80 cm cannon (E)

80 cm cannon (E)
model
General Information
Military designation:	80 cm cannon (E)
Manufacturer country:	German Empire
Developer / Manufacturer:	Croup , food
Development year:	1934 to 1935
Production time:	1937 to 1941
Number of pieces:	2
Technical specifications
Pipe length:	32.48 m
Caliber :	80 cm
Caliber length :	L / 40.6
Elevation range:	0 ° to +65 degrees
Side straightening area:	0 °, over the shooting curve 5–15 °

The 80 cm cannon (E) was a heavy "special gun " used by the Wehrmacht during World War II . It was manufactured by the Krupp works under the name Schwerer Gustav . It was the world's largest and most elaborate mobile gun that was ever in service. A total of two copies were built, of which only the Dora gun, later called by the artillerymen, was used for a single combat mission. In contrast to its design, the cannon was still referred to as a railway gun , although it could not be laid in one load on the railroad. It could only be moved in several individual partial loads and required a certain lead time to set up (in contrast to the classic railway guns). Separate short tracks with a shooting curve had to be built for use.

history

Development and production

80 cm cannon during a tour by Adolf Hitler (second from right in the foreground) and Albert Speer (right) in 1943

The reason for the development of the heaviest cannons was the realization that the Wehrmacht had no suitable weapons for the destruction of fortifications on the Maginot Line . The guns should be deployed from positions to be prepared within their own territory, but should be transportable in partial loads via the normal rail network. In 1935, the Krupp works presented designs for the calibers 70, 80, 85 and 100 cm. The Heereswaffenamt hesitated at first with an order. Hitler visited the Krupp works in 1936; in the following year the arms office gave the order for three guns of the caliber 80 cm. Despite the construction of additional workshops, Krupp was unable to meet the original delivery date for the first gun in March 1940; it was completed in the summer of 1941.

Director Erich Müller (1892–1963) was responsible for the entire project management at Krupp . His nickname was "Kanonen-Müller" because he was responsible for the planning and development of the guns at Krupp. According to the construction principle, they were cannons in howitzer design with hydraulic crank locks. The gun barrel consisted of a jacket barrel and a core barrel . It was stored in a tubular cradle that was mounted between two long carriage bars. The carriage spars were in turn supported by intermediate girders on a total of eight five-axle bogies that ran on two parallel tracks. The gun was powered by its own generator and could be moved for fine tuning by electric motors on some of the axes.

At Krupp, the first gun was called "Schwerer Gustav", the structurally identical second was called "Schwerer Gustav 2", and the projected third gun was called "Langer Gustav" due to its modifications. Another name at Krupp was "Gustav device". The name "Dora" originated in 1942 with the artillery. The third gun was designed with a caliber of 52 cm and a barrel length of 48.00 meters, but was never completed. A mission on the English Channel against targets in England was planned .

The first single-layer tube was shot in on a makeshift mount at the Hillersleben firing range in September 1941 . The carriage was completed a short time later, after which the gun was assembled and tested on the Rügenwalde-Bad practice area near Rügenwalde in Western Pomerania .

On January 8, 1942, the Heavy Artillery Division (E) 672 was set up; The commander of this unit was Lieutenant Colonel Robert Boehm.

Transport and assembly

The relocation of the gun as well as the crews and the track material required five railway trains and three to four construction trains for the construction of the gun and the firing position. The construction of the firing position took up most of the time, as the construction line had to be laid out on three tracks and the firing position laid in an arc had to be laid out on two tracks with additional stabilization elements over a length of about 900 m. In addition, earth walls were raised on both sides of the firing position, which, together with camouflage nets, were supposed to protect the gun. Two army flak units were ready for air protection . The installation of the gun itself could be done within 56 hours with the portal cranes running on two additional rails outside the three installation tracks .

Two diesel double locomotives of the type D 311, specially developed by Krupp for this task, were used to move the gun into the firing position . The Feinrichtung was self-propelled by built-in electric motors in the bogies of the gun. The cartridges of grenades were like all heavy German railway guns since the Paris Gun stored in a separate air carriage to the for the optimum and, above all predictable combustion of dibasic used nitrocellulose powder to ensure required temperature of about 15 ° C.

Combat use

The Maxim Gorki I coastal battery , which was shot at on June 17, 1942 during the siege of Sevastopol .

The only combat operation took place during the siege of Sevastopol in June 1942. For this purpose, the gun was moved to the Crimea in April 1942 . During the planning of the siege, the use of the Dora met with skepticism: General Erik Hansen from LIV rejected this . Army Corps points out that the operation is a heavy burden on the supply routes. For the few objects in Sevastopol that could be targeted by the Dora, other weapon systems are also available, according to Hansen. The fire position was built near Bakhchysaray , about 25 kilometers northeast of Sevastopol. Up to 1500 civilian workers and 1000 members of the Todt organization were deployed. A two-kilometer-long access track, an approximately 1200-meter-long three-track section for setting up the gun and the shooting curve were created. A total of around 5000 people were required to use the gun; Among them were about 20 engineers from the Krupp company.

During the siege of Sevastopol, the Dora gun was used on a total of five days from June 5, before the entire stock of ammunition was used up on June 17. The “only bombing with significant success that has been proven with absolute certainty” was hits at the ammunition depot of the “White Cliffs” plant, which was up to 30 meters underground on the northern edge of Severnaya Bay. Of the total of 48 shots fired, ten were closer than 60 meters to the target; the greatest deviation was 740 meters. Between June 2 and July 1, 1942, the German artillery deployed near Sevastopol fired 26,281 tons of ammunition, of which just under 1.3 percent came from the Dora gun. In addition, there were 20,529 tons of bombs dropped in 23,751 missions by the Air Force . After the conquest of Sevastopol, due to the severe destruction of the city, it was often not possible to identify where the Dora projectiles hit. The only unequivocally established impact location was a 32-meter-deep well-shaft-like hole, at the bottom of which there was a cave-like enlargement created by the detonation of the grenade.

After the bombardment of Sevastopol, another deployment was to follow in September 1942 during the siege of Leningrad at the company Northern Lights . For this purpose, a gun emplacement was built at Taizy station south of Leningrad. It was not used because a major Soviet offensive was expected. The gun was brought back to Rügenwalde before November 1942; the crew of the gun was later assigned to the 388th People's Artillery Corps.

overhaul

In Rügenwalde, the gun received a new (like the second gun now two-layer) inner tube , as the old one was already heavily worn before the projected service life of 100 rounds. The 1850 kg high-performance propellant charge per shot burned the barrel very quickly; From the 15th shot onwards, the hit position looked bad.

Another test shooting of the gun took place between March 17 and 19, 1943 in Rügenwalde ( Rügenwalde-Bad shooting range ). Hitler , Minister of Armaments Albert Speer , Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and other generals as well as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach and several directors of the Krupp factories took part in a demonstration shooting on March 19 .

Planned modification

In the further course of the war, a modification of the two "Gustav" devices was operated as a plan project in order to bombard Great Britain with artillery parallel to the use of V weapons . In order to achieve the required firing ranges of 100 to 200 km, a smooth tube lengthened to 44 m should be installed, counterweights for the tube extension should be mounted on the breech block, and the rammer and ammunition and cartridge transport should be redesigned. The use of new ammunition was even more important for increasing the range.

Since grenades with additional rocket propulsion had proven to be imprecise in previous projects, the "Peenemünder Arrow Bullet" should now be used, a sub-caliber (52 cm) arrow-stable sabot bullet . With a weight of 2000 kg, this should have a muzzle velocity of over 1200 m / s and a range of over 130 km. With an explosive charge of only 180 kg, this non-armor-piercing projectile would only have been a psychological weapon with no military value.

Storage and whereabouts

"Dora-Ensemble" (bullet and cartridge in size comparison) in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr, Dresden

In September 1943 the gun was brought to the Army auxiliary equipment office in Auerswalde near Chemnitz and stored there. On April 14, 1945, one day before the arrival of the American troops, the gun was blown up. In the summer of 1945 it was examined by Soviet specialists and in the autumn of the same year it was taken to the Soviet loot collection point in Merseburg . Afterwards Dora was transported in parts to the Polygon Rschew (an artillery firing range) near Toksowo near Leningrad . It stayed there until 1950, after which it was relocated to the Stalingrad “Barricade” plant on the basis of an order from the Armaments Commissioner Ustinov . In 1954 it was again transferred to the Prudboi test site (Полигон Прудбой) near Stalingrad . There the cannon was split up and melted down in 1960, and projectiles were detonated. Two cases are now in the “Stalingradskaya Bitva” museum in Volgograd (first room).

The second (never active) gun was dismantled in Rügenwalde in March 1943 and stored further west. In February 1945 the gun trains arrived at the Heeres-Nebenzeugamt in Auerswalde . At the end of March they were brought to Grafenwöhr and blown up there on April 19, 1945. The rubble was not scrapped until the 1950s.

Parts of the third gun (caliber 52 cm) were found in the Krupp production facilities in Essen after the war .

The world's largest “Dora Ensemble” is located in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden in the “Protection and Destruction” theme course. An 80 cm grenade is exhibited as a partial replica (partly original).

Technical specifications

Model 1:50

80 cm grenade, a T-34/85 in the background

• Weight: 1350 t
• Weight of the pipe: 400 t
• Length over the buffers / width / height: 47.30 m / 7.10 m / 11.60 m
• Caliber: 800 mm
• Pipe length: 32.48 m
• Increase (max.): 65 °
• Diesel locomotive power: 2 × 940 hp
• Ammunition types:
  • armor-piercing projectile
    • Weight: 7.100 kg
    • Length: 6.79 m
  • HE grenade
    • Weight: 4,800 kg
    • Length: 8.26 m
• Performance data
  • Muzzle velocity:
    • small load: 600 m / s
    • mean load: 700 m / s
    • big load
      • HE shell: 820 m / s
      • Tank shell: 720 m / s
  • Range
    • small charge: 28 km
    • large load: 47 km
  • Originally planned usability of the pipe: about 100 shots
  • Penetration power of the tank shell
    • Steel: 1 m
    • Reinforced concrete: 7 m
    • Concrete: 10 m
    • Natural soil: 32 m
• Assembly time: 56 hours (see transport and assembly )
• Personnel for fire control and operation: 1,500 men from a special artillery division
• Personnel for position and track construction, assembly, maintenance, guarding, camouflage etc .: 4,120 men
• Loading the cannon: 19 to 45 minutes
• Assumed average rate under optimal conditions: 1.45 shots per hour

The Dora gun as an instrument of propaganda

The use of the Dora gun in the Battle of Sevastopol, which remained the only use of this weapon, was used by the Nazi regime for propaganda , in particular through reports from the Propagandakompanie (PK). So the bombardment of the fortress Sevastopol by the railway gun "Dora" and was "Thor" mortars by the war correspondents Walter Frentz and Gerhard Garms on color film taken. These recordings were shown in black and white copies in Deutsche Wochenschau No. 617 (see Panorama Monthly Color Show ). The weekly report was described by the Reich propaganda leader Joseph Goebbels , who, according to his own statements, had contributed to the published version, as "particularly valuable in terms of state politics and artistry". In the Völkischer Beobachter the “PK men were thanked for this documentary gift to their homeland” and reports were made about “how our artillery trommel [t] with guns and mortars of a caliber that was previously hardly thought possible”. In weekly newsreel 659, scenes from the construction of the "Dora" gun were mounted in a report on the construction of the Atlantic Wall , which suggested that guns of this caliber were part of the protection against an Allied invasion. The recordings were made on the Rügenwalde practice area.

About three weeks after the conquest of Sevastopol, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach wrote to Hitler and claimed that the weapon had "now proven its effectiveness". In addition, Krupp asked - also on behalf of his wife  - for the "favor of releasing the Krupp-Werke from claiming costs for this first product." As early as the 19th century, the Krupp-Werke had given the Prussian king a gun as a gift; In addition, factory tours were offered. In his letter to Hitler, Krupp referred to an example of Alfred Krupp from 1870. The historian Harold James classifies Krupp's “hospitality, advertising and sightseeing tours” in the 19th century as “part of a marketing strategy”, “potential customers in a fabric of personal closeness and trust. "

There is evidence that Hitler called the weapon developed and built by Krupp "my steel fist" and "my most powerful artillery fist". After the use of Krupp's “Dora” railway gun in the destruction of the Soviet fortress of Sevastopol, Hitler gave the company the “highest recognition for its incomparable achievement in strengthening Germany's military power”. However, as a result of logistical and other problems - the Sevastopol mission had required "several […] special trains […] and 4500 men to operate" - this weapon was not used again.

While the Dora gun was used by the propaganda of the Nazi era as well as in a large part of the popular war literature of the post-war period and partly up to the present day with superlatives such as "largest cannon of all time", "miracle weapon" and "heaviest gun in the world" was characterized, a report published in the Allgemeine Schweizerische Militärzeitschrift in 1952 classified the “Dora” device ”from a military point of view as“ more of a technical absurdity with a low performance compared to the enormous effort involved ”. Karl Justrow , head of inspection at the Heereswaffenamt ( Army Weapons Office) during the National Socialist era , found in 1954 that at the Dora firing range, the prospect of hits on objects with a small area was “almost zero from the start”. By increasing the caliber, the Dora has come to an area where performance is only slowly increasing, but effort is increasing very quickly. The accuracy of the Dora had "dropped so quickly to the point of uselessness of the barrel after relatively few shots" that "for this reason alone one had to consider whether it was worth using it." Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments under Hitler, claimed after the end of the war that he and his employees had rejected "this monster".

literature

• Gerhard Taube: DORA railway gun. The greatest gun of all time. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-87943-648-7 .
• Gerhard Taube: German railway guns. Tube artillery on rails. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-613-01352-5 .
• Alex Buchner: German and Allied Army Weapons 1939–1945. Germany, USSR, England, USA. Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg 1992, ISBN 3-7909-0469-4 .
• Roger Ford: The German secret weapons of the Second World War. Edition Dörfler in Nebel-Verlag, Eggolsheim 2003, ISBN 3-89555-087-6 .
• Terry Gander, Peter Chamberlain: Encyclopedia of German Weapons 1939-1945. Hand weapons, artillery, prey weapons, special weapons. 2nd edition, Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-613-02481-0 .
• Historical scrap in the rock garden. In: Sächsische Zeitung , April 5, 2007.

Web links

Commons : 80 cm cannon (E)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• 80 cm cannon (E) text and illustrations

Individual evidence

1. ^ Fritz Hahn: Weapons and Secret Weapons of the German Army 1933-1945. (Volume 1: Infantry weapons, pioneer weapons, artillery weapons, powder, explosives and warfare agents. ) Bernard and Graefe, Koblenz 1986, ISBN 3-7637-5831-3 , pp. 191f.
2. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. Pp. 28, 106.
3. ↑ Fritz Hahn: Arms and Secret Weapons. P. 194.
4. ↑ Quoted in Taube: DORA railway gun. Pp. 50-52.
5. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. P. 60f.
6. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. Pp. 64, 69.
7. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. P. 91.
8. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. P. 83.
9. ↑ Fritz Hahn: Arms and Secret Weapons. P. 192, 194.
10. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. P. 92.
11. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. Pp. 99-100, 107.
12. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. Pp. 102, 106.
13. ↑ Technika i Wooruschenie 2009 №7 ( Memento of February 6, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
14. ^ ^{A b} Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen (Ed.): The eye of the Third Reich. Hitler's cameraman and photographer Walter Frentz. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-422-06618-7 , p. 28.
15. ^ Dove: DORA railway gun. P. 131.
16. ^ Letter of July 24, 1942, quoted by Taube: DORA railway gun. P. 95.
17. ↑ Harold James: Krupp. German legend and global company. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62414-8 , p. 60.
18. ↑ Magnetic cannon. Mule in space . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1990, pp. 243-244 ( online ).
19. ↑ Armor: "The elite cavort there" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1972, p. 33 ( online ).
20. ↑ Porsche. Man and mouse . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1976, p. 78 ( online ).
21. ↑ Alex Buchner: German and Allied Army Weapons 1939–1945. Germany, USSR, England, USA. Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg 1992, ISBN 3-7909-0469-4 , pp. 78-79.
22. ^ Report in the General Swiss Military Journal . Volume 118, 1952, ISSN  0002-5925 , p. 594 ( limited preview in Google Book Search ).
23. ↑ Karl Justrow: The German miracle guns "Dora" and "Karl" in view of the Supreme Command. In: Defense technical monthly books. 1959. Quoted by Taube: DORA railway gun. Pp. 110-115.
24. ↑ Information on Taube, see Taube: DORA railway gun. P. 114.