German Railway Gun That Shelled Britain

A few days ago I discovered a German

railway

cannon from World War II that could fire projectiles from northern France to England. The next day I convinced some of my friends to join me on a day trip to northern France. and see one of only two weapons of its type still in existence after traveling mostly by car for almost five hours. I can say that it was worth it to see this gun in person. The railroad gun was comp k5. Its full designation is crump 28 centimeters canon 5e comp is the manufacturer 28 centimeters is the width of the barrel inside the gun, it is actually 283 millimeters, but it is easier to round down canonna translates as canon and 5 refers to the Gun series E means that the gun was rail mounted or German Eisenmanger shots, a total of 25 rail guns were built to K5 specifications.

The original purpose of these cannons was to confront France's maginot line. The series of heavy fortifications between France and Germany. These fortifications were known to be a formidable obstacle. Many other heavy weapons were also developed during the 1930s period to confront France's Maginot Line. Examples of this are the carl siege mortis and the schwer gustaf

railway

cannon. All of these projects were in development as early as 1934, but they were not necessary as the heavy fortifications were overlooked by the German army. Germany had a great love for railway guns as they allowed heavy artillery to be transported quickly over long distances with already existing infrastructure.

The railway networks. The ease of transportation of railway cannons allowed them. Being relatively mobile, they could also attack targets without worrying about enemy counter-artillery, as they could outrange even the heaviest Allied artillery at the time, just to put it into perspective, the American long tom could fire shells up to a maximum range of 24 kilometers, the Russian 203 millimeter B4 had a maximum range of 18 kilometers. The maximum range of both guns is less than half that of the K5 and these are some of the heaviest artillery pieces made by the Allies. The K5 weighed 220 tons and could fire its standard 250-kilogram projectile. at 65 kilometers away, the rate of fire was actually not that bad for a railway gun, it was at a rate of 15 per hour, but you can also think of it as one shot every four minutes with maximum efficiency, maximum range with standard projectiles it was 65 kilometers, but later in the war programs were developed that could reach up to 150 kilometers in range.

We will talk more about the different types of projectiles. Later, the K5 had a huge rotation of a full degree to the left or right. It was common for engineers to build a curved piece. The railroad track was bent to the left or right so that the gun could be aimed. This track was usually built before the gun reached the firing site, so it wasn't exactly a case of the artillery officer yelling at his engineers to build the track because he wanted to aim the gun. To solve the traversal problem, it was common that when there was time to build a rotating platform that would allow the gun to rotate 360 ​​degrees, it took 42 men to crew the k5 and that was just for the shooting team, the gun needed the engineering support to maintain it. the weapon cooks to prepare meals for additional soldiers for security administrative staff and also other miscellaneous personnel, which increases the actual total number of crew per weapon by quite a bit.

It was standard for railroad guns to operate in pairs. This is what made up a railroad gun battery, each battery. It had free trains for transportation. Two trains would be used to move the railroad's guns along with their special ammunition cars. These cars carried the projectiles and propellant charges necessary for the weapon. It even had a refrigeration car just to keep the explosive powder at a low temperature. The third train had about 24 cars and the cars contained additional ammunition additional food kitchen passenger cars anti-aircraft equipment electric generator vehicle platform and a lot of other things for long-distance transportation a special frame was erected around the k5 on it.

Marco would put a tarp on himself to help disguise the weapon. It was expected to disguise the railway gun to make it look more like a standard railway car, so that if the train was detected by Allied reconnaissance there would not be much warning about that particular train. The K5 guns saw action in Russia, northern France, Italy and even in the defense of Germany in the final years of the war. Six K5s were taken to northern France in preparation for Operation Sea Wolf, Germany's invasion of England, even after it was decided to cancel the operations. that the six guns would remain in northern France.

Four huge bunkers were built to accommodate the trains. Each bunker held two of the railroad's guns, with some room for locomotives and ammunition cars. When there was an Allied air presence, the railroad guns would come back in. the bunker to safely wait for the threat to pass after the raid ends, the train could be taken out again and continue firing these train bunkers and their firing positions can be seen on this map. Some of these bunkers still exist in northern France. them on Google Maps here are two that I found. I saw one of these on a day trip.

It's quite close to the car exit of the Euro Tunnel, but it's actually not too hard to miss. The other one I found is in a quarry. Here is a real picture of the. k5 coming out of that bunker in northern France, the 6k files were used to fight for control of the channel by firing at ships that were within range, they were used in conjunction with heavier coastal weapons to deter a maritime invasion, and sometimes bomb the south. england the k5 on display at the atlantic war museum is not actually from northern france in 1980 a 31 meter long railway cannon was discovered behind the factory building at the state artillery workshops in southern france It was left there to rust but has recently been lovingly restored.

In recent years, what is a little strange is that they restored K5 to have the same markings as Leopold, the only other surviving railway gun. I assume because the gun, when found in 1980, had as much damage as the original. the markings disappeared, no one is sure which railroad battery this gun originally belonged to. The K-5s also saw action at Sevastopol, Leningrad and Stalingrad, but the most documented account of the K5 in action was in Italy, where pale railway guns were used to great effect against the Allies. Sea landing originally, the two weapons were destined for Africa, but the campaign ended before they could be shipped, which is why they have really strange camouflage patterns.

The 2k fires are called leopold and robot, also known by their Allied nicknames such as anzio annie. and anzio express the 2k fires occurred deep in the hills of italy firing racks at the allied beachhead according to american records the k5s caused 83 percent of the casualties received at the beachhead which made these two Railway guns in particular were quite annoying is that the Allies did not know their positions, the guns had the ability to retreat into a tunnel, so when there was risk of attack, the K5s simply retreated back into the tunnel and when danger happened, the K5s abandoned the tunnel and continued bombing the beachhead normally.

They would fire up to eight rounds and then fall back into the tunnel. A back-and-forth between the Allied forces in Italy and the two railway guns began over the next three months. One day, the Allies finally spotted the two K5s as they were at a rail yard. Shortly after they were spotted, a fighter-bomber attack began at the rail yard. The pilots reported direct hits on the two railroad guns. The Allies discovered that afternoon that They had not destroyed the K5 guns because they were being bombed again that night, it turned out that the pilots had attacked decoys that were in the train yard when the fighter-bombers began to attack, the K5s were already in their tunnel to mess with Allied reconnaissance.

Fake flashes were used to simulate the K5's cannon flash. the Italian hills to confuse the reconnaissance allies by not knowing which flash was the origin of the bombardment there is a beautiful quote from an American during the landings in the Sea of ​​Anzio one of his shelves fell short and made a large hole in the ground This spectacle the crater was so big that we made good use of it because it was almost like a Roman amphitheater. Sometimes an American band would play at the base of the crater while we sat inside the tracks after three months of this back and forth. weapons were abandoned When the Allies were approaching the tunnel location and the cannons' ammunition was low to prevent them from falling into Allied hands, the cannons were ordered destroyed when the Allies captured the tunnel and found the two cannons of the railway. of which were partially destroyed but still in relatively good condition, unfortunately the allies still bombed the tunnel, but fortunately the weapons had already been removed, both Leopold and the robot were sent to the US, the parts of the robots were cannibalized and used to fix leopold you can still find leopold on display in the US he is currently at fort lee in virginia three projectiles were developed for the k5 there was a standard projectile, a rocket assisted projectile and an experimental arrow show that the standard projectile was the most accurate and had a range of 65 kilometers it weighed just over 250 kilograms and there were 30 kilograms of high explosive in the projectile the next type of spectacle was the rocket assisted projectile wing with just under 250 kilograms a small rocket engine inside the show ignited 19 seconds into flight when the show was approximately horizontal in the trajectory of its projectile, it had a maximum range of 86 kilometers, but this came at the cost of precision and the amount of high explosive inside the projectile, the value is now half of the previous type at only 14 kilograms.

The last projectile developed was the arrow show, it weighed half the weight of the previous shows at only 136 kilograms. The arrow projectile in essence was basically a discard saber round. It had a maximum range of 151 kilometers and had 25 kilograms of HC. This show had the scope. in order to safely attack London from northern France abandon the weapon propellant charges were needed normally free charges would be used but for shorter ranges fewer charges would be used ideally the first projectile of a volley would be the range projectile which was this projectile designed to expel a large amount of black smoke to make it easier for artillery observers to spot to keep the loading time as short as possible the crew moved the shelves on small cards on a smaller gauge railway one of these small cars could carrying a projectile and the propellant rounds needed for that projectile, in essence a card could carry enough ammunition for one shot, these carts would be rolled along their smaller custom rail to the rear of the k5 where a crane I would lift the car and place it on the loading platform. the deck had its own mini railway which allowed the carriage to be rolled up to the gap from there, it was very simple to just push the shelves with a rod, don't get me wrong, the shelves weighed about 250 kilograms and the propellant charges were 50 kilograms and more It was still hard work but not as bad as if it weren't automated The train car layout was designed to make loading the shelves almost like an assembly line There was a small railroad track that ran along the ammunition cars in the train to facilitate loading.

I find it quite interesting that later variants of the K5 had room to place two cards on their loading platform, allowing one wagon to be loaded onto the platform while the other was loaded onto the gun, there were plans to mount the K5 on two chassis Tiger to increase the mobility of the weapon and decrease dependence on a functioning rail network. This plan never made it out of the design stage and you can see why an already complicated system. A machine like the railway gun would become infinitely more complicated if it had to be mounted on two tigers.

There is a question that many people like to argue about and that is whether railway guns are useful or in this case, what is the k5 for?while the K5 is argued to be one of the most successful railway guns of all time. Greater success still doesn't mean it was good, it just means it wasn't as bad as the rest. It took a lot of time and money to preserve the K5. In operation there were a host of problems that plagued the K5, such as a lack of wartime cannon ammunition throughout 1941 and until the end of the war, there were never enough rounds produced for the K5.

K5s were installed on all fronts. up high and ready to fire, but they had no shells too far away, not even in Italy, with the famous anzio annie bombarding the Allied beachhead. All historical media like to mention that the siege lasted three months. Very few sources mentioned that the gun actually went off. silent for a period of 21 days because it was our ammunition, all the specialized equipment, such as the actual production of the weapons, the trains that haul them, the shooting team, the security detail, other personnel, the anti-aircraft weapons, everything to protect a large piece of steel. which could easily be detected from the air, even with the best intentions of camouflage, no amount of netting and bunkers could hide the K5s forever.

It's easy to say it was a huge waste of time, but let's look at the positives a bit. It was great propaganda footage and it's also good to know as a soldier that in a war your side has a bigger gun than the people you're fighting. It sure had the advantage of being able to bomb targets without having to worry. counterattack, but if you don't control the skies, the enemy will see a huge railway cannon and find an easy target to destroy. The railway gun work could just as easily have been done with planes that can drop thousands of kilograms of bombs over a period of time.

Much lower cost The railway cannon was already an obsolete concept at the beginning of World War II due to advances in aviation, let's be thankful that the Nazis gave the green light to railway cannon projects because it could have caused the water and a little earlier than expected. which it should due to poor resource allocation, although I admit, I still think the gun looks really awesome, please comment and subscribe or I will delete your likes.