PM him.

Now a question. Why would the French develop a long-range railway gun to counter the Dicke Berta which had a range of about 9 kilometers?

Regards,
Marc

MLW · Lieutenant-Colonel

Thanks for the clarification. You have piqued my interest now.

Roger Todd · Legend

Here's a bit more to pique it further perhaps... Vickers Armstrong designed an ultra long range gun in the early 1920s, though as far as I can gather no actual construction was done. I posted about it here with some drawings scanned from an Ian Hogg book:

http://landships.activeboard.com/t4482417/postwar-ultra-long-range-systems/

2005! Bloody hell...

CharlieC · Legend

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I think the immediate response to the 42cm Dicke Berthe was the 400mm St Chamond Mle 1915 railway howitzer. This was somewhat improvised - the barrels were reworked

from 340mm Mle 1887 Naval guns and the gun carriage was emplaced on a fixed mounting before firing. The St Chamond howitzer was highly effective - a pair of these punched

a couple of rounds through the top of Fort Douamont - a feat that the 42cm Dicke Berthe didn't manage in the early phases of Verdun. The 520mm howitzer was built by Schneider - only

two built - both destroyed by barrel explosions.

The French "Paris Gun" was based on Schneider built 340mm Mle 1912 railway gun - the 1929 trials of the L/150 version fired out to 127 km range.

One puzzle I think I've found a solution for is where the French trialed the long range guns. France isn't a very big country and a firing range for guns of this sort of range isn't feasible

on land. The French had a range at St-Pierre-Quiberon in Southern Brittany firing over the Atlantic. Although most of the structures seem to have gone the foundations of the sheds, etc

for the railway guns still seem to show up on Google maps - 47.580745,-3.137457.

�

Regards,

Charlie�