Does anyone know how and when this got here. Looking at the couplers, it tells you that it is a foreign car.
Sorry, all I can tell you is that it looks to be an 8 inch gun. Might have been built here, or sent in for testing at Aberdeen.
Someone else is sure to know more.
The Holy Grail of all things artillery!
That is a WWII German rail gun on disply at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD ordinance museum. I’m not sure of the complete history of the gun, but it is a war souvenier for the US. It took a crew of about 100 men to fire the beast.
I think I’ll write to the museum and see if they will let me fire it off just one more time…
Let us know what they say. (try to censor it a good bit though) [(-D]
An old artilleryman like myself should have spotted that. It would be obsolete today because it took too long to set up and register. While that was being done, a heat seeking missile or two would find it and eliminate it.
Good job of spotting Tangerine-Jack. You have any experience with artillery?
This History Channel showed a short clip of this gun on their Trains Unlimited series. I think that episode was called “Railroads at War”
Edit: Called Trains in War. Available on DVD.
Yes, 22 years as a redleg in one capacity or another. I love the smell of cordite in the morning!
This is Anzio Annie, 380mm artillery piece, captured near Monte Cassino. The Germans had two large railway guns which made the GI’s miserable on Anzio, the Anzio Express and Anzio Annie (who was no lady). The Nazi’s fled so quickly that they left their artillery to be captured by the Allies.
Now going from memory alone, I believe the gun fires a 2 ton projectile around 45 miles or so. It is an awesome piece of equipment, and it is a bad thing to be on the receiving end. I would love to have it in my yard. The photo does not do the gun justice, I have seen it up close several times at the museum and it is Gi-normous! I remember the road wheels were about 40" or so each and the sheer scale is stunning.
It actually fired several missions in combat, but as was pointed out it had several major flaws. The first of which is that it is a RAIL gun, being such it is tied to the rail system and not very mobile. It was shoved into tunnels after firing to protect it from air attack, but nothing could be done to protect the rails from bombing or sabotage. Normal rails could carry the weight of the gun, but in order to fire it had to be on specially reinforced sections of rail to absorb the massive recoil. Targeting was difficult as the gun tube couldn’t deflect left to right very much, so the rails had to point more or less in direction of the target, and with luck there were no mountains in the way. Let’s not forget the ammo cars, the crew cars, the repair part car, a
Hmmmm. They didn’t just say “no”, they said “F$%k no!” Maybe if I baked them a cake and ask again with sugar on top…
I’d bet that any locomotive pushing that thing down the tracks would not have anyone try to beat the train to the crossing…
That gun just gave me a (great?) idea: mount a small paintball gun on the front of each locomotive, and when a pedestrian or car goes around the gates…SPLAT!
[(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D]
I thought I read where this was originally intended to be shot accross the Straits od Dover at England, from Calais?
Now there’s an idea!
Thanks for the information Tangerine-Jack. I was in a battalion that fired 105s, which were pretty mobile but already obsolete in the '50s. Not enough firepower.
Also, I was in FDC so never pulled a lanyard but we used to go up and watch them fire. We could see the projectile leave the tube and disappear in the distance. Imagine how it looked to fire a 380mm-you could almost write an obscene message to your enemy as it was leaving. I enjoyed my three years, though, and still have all my insignia.
Possibly, it has the range. After one shot the RAF would have been all over that gun. Once again it was a good idea, but at the wrong time in history.
Ah yes, the one-oh-duce. We called it the “keychain gun” because it was so small you could carry it on your key chain. Its mobility was the strong point of the weapon; we would tow it behind HMMWV’s or carry it on a sling under a Chinook or Blackhawk. We rail headed this gun more than once, again an easy task due to its small size. An excellent gun for harassment missions and one I would have with me in a difficult environment such as the mountains of Afghanistan. It is a little weak in the power department, but when massed on a brigade level it is quite inimical to the enemy and nobody but NOBODY wants artillery of any size falling on your position. I spent a little time on the gun crews, but mostly I was FDC. I started on the 155 pig, and then went to the 198, then the 105, then 109A4, A5 and A6 SP. I finished on the MLRS and now I am a REMF with a quartermaster unit waiting for retirement.
I always felt incoming artillery was an obscene message in it’s own right. Boom boom boom, any questions? No? Good.
Arty is nice but give me 25 BUFFS aka the B-52 coming in loaded with CBU’s and we will see who wins the argument in the end. Yes a 155 leaves a big whole in the ground but a B052 levels the forest by the time it is done. Sorry my brother is a shop chief in the 8th AF so I am biased towards the B-52 besides it is called the ULTIMATE close air support weapon. You think about it 70K lbs of the new SDB or JSOW’s you are talking ALOT of dead on the ground that are attacking you.
Do not get me wrong the MLRS is nice but the B-52 is 50 years old and STILL is does not have a replacement for it. The B-1 can not carry the tonnage and the B-2 not enough to do the job. They did a study they reengine it with 4 757 engines its bombload and range will go up by 50%
Apples to oranges. I agree the B52 is the shiznit when it comes to just plain making a mess out of something on the ground, but for close air support? Excuse me sir, mind if I kill that fly on your forehead with this sledge hammer? I would not want to be a grunt getting attacked by an enemy and knowing an arc-light is on the way, too close for comfort. Arty can precisely deal with the threat with a minimal chance of fratricide, faster and at a fraction of the cost.
I have been in combat zones where the B52 was doing its thing. The ground rolls, literally rolls under foot and we were 50+ miles away or more. I remember thinking that somebody, somewhere, is getting their a## handed to them on a silver plate.
Remember now though with GPS guidence that you can tell the bomb within 6 feet were you want it to hit. Boeing to prove the SDB the now Small Diameter Bomb concept actully had to drop a full load out of a B-52 to prove that it was accuarte enough to be dropped in close to our boys. The largest miss was 10 feet and those suckers were dropped 30 miles away so I would not want to see what would happen to a bunch of tanks that did get in the way of those suckers. Of course you want destruction just drop a MOAB out of a C-130 and pray you are not in the blast zone when it goes off.
I have a buddy of mine who was in Desert Storm as a tail gunner on a B-52 hence his handle on the CB he as telling me about one mission were they scremed in at like 5K feet over the Republican gaurd units and dropped a full load of clusters on them next 5 missions were the same thing after the 5th day there was nothing left to hit.
GPS bomb = $90,000 and 90 minutes to target. 155mm arty= $40 and 3 minutes to impact. Yes the new bombs are very accurate, but B52’s are too expensive to just have hover over the battlefield waiting for a ground pounder to get into trouble. Arty is always on tap, 24/7 even in zero vis and all weather conditions.
A B52 is a strategic weapon, as you pointed out it’s deadly on massed enemy troops (I’ve seen it, it makes a nice moonscape), but really of little value as a close support weapon. Apache’s and arty are the things to have for that, and if you get very lucky (and we were) a flight of A-10’s will be assigned to your sector. Joining together a battery of M109 SP Paladins and one A-10 gives the infantryman a very powerful force in his back pocket, to be pulled out and used in a matter of seconds.
I love the B52, it’s a fugly beast that carries a H*LL of a lot of bombs, I like that in a weapon system. I also like the MLRS for counter battery missions, enemy mortars are no problem with a grid smasher and Q-36. But for an old fashioned foot slogging ground war, artillery has no equal, it is called the King of Battle for a reason, and it is the number one killer on the battlefield.
Oops, got off topic, sorry. Anzio Annie to me is the penultimate object of fantasy- a really big artillery gun AND it’s also a train! Now what more could a redleg railfan ever hope for?
Sorry to also get this thread off topic but remember that if it stands still or is on the ground it can be killed by a bomb from the air. Alot of people forget the General Billy Mitchell predicted correctly I might add that the Japan would attack us from the air and also that the era of the big guns was over by the airplane. Yes arty is still the god of war so to speak but without aircover to keep it safe and take out the fire finding radars you are still a target for couterbattery fire. I am biased like I said since my grandfather survived his Tour of Duty as a Ball Turret Gunner in a B-24 over Europe in WW2 inculding the raid on Polesti and a few over Berlin so that is why I favor the bombers. Yes the rail guns are nice but they are outmoded by the start of WW2 let alone now. Just my [2c]