| Worlds most impressive gun |
| Thursday, February 22, 2007 |
Big Bertha 2
Schwerer Gustav and Dora were the names under which the German(world war 2) 80 cm K railway guns were known. They were developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in order t o destroy large, heavily fortified targets.Krupp built a test model in late 1939 and sent it to the Hillersleben firing range for testing. Penetration was tested on this occasion. Firing almost vertically, the gun was able to penetrate the specified 7 meters of concrete and 1 meter of armour plate.The ammunition for the gun consisted of a heavy concrete-piercing shell and a lighter hig h-explosive shell. A super-long-range rocket projectile was also planned with a range of 150 km that would require the barrel being extended to 84 m. This rocket projectile would have enabled the bombardment of England.
In keeping with the tradition of the Krupp company, no charge was made for the first gun. However, they did charge 7 million Reichsmark for the second gun Dora, named after the senior engineer's wife.Designed in preparation for World War II, they were intended to be used against the Maginot Line. But instead of a frontal assault, the Wehrmacht outflanked the line during the Battle of France. One of the guns was used in Russia at the siege of Sevastopol during Operation Barbarossa. It was destroyed near the end of the war to avoid capture.
Charateristics:
* Weight of gun and mounting: 1,350 t
* Length of gun: 47.3 m
* Height of gun: 11.6 m
* Width of gun: 7.1 m
* Barrel length: 32.48 m
* Propulsion 2 x Oil Electric D311 691 kW locomotives (DRG class V188)
* Maximum elevation: 48° (or 65°; sources differ, may refer to different mountings)
* Weight of propellant charge: 2,500 lb (1134 kg) in 3 increments
* Rate of fire: 1 round every 30 to 45 minutes or typically 14 rounds a day
* Accuracy: 20% (10 out of 48) of shells fell within 60 m of target point. Worst error was 1 shell landing 740 m from the target point. Assuming normal distribution, this gives a CEP of 190 m.
* Crew: 250 to assemble the gun in 3 days (54 hours), 2,500 to lay track and dig embankments, which would take 3 - 6 weeks depending on the geography of the land. 2 Flak battalions to protect the gun from air attack.
Ammunition
* Weight of projectile: 4.8 t (4,800 kg)
* Muzzle velocity: 820 m/s
* Maximum range: 48 km
* Explosive mass: 700 kg
* Crater size: 30 ft (10 m) wide 30 ft (10 m) deep.
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posted by linkz @ 7:55 PM   |
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| 9 Comments: |
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I once had a girlfriend with a hole that wide
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Kay... Thats a useless comment son... Get a life.
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I slept with your ex-girlfriend and I agree
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lmao at the comments above.
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she must have been ugly, cause this gun is beautifull.
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Am I doing the math right? does it take in average 3 days of shooting to hit the target once? (normal distribution, has to hit in 10m from the target)
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I doubt it was used for precision fire.
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Thanks for the nice post!
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Do you really need precision with a shell that big?
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I once had a girlfriend with a hole that wide