Chapter 506: Giant Cannon (2)
Rundstedt couldn't help wondering. "Your Highness, why don't we build this super cannon?" 800mm caliber, the power of this cannon is exciting just by hearing it.
Yannick smiled. "Because it is completely useless."
In 1934, Krupp received a request from the German Army Command, hoping that Krupp would design a heavy artillery that could destroy the fortress on the Maginot Line. It would be best if one shot could penetrate a 7-meter-thick concrete bunker or a 1-meter-thick steel plate, and it should be fired from a distance where the enemy artillery could not fire back.
After calculation, Krupp engineer Dr. Erich Mueller found that if this requirement was to be met, the shell alone would weigh seven tons, with a caliber of about 800mm, and the barrel would be at least 30 meters long, and the entire device would weigh nearly 1,000 tons.
If it also needed to be mobile, it would need to distribute the overall weight on two sets of rails. Generally speaking, railway guns only have the action of adjusting the shooting elevation angle, and the left and right rotation angle depends on the curvature of the rails. The correction of the rotation angle can be completed by moving the gun carriage forward and backward.
In fact, the Gustav heavy gun, like the heavy gun used by the Japanese army to attack Hill 203 in the Russo-Japanese War and the heavy gun used by the German army to attack the Verdun Fortress in World War I, belongs to the category of heavy siege guns/fortress guns.
The main combat mission of this kind of artillery is highly single. It is generally equipped with high-explosive warheads or full-caliber armor-piercing explosive warheads to attack the permanent and strong fortifications of the defenders, especially highly fortified fortresses or field fortification systems. In fact, this kind of artillery can also be used to attack population settlements (the German army once had this idea), but this idea was too crazy in the early stage of World War I when the meat grinder of total war had not yet started at full speed. In the later stage, it was completely because the cost-effectiveness was too low (the cost of firing artillery and artillery shells was very high, and you just wanted to use it to bomb civilians).
The design goal of the Gustav cannon was very clear. It had two main targets: the Eben Emma Fortress in Belgium and the Maginot Line of the French Army. According to the requirements of the Yellow Plan, the probability of using it for the Eben Emma Fortress was slightly higher. After all, the main attack direction initially determined by the German Army in 1939 was to follow the old path of the Schlieffen Plan from Belgium and the Netherlands, and the front line would swing to the left.
Although the Gustav cannon can theoretically destroy the fortress support points of the Maginot Line and ensure that the assault troops break through the fire control zone between the fortresses, its breakthrough efficiency will be greatly affected, which is still an unacceptable result for the German army. As for the German army's later choice of Manstein's sickle plan, it changed to break through the Sedan Gap through the Ardennes Forest, and the front line turned right after crossing the Meuse River. It required a higher speed of attack for the German army (so much so that in actual combat, the German tank troops were completely disconnected from the subsequent artillery support echelon attack, and all relied on Stuka for ground fire support), and needed to rely on railway movement. The mobility speed was extremely slow. It took several days after deployment to fire a shot. The Gustav cannon was even more useless - where this thing appeared was equivalent to telling people "this is my main attack direction", and there was no suddenness in the battle.
The only place where the Gustav cannon was used was the Sevastopol offensive and defensive battle where the German Southern Army Group eliminated the threat from the Crimean Peninsula. According to Man Buqun, there was no such thing as a flank attack in this battle. Just go straight to the front and bite off a few fixed permanent fortresses in Sevastopol, which could shake the entire defense system of the Soviet Coastal Army Group.
Therefore, the German army pulled out the Gustav cannon at this time. Anyway, there were so many targets, so they could just take their time. This was also the only time this kind of artillery was useful. Later, the pace of war became faster and faster, and armored offense and defense based on the long front became the main combat style. There was no chance for the Gustav cannon to play a role.
During the first assembly of the Gustav cannon, the German army encountered a very troublesome problem. Because the total weight of the artillery was too heavy, it had to be transported by dozens of train cars. During the assembly process, two sets of rails had to be used to ensure a little mobility. Even so, the assembled Gustav cannon could only walk on a straight line. A slight slope would make it unable to move, not to mention passing through bridges and other transportation facilities.
What is even more surprising is that it takes a major general of the army to serve as the commander-in-chief to assemble a Gustav cannon. After arriving at the transportation site, 350 people assembled it in three days. An additional 3,000 people were needed to lay special rails, organize air defense and guard work, and there was also an air helicopter cover brigade to follow. The entire deployment required more than 4,000 people.
Due to the heavy weight of the shells, the loading process is very slow. The maximum rate of fire of the artillery is only 3 rounds/hour, the usual shooting interval is 19-45 minutes, and the barrel life of the artillery is only 100 rounds.
In short, this is a kind of weapon with specific targets, special tasks and high specialization. Because of this, it was never used except for the attack and defense of Sevastopol in the entire World War II; it can be said to be a model of extremely low cost performance.
"And we have a ten-ton aerial bomb "Grand Slam", which is far more practical than this "super cannon". Why make such a useless thing."
After listening to Yannick's explanation, Rundstedt nodded thoughtfully. "Your Highness is right, but what about the Finnish defense line? The Soviets took out such a super cannon, and the Finnish defense line may not be able to hold."
"That's perfect, isn't it? After fighting for so long, it's time to rest." The Soviet-Finnish War in the original time and space negotiated peace with the Soviet Union on March 7, 40, under the mediation of Sweden. According to the Moscow Peace Agreement on March 12, 40, Finland lost Karelia, including Vyborg, the second largest city in Finland, 10% of Finland's arable land, and 1/5 of its industrial output. 222,000 residents, accounting for 12% of Finland's total population, lost their homes and were deported. Finland also ceded the Rybach Peninsula in the Barents Sea, four islands in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Sara region, and leased the Hanko Peninsula to the Soviet Union as a naval base for 30 years. This agreement was very harsh for Finland. Only a year later, it broke out again with the support of Germany and the Soviet Union.
"The Soviets may mass-produce this cannon when they see its power."
A Gustav cannon weighs 1,350 tons. If these were used as tanks, wouldn't four or five hundred of them have been built? If the Soviets built ten giant cannons, wouldn't that be equivalent to building four or five thousand fewer tanks?