Fat Gustav - Hitler's biggest cannon ← Hodor. The guns "Dora" and "Gustav" are giants' guns. (8 photos) Large German cannon on rails
During the Second World War, the Nazis tried to create a new destructive weapon against which the USSR and the Allies could not oppose anything. One of these developments is the huge Gustav and Dora guns. These superguns were used during the fighting, and if not for some problems, they could have led the Third Reich to victory.
The Fat Gustav gun was named after Gustav Krupp, head of the German industrial concern Friedrich Krupp AG. It was the largest cannon in the world ever used in combat. It began to be designed back in 1934, and Hitler planned that the gun would be ready for the start of the war with France.
As confirmed later, the huge Gustav shells pierced up to 7 meters of reinforced concrete or armored steel 1 meter thick. It was such a super-large caliber gun that was needed to destroy the fortifications of the forts of the Maginot Line.
The production of guns was launched at the Krupp war factory in Essen in 1937. In addition to the Gustav, the Dora was also built, named after the wife of the chief designer. The supergun cost Germany 7 million Reichsmarks, while the Krupp concern produced the Gustav completely free of charge, as its contribution to the war.
For a long time, the guns were tested, and at the beginning of 1941 they were officially adopted by the Wehrmacht. Participate in the 1940 campaign of the year "Gustav" did not have to, as France successfully resisted for only a month and a half.
"Gustav" and "Dora" were the same type of artillery installations of caliber 80 centimeters. Chief engineer Eric Miller designed a 47 m long and 7 m wide carriage platform, weighing 1350 tons, moved by rail. This turned out to be the only way to make the gun mobile.
The shells for the superweapon still amaze the imagination. So, the concrete-piercing one weighs 7 tons and is stuffed with 250 kilograms of explosives. And high-explosive ammunition is a little lighter, but already carries 700 kg of charge.
The shells were fired from a steel barrel 32 meters long, which was aimed horizontally by moving the entire gun mount along the curved arc of the railway. To service the "Gustav" required a crew of 250 people. Another 2,500 soldiers provided railroad tracks, air defense, and ground guards.
"Gustav" was used during the siege of Sevastopol in 1942. Wehrmacht soldiers prepared firing positions throughout May, and in June 48 shells were fired at the fortifications of Soviet soldiers. German artillerymen knocked out several forts.
After the fall of Sevastopol, "Gustav" was transported to Leningrad, and "Dora" arrived near Stalingrad. During the retreat of the Wehrmacht, superguns were withdrawn to Poland to suppress the Warsaw Uprising, and then to Germany.
At the end of the war, both guns were destroyed, and the remains of another, third gun of the series were found at the factory in Essen. It was built on the same carriage, but to increase its range, the barrel was designed longer (48 meters) with a smaller caliber (52 centimeters).
In general, Hitler's superguns proved to be extremely expensive weapons that are very difficult to use, and the results obtained can hardly be called anything other than modest. Nevertheless, in Germany it was believed that such weapons could bring victory.
The huge guns of the Third Reich are just one of
The largest weapon ever made was the Gustav Gun, built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by the firm of Friedrich Krupp A.G. To preserve the tradition of naming heavy guns after family members, the Gustav Gun was named after the ailing head of the Krupp family, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.
A strategic weapon of its time, the Gustav Gun was built on Hitler's direct orders specifically to destroy the defensive forts of the Maginot Line on the French border. Fulfilling orders, Krupp designed giant railroad guns weighing 1344 tons and caliber 800 mm (31.5"), which were served by a crew of 500 people under the command of a major general.
Two types of projectiles were produced for the gun, using 3,000 pounds of smokeless powder to ignite: a conventional artillery shell filled with 10,584 pounds of high explosive (HE) and a concrete-piercing projectile containing 16,540 pounds, respectively. The Gustav Gun's shell craters were 30m wide and 30m deep, and the concrete-piercing shells were capable of penetrating (before exploding) reinforced concrete walls 264 feet (79.2 m) thick! The maximum flight range of high-explosive shells was 23 miles, concrete-piercing shells - 29 miles. The muzzle velocity of the projectile was approximately 2700 fps. (or 810 m/s).
Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfred Krupp personally received Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the test site in Hudenwald (Hugenwald) during the official acceptance tests of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941.
In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun, and DM 7 million was paid for the second gun, the Dora (named after Dora, wife of the chief engineer).
France capitulated in 1940 without the help of a super-gun, so Gustav had to look for new targets. Plans to use the Gustav Gun against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco spoke out against the decision to fire from Spanish territory. Therefore, in April 1942, Gustav Gun was installed opposite the heavily fortified port city of Sevastopol in the Soviet Union. Having come under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, the "forts" of them. Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorky were allegedly destroyed and destroyed (there is a different opinion on this). One of Gustav's shots destroyed an entire ammunition depot, 100 feet (30 m) below North Bay; another capsized a large ship in port, bursting near it. During the siege, 300 shells were fired from Gustav, as a result of which the first original barrel was worn out. The Dora gun was set up west of Stalingrad in mid-August, but quickly removed in September to avoid capture. Gustav then appeared near Warsaw in Poland, where it fired 30 rounds at the Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising (see Addendum).
Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau in Germany to avoid being captured by the Russian army. The incompletely assembled third gun, right at the factory, was scrapped by the British army when it occupied Essen. The intact Gustav was captured by the US Army near Metzendorf in Germany in June 1945. Shortly thereafter, it was cut up for scrap. Thus, the history of the Gustav Gun type was put to an end.
Addition: In fact, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 took place a year before the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Neither in the first nor in the second case Gustav Gun was not used. For the bombing of the city, the Nazis then used Thor - a 2-ton mortar of the Mörser Karl Gerät 040 type, caliber 60 cm.
One of the most reliable sources telling about the V-3 was the book by V. Lay "Rockets and Space Flights", published after the war. In his work, the author claims that this weapon was a super-powerful artillery gun, which not only had a record range, but also the maximum weight of the projectile. It is well known that the Germans during the world wars were literally obsessed with giant artillery pieces, of which a great many were created. However, despite the fact that the development of rockets, ballistic missiles, and other promising weapons had a great future, they turned out to be too expensive, breaking the usual stereotypes of the old generals. In addition, military operations and the orders of the Fuhrer required the appearance of a weapon capable of erasing London from the face of the Earth from a great distance. A great contribution to the development of these types of weapons in Germany was made by General Becker, the author of the book: "External Ballistics, or The Theory of Projectile Movement from the Gun Muzzle to Hitting the Target." Thanks to his command of the Big Bert batteries in 1940, the Germans were able to bombard the British across the English Channel. Becker soon shot himself, but work on the creation of super-powerful artillery continued.
"Dora" is a unique super-heavy railway artillery gun of the German army. Developed by Krupp (Germany) in the late 1930s. It was intended to destroy the fortifications of the Maginot Line and fortifications on the border of Germany and Belgium. The gun was used during the storming of Sevastopol in 1942. Presumably, also during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in September-October 1944.
After the First World War, the development of German artillery was limited by the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was forbidden to have guns of caliber over 150 mm, as well as any anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. Therefore, according to the leaders of Nazi Germany, the creation of powerful and large-caliber artillery was a matter of prestige.
In 1936, when visiting the Krupp factory, Adolf Hitler demanded that the concern's management create a super-powerful weapon to destroy the French Maginot Line and the Belgian border forts (such as Fort Eben-Emael).
The gun was supposed to have a vertical guidance angle of +65º and a maximum range of 35-45 km, and the gun projectile was supposed to penetrate armor 1 m thick, concrete 7 m, hard ground 30 m. The proposed tactical and technical task was headed by Professor Erich Müller, who had vast experience in this field. In 1937, the project was completed, and in the same year the Krupp company was given an order for the manufacture of a new gun, after which the concern took up its immediate production. In 1941, the Krupp company built the first gun, named Dora, in honor of the wife of the chief designer. In the same year, a second 800 mm gun was created, which was named "Fat Gustav" in honor of the director of the company - Gustav von Bohlen and Halbach Krupp. The order cost the state 10 million Reichsmarks. A third gun of an identical type, but with a barrel caliber of 520 mm and a length of 48 meters, was also designed, but not completed, called the Long Gustav.
Caliber - 813 mm.In 1941, the guns were tested at the Rügenwald and Hillersleben range (120 km west of Berlin) in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer and other high-ranking army officials. The test results met the requirements of the terms of reference, although the installations did not have some mechanisms. By the end of 1941, all tests were completed and the gun was completely ready for combat use, by which time more than a thousand 800-mm shells had been manufactured.
Barrel length - 32 m.
Projectile weight - 7100 kg.
The minimum firing range is 25 km, the maximum is 40.
The total length of the gun is 50 m.
The total weight is 1448 tons.
Barrel survivability - 300 shots.
Rate of fire - 3 shots per hour
Projectile " Dora"pierced an armor plate 1 m thick or an 8-meter reinforced concrete floor.
The super-weapon was transported with the help of several trains (up to 60 locomotives and wagons with a staff of several hundred people in total).
Engineering preparation of the area was carried out by 1.5 thousand workers and a thousand sappers for four weeks. Since the equipment Dora” was delivered in 106 wagons by five trains, an entire marshalling yard was built at the place where the guns were deployed. For misinformation trains with equipment " Dora"They were first delivered near Kerch, where they stood until April 25, and after preparing the position, they were secretly transferred to Bakhchisaray. Service personnel, kitchen and disguise equipment arrived in 43 cars of the first train. An assembly crane and auxiliary equipment were brought in 16 cars of the second train. In 17 wagons of the third, parts of the gun itself and the workshop were delivered. The fourth train in 20 wagons transported a 400-ton 32-meter barrel and loading mechanisms. In 10 cars of the fifth train, in which an artificial climate was maintained (constantly 15 degrees Celsius), shells and powder charges were placed. The gun was assembled in 54 hours and prepared for firing by the beginning of June.
Number of attendants " Dora» 4139 soldiers, officers and civilians. Among other things, the calculation of the gun included a security battalion, a transport battalion, a commandant's office, a field bakery, a camouflage company, a field post office and a camping ... brothel with a staff of 40 "workers".
Transportation of tools and maintenance personnel.
The transportation of the gun was carried out by railway transport. So, near Sevastopol Dora"was delivered by 5 trains in 106 wagons:
1st train: service staff (672nd artillery division, about 500 people), 43 cars;
2nd train, auxiliary equipment and assembly crane, 16 cars;
3rd train: cannon parts and workshop, 17 wagons;
4th train: loading mechanisms and barrel, 20 wagons;
5th train: ammunition, 10 wagons.
In the first fight Doré"was to enter under the walls of the French fortification" Maginot ". However, during the design and manufacture of the cannon, the Germans bypassed the Maginot from the rear and forced Paris to capitulate.
The locking of the barrel bolt, as well as the sending of shells, were carried out by hydraulic mechanisms. The gun was equipped with two lifts: for shells and for shells. The first part of the barrel was with a conical thread, the second with a cylindrical one.
The gun was mounted on a 40-axle conveyor, which was located on a dual railway track. The distance between the tracks was 6 meters. In addition, one more railway track for mounting cranes was laid along the sides of the gun. The total weight of the gun was 1350 tons. For firing, the gun needed a section up to 5 km long. The time it took to prepare the cannon for firing consisted of choosing a position (it could take up to 6 weeks) and assembling the gun itself (about 3 days).
In the spring of 1942, Hitler summoned the commander of the 11th Army, General Erich Fritz von Manstein, to Berlin. The Fuhrer was interested in why the commander was delaying the capture of Sevastopol. Manstein explained the failure of two assaults by the fact that the approaches to the city were well fortified, and the garrison was fighting with incredible fanaticism. “The Russians have a lot of heavy naval artillery, including an invulnerable fort with weapons of incredible caliber,” he said.
position for " Dora” was chosen by General Zuckerort himself, the commander of the heavy guns, during an airplane flight around Bakhchisarai. The cannon was supposed to hide in the mountain, for which a special cut was made in it. Since the position of the gun barrel changed only vertically, to change the direction of fire horizontally " Dora” was mounted on a railway platform, standing on 80 wheels, moving along a steeply curved arc of the railway track with four tracks.
« Douro"used in battle against the famous Soviet 30th battery of Captain G. Alexander. A group of Wehrmacht staff officers flew to the Crimea in advance and chose a firing position near the village of Duvankoy. For engineering training, 1,000 sappers and 1,500 workers were forcibly mobilized from among the local residents. A special railway line was equipped at the Dzhankoy station, where the tracks were four-rail.
Data on the use of a supergun near Sevastopol are contradictory. In his memoirs, Manstein stated that " Dora fired 80 shells at the Soviet fortress. The German cannon was soon spotted by Soviet pilots, who inflicted a serious blow on its position and damaged the power train.
In general, the application Dora"did not give the results that the Wehrmacht command was counting on: only one successful hit was recorded, which caused an explosion of the Soviet ammunition depot located at a depth of 27 m. In other cases, the cannon shell, penetrating into the ground, pierced a round barrel with a diameter of about 1 meter and a depth 12 m. As a result of the explosion of a warhead, the soil at its base was compacted, a drop-shaped deep funnel with a diameter of about 3 m was formed. Defensive structures could only be damaged if a direct hit was made.
On the morning of June 5, 1942, two diesel locomotives with a capacity of 1050 horsepower each rolled this colossus with a total weight of 1350 tons into a crescent-shaped combat position and installed it with an accuracy of a centimeter. The first shot consisted of a projectile weighing 7088 kilograms, two powder charges of 465 kilograms each, and a cartridge case weighing 920 kilograms. The barrel lift gave it an elevation of 53 degrees. Especially to correct the shooting, a balloon was raised into the air a little further from the Dora. When fired, the maintenance team hid in a shelter several hundred meters away. The shot caused the effect of a mini-earthquake. The roar during combustion in 6 milliseconds of more than 900 kilograms of gunpowder and pushing out a 7-ton projectile was simply monstrous - in the car for 3 kilometers, according to contemporaneous eyewitnesses, dishes bounced. The rollback pressed the rail track by 5 centimeters.
Erich von MANSTEIN: "... June 5 at 5.35 the first concrete-piercing projectile in the northern part of Sevastopol was fired by the installation" Dora". The next 8 shells flew into the area of \u200b\u200bbattery No. 30. Columns of smoke from the explosions rose to a height of 160 m, but not a single hit on the armored towers was achieved, the accuracy of the monster gun from a distance of almost 30 km turned out to be, as expected, very small . Another 7 shells "Dora" that day fired at the so-called "Fort Stalin", only one of them hit the target.
The next day, the gun fired 7 times at Fort Molotov, and then destroyed a large ammunition depot on the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, hidden in an adit at a depth of 27 m. This, by the way, caused discontent of the Fuhrer, who believed that Dora should be used exclusively against heavily fortified fortifications. Within three days, the 672nd division used up 38 shells, 10 remained. Already during the assault, 5 of them were fired at Fort Siberia on June 11 - 3 hit the target, the rest fired on June 17. Only on the 25th, new ammunition was delivered to the position - 5 high-explosive shells. Four were used for trial shooting and only one was released towards the city .... "
Researchers pass over in silence the question of how exactly " Dora"was taken out of the Crimea. In any case, it is clear that the Germans dismantled all the equipment, which was, of course, secret, and carefully removed all traces.
After the capture of Sevastopol Douro"Sent near Leningrad, in the area of the Taitsy station. When the operation to break the blockade of the city began, the Germans hastily evacuated the supergun to Bavaria. In April 1945, as the Americans approached, the gun was blown up.
The most accurate assessment of this miracle of military equipment was given by the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces of Nazi Germany, Colonel-General Franz Halder: "A real work of art, but useless."
04/22/1945, the advanced units of the Allied army, 36 km. from the city of Auerbach (Bavaria) found the remains of the Dora guns blown up by the Germans. Subsequently, all that was left of these giants of the 2nd World War was sent for remelting.
Hitler and the Generals examining fat Gustav in 1941.
In 1936, Adolf Hitler was faced with the problem of overcoming the French Maginot Defense Line, a 400-kilometer defensive line consisting of fortified bunkers, defensive structures, machine-gun nests and artillery emplacements.
Thanks to this, the Maginot defense line, in addition to its considerable length, provided a defense depth of 100 kilometers. Visiting the Friedrich Krupp A.G. engineering plant in 1936, Hitler ordered the development of a weapon capable of destroying long-term fortifications, which was supposed to help overcome the Maginot Line. In 1937, Krupp engineers completed the development of this weapon, and in 1941 two copies of the weapon were created, the 800-mm guns "Dora" and "Fat Gustav".
The "Fat Gustav" gun weighed 1344 tons and some parts had to be dismantled to move it along the railway tracks. The gun was as high as a four-story house, had a width of 6 meters and a length of 42 meters. Maintenance of the "Fat Gustav" gun was carried out by a team of 500 people under the command of a high-ranking army rank. The team needed almost three days of time to prepare the gun for firing.
The diameter of the projectile gun "Fat Gustav" was 800 mm. To push the projectile out of the barrel, a charge of smokeless powder weighing 1360 kilograms was used. Ammunition for the cannon was of two types:
a high-explosive projectile weighing 4800 kilograms, stuffed with a powerful explosive, and an all-metal projectile weighing 7500 kilograms for the destruction of concrete.
The speed of the projectiles fired from the barrel of the "Fat Gustav" gun was 800 meters per second.
The angle of elevation of the Tolsty Gustav cannon barrel is 48 degrees, thanks to which it can hit a target with a high-explosive projectile at a distance of 45 kilometers. A projectile designed to destroy concrete could hit a target at a distance of 37 kilometers. Having exploded, the high-explosive projectile of the Tolsty Gustav cannon left a crater 10 meters deep, and a concrete-piercing projectile could penetrate about 80 meters of reinforced concrete structures.
They finished building it by the end of 1940, and the first test shots were fired at the beginning of 1941 at the Rugenwalde training ground. On this occasion, Hitler and Albert Speer came to visit, Reich Minister of Armaments and Ammunition.
Interesting Facts:
- In German, the gun was called Schwerer Gustav.
- The construction of "Tolstoy Gustav" was often described as a waste of time and money, which was partly true, although the defenders of Sevastopol may have had a different opinion. On the other hand, if the Maginot Line could not be bypassed and it would have been possible to shoot at Gibraltar, then the gun could have played an important role in the war. But there are too many "woulds".
- During the siege of Sevastopol, cannon shots were directed by data from a reconnaissance aircraft. The first cannon hit was a group of coastal guns, destroyed by a total of 8 volleys. 6 volleys were fired at Fort Stalin with the same effect. 7 shots were fired at Fort "Molotov" and 9 - at the North Bay, where a successful hit of a heavy shell pierced the fort in depth, to the ammunition depots, which completely destroyed it.