Winter has come

[Vladislav]

There were 4 big size artillery units at Sevastopol from German side - Gamma 420mm, Odin and Thor of 600mm and Dora of 800mm.

All had rail chassis. The lightest Gamma had a crue of 235 people, Dora - more than 4000. Nearly 40% of bombs fallen unblasted. There are lots of other artillery systems Germans used that battle includind 88mm anti-aircraft guns. Total duration of Sevastopol storm was 250 days.

Here is a scale model of Dora I saw in war museum in Holland. Other pictures show Russian rail based gun TM-3-12 of 1938. It places in Rail Road museum of Saint Peterburgh (in Russia). I visited it about 10 years ago, the pics are from the net.

[bulldogboy]

Paul and 84superdog:

Those photos of the C-130s remind me of the trip I took to Alaska and back in a C-130. Great cargo haulers; passenger comfort, not so much.

Your story of the C-121s flying around Cape Cod reminds me of when I was a kid, I lived near Grenier AFB, NH. We would watch the C-119s flying

in formation into and out of the base. I never saw any in-flight emergencies but I'm sure there more than a few in those days (mid 1950s).

bulldogboy

[Lmackattack]

Vlad,we do get our share of bad weather here in the states,but even winter usually does'nt stop the bikini girls! i saw these girls standing right in the middle of the road in Gurnee,IL wednesday morning,but i had a lot to do stopwise,so i was'nt able to stop and see what they were doing! (believe that i'll tell you another!)...................................Mark

Hmmm Gurnee Il is about 15 mins from me I see that was Dec1st...looks like my bridal party but I dont recall the snow....!!!

[rsb502]

for big guns look up Gerald Bull, he was the man behind the HARP gun and built(or was building) the largest gun ever constructed for Saddam Hussein until he was killed by 5 bullets in the back of the head, i think it was called project babylon or babylon gun or something like that.

[paul roncetti]

Hi 84superdog, The gun is still up on the VT Canadian border going to rust. It was able to reach Mexico City from there if i remember right with rocket propelled shells he was working on. Thats what was being developed in Germany for the 800mm guns to reach London from France. Do you remember when the shit hit the fan when he was shipping these shells to S. Afrika via Spain on the Teygealand (spelling may ne be correct)?...Paul

[paul roncetti]

Hi Vlad, Is that the model made from wood built in England? That undercarriage is something else on the Russian gun. On you tube there is a good vid if you go to the 800mm gun, that shows all 4 guns firing on Sevastopol. Do u remember how long it was after the seige was started before they brought those guns in?..........Paul

[farmer52]

Just watched the YouTube vid "world's biggest gun". Amazing and there are guys standing on it when it was fired. More balls than me!

[rsb502]

Hi 84superdog, The gun is still up on the VT Canadian border going to rust. It was able to reach Mexico City from there if i remember right with rocket propelled shells he was working on. Thats what was being developed in Germany for the 800mm guns to reach London from France. Do you remember when the shit hit the fan when he was shipping these shells to S. Afrika via Spain on the Teygealand (spelling may ne be correct)?...Paul

I remember the stink about the Iraqi guns and about 75% of people thought he got what he deserved when he got killed, I still think it was Massad that got him and I cant blame them if they had gotten the big gun ready and gat it mounted in a chassis that they could aim it would have been pretty nasty for the first few rounds till the barrel was shot out. I think I remember reading that he used a slower burning powder and a longer barrel to bring the shells up to speed relatively slowly when compared to the big German guns that had short barrels and basically killed themselves when fired, he was going to supposedly get about 3 times the barrel life by using a charge that used the whole barrel. If you really think on it I do the same thing with my 308 loads I try to ge them to burn all the powder inside the length of the barrrel but not burn so fast and hot it erodes the barrel throat(I use Benchmark powder it works pretty good).

[paul roncetti]

Hi 84superdog, Didn't the Iraqi gun have tubular vents on each side (180 degrees apart) facing backwards about 30 degrees from the barrel spaced out about every 20 feet or so all the way up to prolong barrel life?

[rsb502]

I dont recall any holes in the barrel and it would slow the projectile and eliminate the idea of the long barrel slow burn using the length to slowly build speed every hole would vent combustion gas and if you dont have gases expanding behind the projectile you cant get it out of the barrel.

[paul roncetti]

I know, it was strange when i saw pictures of it

[Vladislav]

Hi Vlad, Is that the model made from wood built in England? That undercarriage is something else on the Russian gun. On you tube there is a good vid if you go to the 800mm gun, that shows all 4 guns firing on Sevastopol. Do u remember how long it was after the seige was started before they brought those guns in?..........Paul

Hi Paul, Sevastopol seige was so long because of constant Russian attacks from the outside front. Germans couldn't storm the city due to needs of other battles. Only after they took victory on the whole Crym they could seriousely fight Sevastopol. As book told me, Germans started artillary preparation on June 2nd 1942. It continueus 5 days, Odin and Thore made 18 shots, Dora made 7 shots on June 7th with no one into the aim. On the 6th day Germans started to attack with a cover of artillary, Odin and Thore made 54 shots. Main Russian artillary power in Sevastopol consisted of 2 batteries of ship turrels, each had 4 turrels with 2 guns of 305 mm. They were well fortificated. Germans got the city finally on July 4th only.

So the figure you interested is 250-33=217 days.

Don't know Paul of what that model was made, it is placed in General Marshall Museum in the Netherlands.

Vlad

[Lmackattack]

ok so what kind of destruction did a 7 ton projectile do? Was it just a slug or did it have some kind of explosive attached to it. i would have to think it would go thru about 10 buildings if it had the right angle but they all seam to be aimed at the sky, that tells me it was likely coming back down at a steep angle??

intresting stuff

[rsb502]

There were two types of shells one was high explosive and the other was a concrete penetrator(solid) the high explosive shell was equivalent to about a ton of tnt but the guns were so hard to aim they almost never hit their intended target, the concrete penetrators were supposed to get into the allied bunkers but none ever hit one. I still like the fact that the A-10 thunderbolt II has a 30mm GE cannon that fired 6690gn depleted uranium API rounds at about 3600fps + the speed of the plane and one aircraft can rain devastation like a whole ww2 conbat airwing, it can carry more payload into the air than a B17. I can say this when they fire that cannon whatever is in the way, goes away and we liked it overseas. not to mention the AC 130U, that thing is just nasty, it can level a whole town and still have enough ammo and fuel on board to cover the ground forces during an assault after. Thats my line up if I ever neede and could ask for whatever I wanted for air support, two A-10's and an AC130U, theres not much that they cant do together.

[paul roncetti]

Hi Vlad, Very good information you have furnished so we got the length of siege correct, very important to have correct facts.......Paul

[mike69mackman]

This is cool stuff !

[Vladislav]

Hi Vlad, Very good information you have furnished so we got the length of siege correct, very important to have correct facts.......Paul

Your welcome Paul