Dora Railway gun question

[varjag]

Very interesting picture joperaya! We've all heard/read about a second/spare(?) barrel for 80Cm K (E) - found by Americans after the war - but this is the first time I've seen that picture of the event, thanks!, Varjag

[AlifRafikKhan]

The largest gun ever built! Had an operational career of 13 days, during which a total of 48 shells were fired in anger. It took 25 trainloads of equipment, 2000 men and up to six weeks to assemble. Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann and Albert Speer carefully observe the new giant gun...

Source : http://forum.ebaumsworld.com/showthread ... 261&page=6

[jopaerya]

Here some picture's that were made at the same place as the on page 5 of this Topic .

Photo = Ebay

Regards Jos

[jopaerya]

....

[jopaerya]

From a expired Ebay action two photo's of the same 80 cm gun destroyed on transport .

Regards Jos

[Mark V]

It is almost unimaginable that it could be built at first place.

I bet that today building it, with required tolerances, steel quality, and actually making it work and shoot well, would be impossible task to any company in world. Any company would refuse contract, even if paid almost any price. In 30s the big steel companies still had naval rifles of big but sane size in pipeline, so they had solid knowledge from which to start.

Still, i believe that those thousands of highly skilled engineers and workers at Krupp that toiled for years to production engineer and actually build that monster (and spares) cursed million times those who:
- first came up with the idea of Dora
- the government that actually contracted to build it

Regards

[Manuferey]

Still, i believe that those thousands of highly skilled engineers and workers at Krupp that actually had to production engineer and build that monster cursed million times those who:
- first came up with the idea of Dora
- the government that actually contracted to build it
Regards

Maybe not. It was definitely more challenging than any other German weapon in the mid- to late 30s (but easier if we compare today with later US government projects such as building the atomic bomb or sending people to the moon ). And these Krupp workers would have had to work on other weapon programs anyway. In addition, they were subjected to the Nazis' nationalistic propaganda and I doubt that many of them would have cursed Hitler's or his government's decision to proceed with Dora at that time. Pride may have been felt instead.

Emmanuel

[Mark V]

Hi,

Maybe not. It was definitely more challenging than any other German weapon in the mid- to late 30s (but easier if we compare today with later US government projects such as building the atomic bomb or sending people to the moon ).

I am not saying other is more difficult than other, they are just different industries.

In some industries the knowledge is hard and slow to accumulate by nature. Gun building is one of them. For example: building missiles is fast, so in crash program you set up production line, built them as fast as you can - and at test range fire them as fast to accumulate lessons. Products from production line are seriously faulty at initial stages and you know it. No problem as it is ment to work like this. You just ship them to after-production modification facility where the lessons of latest test shots are incorporated as mods to serial product. You do this till over an over again till you have acceptable product, and then put that mod XXXXXX to series production, and the last batches of modified 0-series production missiles are already put to silos and service while this is done. You can basically start serial production nearly same time as 0-series testing. Costly, relatively fast, and dirty process that works even with extremely complicated products.

Well, building gun barrels really don't lend that kind of development process. They are sloooooow to produce, and when product is f...d up it is, and there is nothing to do about it, but to build new one from scratch. You learn from prototypes/test models, but while the protos are tested meticulously your production line is idling as they can't start to do anything before previous tests are completed.

And these Krupp workers would have had to work on other weapon programs anyway.

You hit the nail. That is exactly the point. Say working at late 30s so that Wehrmacht could had had 75mm AT guns at outskirts of Moscow in 1941 for example ?


Regards

[EPOCH3]

Hi - I purchased the two photos off ebay (among others) mentioned above "Re: Dora Railway gun question
by jopaerya on 17 May 2012 12:45" and upon investigation of the Eisenbahn ID numbers on the photos, this "was"
the weapon that fired on Sewasopol (The Taube book on Gustav/Dora has all the car numbers of the weapon used at
Sewasopol so positive confirmation can be made). Kind Regards

[jopaerya]

According to the Ebay photocaption this should be at Auerswalde .

Regards Jos

[EPOCH3]

Here is what I believe happened...

US Army found "Gustav" spread out over about 50 miles of track south of Chemnitz (Chemnitz itself was in Russian territory by Yalta accord). Some parts were found on a siding in Metzenhof (maybe Eschenbach and referred to Metzenhof?), some parts in a village named Vorra and 14 cars in a tunnel at Weiden. This data comes from a debrief of Col F. Porter who actually found these and went back to look at them when he moved his HQ to this area in June 1945 (and who subsquently authored some Tech Reports on the weapon). The finding on the Metzenhof siding was the gun in the photos I purcahsed off e-bay (in previous posts). As I mentioned, these photos appear to show the gun I believe to be the gun which fired on Swastopol = Gustav. Btw, a captured officer of this specific gun was held in local captivity also referred to it as "Gustav".

I believe the same thing happened to DORA (spread out over a large area) - however north of Chemnitz (in Russian territory). The photo directly above if labeled Auerswalde makes sense because this is slightly north of Chemnitz. The Russians invited a team of US personnel from Ord. Tech. Intel team No 1 (Lt W.B. Curtis and S/Sgt H.W. Retz) to this facility where they were allowed to take photos. I have pictures of 1 half of the upper trunnion and 1 half of the lower carriage which is housed in the building to the left in your picture (you can make out slightly if you zoom into the photo). So What you have appears to be a photo of S/SGT Retz taking a quick measurement of the "DORA" barrel (which they thought was actually 82cm). Not an expert but that is my humble opinion -

Kind Regards

[ChristopherPerrien]

As I understand it there was only one 80cm gun. The "Gustave". It was re-named "Dora" by the artillerymen who operated it.
This is one reason for why people think two guns existed. The other is that two barrels were made. But there never was enough of the equipment to have assemble two complete guns. Gustave/Dora was the only one. The rest of the stuff was just extra parts for Gustave/Dora not a second gun.

[EPOCH3]

I believe it has generally been accepted that DORA and Gustav existed as separate weapons (of same/similar design) and a third Long Barreled "langer Gustav" was being worked on as late as 1944/45. The following documents are wrt potential weapons that could be employed against England from across English Channel. Please note the name of Dora and Gustav are both used. Please see the following which was published in the Taube book as well as by Karl Pawlas in Waffen Revue series which among other things points to aerodynamic modeling being conducted by Heimat Artillerie park 11 and the potential distances that could be acheived using various types of platforms/loads. Allways welcome constructive comments.
Kind Regards

[EPOCH3]

Jos, I just looked closer at the photo you have of the Rohr being measured. I indicated that I have pictures of the insides of this building (on the right side) but I did not realize until I looked closely that this is the opposite corner of the building. So - this photo appears to prove that both lower carriage assemblies are here (right and left) - great find.

[jopaerya]

Thanks Greg

Nice to locate parts of the second gun .

Regards Jos