Author: Melon Fubuki
On March 23, 1918, the French capital of Paris ushered in an ordinary Saturday, and although the Germans had just launched the famous Battle of the Emperor three days earlier, it was nothing more than a headline in the newspapers for the citizens of Paris. However, at about 7:00 a.m., with a sharp roar and the ensuing huge explosion on the banks of the Seine, the city of Paris was instantly plunged into chaos, and the citizens even thought that the German army had begun to attack the capital...
The French military was also caught off guard by the sudden bombing, but they could not have imagined that the culprit of the attack was a shell fired from a German ultra-long-range artillery deployed on the Belgian-French border 120 kilometers away.
The protagonist of this famous shelling operation was the later well-known "William Cannon", a 210 mm ultra-long-range train gun. The monster, which is spliced from a 210 mm naval gun barrel and a 380 mm naval gun barrel, has a barrel length of 36 meters, and in order to ensure that the gun barrel is not broken by its own gravity when shooting at a large elevation angle, Krupp engineers installed a bracket similar to the principle of steel cable suspension bridges for this cannon. This monster with a staggering range of 120 kilometers is a miracle in the history of artillery, and the German army has secretly manufactured 7 such train guns since 1917, three of which were used to shell the French capital of Paris, after 5 months of shelling, these three German monsters in addition to causing nearly 1,000 casualties to the city of Paris, but also deeply shocked the French, after this war, this type of train gun also received the nickname of "Paris Cannon".
In addition to the Wilhelm cannon, the Germans used the main guns of the Byrne-class battleships to modify eight 380 mm Maas train guns in World War I, and in May 1918 they were put on the Western Front to shell French fortresses, which was also the largest caliber train gun actually equipped by Germany in World War I.
There was also the "Bruno" train gun modified from the 280 mm main gun of the German-class former dreadnought, some of which was handed over to Belgium and other countries as compensation after World War I, but returned to the German army to re-enter service 20 years later, which is also a dramatic history.
After World War I, due to the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans were banned from developing new large-caliber guns and dismantled all existing train guns, allowing only 24 to be retained. German railroad guns of this period were known as quick-loading long-range guns (Schnelladekanone Länge abbreviated as SKL), but on the other hand, Germany itself secretly retained a large number of artillery accessories. At the same time, as time went on, the German army became more and more dissatisfied with the 24 railway guns retained after World War I; the development of new train guns was increasingly loud. The Germans renamed these SKL (Rapid Loading Long-Range Guns) guns to "Railroad Guns" (Kanone Eisenbahn, abbreviated as K(E)). And it was developed as a new artillery series.
In 1933, with the Nazi Party monopolizing power in Germany, the military reconstruction associated with it was also carried out. An urgent plan for the reconstruction of the railroad artillery unit was on the agenda. The plan included the modernization of 24 surviving railroad guns, the assembly of 8 new railroad guns through the existing various types of guns left over from the First World War and previously hidden gun accessories, spare naval guns and newly produced parts, and the preparation of plans for the design and construction of a new generation of railway guns. The eight assembled railroad guns in the plan were mainly the responsibility of the newly created Army Ordnance Department (HWA); the first product of the plan was the 150 mm train gun assembled using the gun barrels of naval guns, which were manufactured early using stock naval gun barrels, and later used the single 150 mm secondary guns of the battleship Gneisenau, and the semi-open gun shield was also carried to flatbeds.
However, because the performance of the 150 mm naval gun was too mediocre, the German army modified 6 170 mm train guns using the 170 mm naval guns used in the "Deutsche" class in the Stock of World War I;
Eight 203 mm train guns were modified in 1936 with the remaining SK C/34 203 mm naval guns of the cruiser Blücher, and deployed to France in 1944 as a mobile fire to strengthen the defense of the Atlantic barrier, and these heavy guns were also operated by trained naval personnel.
2 German 203 mm train guns deployed in Cherbourg for coastal defense, due to the increase in the intensity of Allied air raids in 1944, these railway guns have also become the focus of Allied air raids, the railway gun position in the photo has just been patronized by Allied B-26 bombers, the photo is near the train gun numbered 919177, a little farther away can also see a train gun of the same type.
What is more worth mentioning is that among the railway guns equipped by the German army in World War II, in addition to the 800 mm Dora, the largest caliber train gun was modified from the 38 cm SK C/34 main gun equipped with bismarck-class battleships. Due to the cancellation of the German Navy's plans for the construction of large ships after the start of World War II, Krupp completed the modification of an SK C/34 380 mm train gun known as the "Siegfried" in 1942 in order to "waste the use" of the large-caliber naval guns in stock, and delivered it to the Navy for use as coastal defense mobile firepower, while Krupp has recorded at least 2 of these 380 mm train guns.
In short, these large-caliber heavy guns taken from warships failed to conquer the ocean for various reasons, but they all found their second chance on land, but most of these "navies" galloping on railway rails did not have any impressive achievements, and most of them ended their bumpy lives in Allied air raids.
Run! Pride of the "Navy" on the railroad tracks!