Hitler approved the the production of the first Heavy Gustav in 1937 and allocated 10 million Reichsmarks - about $67 million today - to the project. Krupp’s solution was the Heavy Gustav, a gun so massive it had to run on twin sets of tracks. Berlin needed a weapon to bust the Maginot bunkers and it commissioned Krupp to build it. Despite these problems, the guns were a devastating success.įrance poured money and concrete into fortifying the Franco-German border in 1934. The Paris Gun and its successor could only fire straight ahead, required engineers to lay down curved tracks to help aim the weapon and took several minutes to reload. The 218-ton monstrosities destroyed more than 1,500 tons of ammunition, damaged Allied ships and fired more than 5,500 shells onto the American beachhead. American troops faced two - nicknamed Robert and Leopold - during the January 1944 amphibious invasion of Anzio, Italy. Krupp pushed more than 20 K-5s into service beginning in 1936. This improved the accuracy but reduced the range from 80 miles to a still-impressive 40 miles.
They fixed the barrel, expanding the caliber from 21 to 28 centimeters. Instead, Krupp’s engineers refined the design. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, specifically banned heavy artillery and required the German government to hand over a complete Paris Gun. It also inspired a new generation of German heavy artillery - including the Gustav - during the interwar period. The Paris Gun was a morale-breaking precursor to the terrifying V-weapons of World War II. The citizens of France feared German Zeppelins were dropping bombs on them from the sky. It was a fluke - the gun had a targeting tolerance measured in miles. On Good Friday, 1918, one of the gun’s shells landed on a church in Paris and killed 91 people. The gun rode the rails, but could only fire from special concrete firing installations.
Each shot took up to three minutes to reach its target as the shell soared through the stratosphere. This 211-millimeter cannon bombarded Paris with 243-pound shells from 75 miles away.
#Gustav the railway gun crack#
Germany had its own fleet of long-range artillery pieces and the Entente powers soon feared the thundering crack of the Paris Gun. The rebels attached a naval artillery cannon to a chassis and used it to harry the Union during the Battle of Savage’s Station.ĭuring World War I, the Entente powers converted large naval guns and defensive cannons into railborne artillery to pound German fortifications along the Western Front. The Confederacy deployed the world’s first railway gun during the American Civil War. Decades of history led up to the Heavy Gustav - successively larger and heavier railway guns leading to the biggest of them all.