Typography 丨柒十
Edited by 丨Lao Wang's history
What is it like to operate a cannon that requires 4,000 people to operate at the same time? The caliber of the light artillery is 800 mm, and the shell alone is 7.1 tons. This was the largest artillery piece of World War II: the German "Gustav Cannon".
So how perverted is this world's most powerful cannon? And then there are its drawbacks? How did it end up? Friends who like to watch remember to pay a little attention, let's continue today's topic: the "life" of the German Gustav cannon in World War II.
This giant gun was made in Germany specifically for France, why do you say so? Because France was the greatest enemy of Germany after World War I, France, as a victorious power, influenced Germany's development everywhere, and also made Germany's land area and development path extremely uneven.
Germany is also a country with very strong self-esteem, just like Japan, far from being satisfied with its existing resources and territory, and conquering Europe and even dominating the world has always been Germany's dream.
However, the restrictions of France and other countries seriously affected Germany's military development, so as the closest European power to Germany, France was naturally the "only way" for Germany to conquer Europe.
There is also the reason for Germany's defeat in World War I, and it is also the fact that the Jews in Germany only care about making money, and also make money from the country during the war, which affects the lifeline of the national economy and leads to the final defeat of Germany, so the Germans do not recognize the outcome of the First World War in their hearts.
Therefore, the existence of this idea of national revenge is bound to lead to Germany provoking war again. But if you want to attack France, the "Maginot Line" is the biggest challenge for Germany, known as France's "Great Wall of Steel" is dedicated to defending against German invasion, costing 5 billion francs to build for 12 years, all made of very hard reinforced concrete.
In Germany's strategic plan, France was a necessary step, so if france was to be defeated with little loss, it was necessary to build weapons against the "Maginot Line", so the preliminary construction of Gustav's cannon began.
The German government gave the order to build gustav cannons to the famous Krupp Arsenal in Germany at that time. At that time, the Krupp family always had a professional team for the study of the world's advanced weapons, and through in-depth research on all the advanced weapons in the world at that time, they finally believed that if they wanted to destroy such a hard "Maginot Line", they could only threaten the shells by expanding the caliber of the shells to 700 mm.
So the German government asked the arsenal to urgently manufacture the world's largest giant cannon, and required that the caliber of the cannon must reach 800 mm, think about what the concept of 800 mm is, plus the thickness of the barrel, and how powerful the shell shot by holding the barrel of nearly 1 meter with both hands is.
The arsenal that received such an order was shocked and thought that it was an impossible task, but because of the order given by the Germans at that time, construction began immediately.
It was very difficult to actually build such a cannon, because many of them were supported by no literature at the time, and many of the techniques were started from scratch.
In particular, the forging of the barrel was very difficult, resulting in the construction progress of the Gustav cannon being very slow, and it was finally determined that the construction of the cannon could not be completed within the deadline.
This news not only did not have a negative impact on Germany, but also did not affect Germany's war plans. Because Germany began to find ways to bypass the French Maginot Line very early, it eventually entered the French hinterland from the Belgian mountains, and the French Maginot Line had not yet worked, and the German army surrounded the main French troops.
In the end, before the Gustav cannon was officially completed, France had already announced its surrender. Finally, at the end of 1940, the Gustav cannon was basically developed.
In 1941, gustav cannons were assembled on the Baltic coast and successfully test-fired this "masterpiece". However, for some reasons, the Gustav cannon was not officially used in the war until a year after the test, the main reason is the characteristics of the Gustav cannon itself, which we will talk about later.
That is, around June 1942, this 800 mm caliber cannon was strongly unveiled, named after the prefix of the Krupp family, and a second cannon was built later, named after the design engineer's wife "Dora", so there were two cannons at that time, one called "Gustav" cannon and one called "Dora" cannon.
Perhaps many friends still have no clear idea of how big the Gustav cannon is, so let's first understand some data about the Gustav cannon.
The total length of the Gustav cannon was 42.97 meters, the width was about 7 meters, and the height was about 11.6 meters, and the total weight of the cannon was about 1350 tons, of which the length of the barrel alone reached 32.48 meters, and the weight of the barrel reached 400 tons.
For its power, it is even more amazing, the Gustav cannon has a maximum range of 47 kilometers, and can penetrate 1 meter thick steel, 7 meters thick concrete and 30 meters deep soil.
A total of 300 shells were fired at the Battle of Sevastopol, dealing a devastating blow to the enemy fortress. According to reports at the time, the Gustav cannon only fired 6 shells, and before the shells exploded, it could be seen that the shells had penetrated about 100 inches underground, and one of the shells directly detonated the enemy's underground ammunition depot, and the entire strategic fortress was instantly burst into flames.
And the shells are also different, Gustav cannon can fire two shells at a time, the first shell is an armor-piercing shell, followed by a fierce high-explosive shell.
Six rounds could destroy a large military fortress, and even the German enemy's ammunition depot hidden 30 meters underground was not spared. There is also the second battlefield of the role of gustav cannons, also in 1944, the Polish people revolted in the chaotic world, the German high command ordered Gustav cannons to fire 30 shells at the Polish rebel army, and the entire Polish barracks were razed to the ground in an instant.
The Gustav cannon can be said to be the largest, heaviest and most powerful steel beast in the world since the advent of artillery, and it was unanimously recognized by all the countries participating in World War II: The Gustav cannon is a masterpiece standing at the top of the military industry.
Of course, there are two sides to everything, even the world's largest cannon, Gustav cannon has a very big drawback. The first disadvantage, which was that it was very difficult to move, was that the two German cannons appeared on only a few important battlefields, the "Dora" cannon was transported to the Crimean battlefield, and the Gustav cannon was transported to the fortress of Savastopol.
Because of its very large size, it requires 3 specially designed large transport vehicles to load him, and the road ahead must be paved in advance during the transportation process, there is no way to pass the bridge, even if it reaches the combat position, its loading and unloading is very difficult.
In general, all the personnel involved in the operation, command, reloading and other processes of the giant cannon added up to a total of 4,000 German soldiers operating at the same time, which can only be said to be barely completed.
When it comes to real combat, the giant cannon has no way to move the position, as long as the enemy finds the location of the Gustav cannon, then the giant cannon becomes a target, so generally it is only used to destroy the enemy's important military targets.
There is also the barrel of the Gustav cannon can only withstand the firing of 48 shells, and then the barrel will be blown up due to high temperature and pressure, and the new barrel will be reloaded, so in terms of comprehensive data, the Gustav cannon is only suitable for bombing important strategic targets.
Finally, when it comes to the final fate of gustav cannon, it is also very tragic, after the gustav cannon was first transported to a battlefield, the cannon was not built before germany was defeated.
In the end, the German army had to dismantle itself and transport it back to its own country, and in a later war, the German army was defeated by the United States, and the Gustav cannon was captured by the United States.
Another giant cannon did not escape the fate of being destroyed in the end, in this way, the German Gustav cannon will remain forever in the long river of history, in fact, from another point of view, the Gustav cannon can also be seen as a microcosm of Germany, it once had brilliant records and strength, but in the end it can not avoid the end of being destroyed, mainly because the launch of unjust wars is bound to be targeted by the world.
Fragments of this giant cannon are still preserved in many Western countries, and some Gustav cannon shells are still in the museums of Britain, Poland and other countries.
What unique insights do you have about the Gustav cannons of Germany, leave your answers in the comments section!