Costal gun?

[K-9]

Does anybody have info about this piece? What is it? And where is it located?

And is it normal to be in open air? - i think such a big and complicated piece of artillery should be inside a bunker, protected from the weather and airplanes.

[Juha Tompuri]

Hi,

It´s an ex-Russian 280mm coastal gun mod. 1877 at Suomenlinna (Sveaborg/Viapori) off Helsinki, Finland
Lenght of barrel 22cal, v/o 455m/s, range: 8530m, weight of barrel: 26890kg, shell: 245,7kg
http://www.suomenlinna.fi/english/his/index.html
http://www.novision.fi/viapori

More guns at: http://www.novision.fi/viapori/easeet.htm#Artillery


Regards, Juha

[JTV]

Does anybody have info about this piece? What is it? And where is it located?

And is it normal to be in open air? - i think such a big and complicated piece of artillery should be inside a bunker, protected from the weather and airplanes.

Juha already answered the question quite well. But here few details, which I would like to add. This particular gun is at Kustaanmiekka part in Sveaborg/Viapori/Suomenlinna fort. The gun is installed to sand embankment in open gun position with Durlacher-mount, which was pretty much up to date back when these guns were issued and their positions build (at 1870's - 1880's). In this fort the 229-mm and 280-mm coastal guns model 1867 and 1877 were the first and last coastal guns to be installed to sand embankments. The 1850's and earlier coastal guns had been mostly installed to walls build from stone and bricks, which belonged to the original fort and had proved quite useless when attacked during Crimean War at 1854 - 1855 (British-French navy managed to bombard the fort safely outside range of the outdated guns used in the fort). The guns on brick & stone walls proved quite vulnerable, so the sand embankments as guns positions were introduced as improvement. The next coastal guns issued after model 1877 guns had much more range, so they were positioned to other islands further away from the city and harbour of Helsinki.

During WW1 Russians still kept the old model 1867 and 1877 coastal guns of the fort as second line of defence against possible attack from the sea. But as that attack against Krepost Sveaborg (as Russians called the fortications around Helsinki during WW1) never came, these guns were never fired in battle.

Besides 229-mm and 280-mm guns the Russian model 1877 coastal artillery system also included coastal mortars of the similar calibre.