ARMORED TRAIN AND TRAIN AT WAR

[we supratman [Portugal]]

These photos, contributed by Brooks Rowlett ([email protected]), illustrate the large calibre (14") naval guns, known as railway guns, which served on the Western Front. The bulk of the photos are taken from The United States Railway Batteries in France, (Naval Historical Center, Washington DC, 1988). Another good source (if you can find it!) is the article Development of America's Large Bore Mobile Guns by Robert D. Fritz, in the Number 2, 1973 issue of Warship International.



Railway Artillery. Italy, August 1944.
In quite a few of my writings I have mentioned a railway gun that fired a large shell from a long distance. On doing some research from a book a friend at the Nanaimo museum loaned me, I came up with these facts. The Gun was a 28cm listed as a K5[E]. This massive gun had a range of over 38 miles and fired a shell weighing 563.38 pounds. Here I thought initially that the shells were in the three hundred pound class. No wonder when they hit a stone building that the building's walls would disintegrate. Apparently only two ww2 railway guns still are in existence. One in France and one at the Aberdeen Proving ground in USA. This gun certainly seemed accurate as it rained death and destruction all around us. The Germans were good gunners and this gun would be run out of a tunnel, fired then retreat into the tunnel to reload. The desert airforce was always on the look out to destroy this monster. Pieces from the exploding shells carried for hundreds of feet and were not particular who they or what they hit. I do not remember this gun after we had left the Montemaggorie area thank goodness. Just thought I would include these facts for anyone interested in such a gun.






The railway gun in the photo can be seen outside the the Atlantic wall museum at Audinghen France.

There was three guns in the Calais, Wimereux area. The guns could fire across the channel the shells landed in and around Dover between 1942 to 1944.

When the guns were not being used they were moved. With there transport and hidden in quarries in the area.

Most of the guns were maintained by the German navy