On the note of accuracy, the Paris gun of WW 1 had a target of Paris. It hit Paris and had pretty good groupings until they got some of the shells out of order and messed up the bore to the point it had to be rebored. The Peenemunde shells of WW 2 that were fired by conventional RR guns 280mm like the K5, the known targets that they aimed at were Kent, the county in England and 3rd Army later in the war. They did hit Kent but had no particular grouping and the same for the attacks on 3rd Army.
Giant WW2 German Guns
- Thread starter Destroyer500
- Start date
So maybe such a guiding beam could be put on a submarine and thus the problem of allied air superiority be solved ? On the eastern front though planes wont be a problem
The V3 gun was never finished and its development surely wasnt done properly for things like that to happen.The V3 was a last resort weapon that i personally dont understand.In general i dont understand the bombing-"missiing" of London and big cities since they never help you win any war.They only cause suffering,pain and anger.
https://en.topwar.ru/165108-aktivno-reaktivnye-snarjady-v-trommsdorffa-germanija.html
https://www.fliegerrevuex.aero/mach-35-interkontinentalflugkoerper-der-luftwaffe-1944/
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/trommsdorff-projects-ww2.6832/
https://en.topwar.ru/163751-aktivno...teljami-konstrukcii-a-lippisha-germanija.html
If you open this website and then book he is mentioned in the early days section https://dl.begellhouse.com/fr/download/article/0ef8891227c0632e/IJEMCP2105(1)-38741.pdf
It seems im not the first to think of this ramjet artillery concept for use in the 40s.However the guy i cited didnt think of guiding the shell somehow.But on such small calibers,compared to mine,there isnt much space for much guidance with systems of the time and the range is anyway not going to be that huge so it wont be needed.
Well its artillery so unless it uses GPS guidance like modern ones do you cant have that much of an accuracy.I mean i dont expect my supposed guns to hit anything very accurately but at least an acceptable margin of error i think can be achieved
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1. Absolutely not. U-boats would have to be surfaced in order to send and receive radio signals, which would be a death sentence anywhere near the UK. For the Eastern Front, your worthless supergun would have no hope of hitting anything worthwhile. I suppose you could use it to shell Stalingrad and Leningrad if you position it correctly, not that those cities weren't already under normal artillery guns.
2. The "sources" you cited are Napkinwaffe proposals drawn up by desperate engineers to not be sent to the Eastern Front. In any case, they would not have worked with the technology and metallurgy of WWII, especially resource constrained Germany. It's telling that only now is ramjet artillery being developed, in the 21st century. As for why those people didn't think of guiding the shells? It's because it was IMPOSSIBLE with the technology available at the time. The electronics miniaturization and mechanical shock resistance simply was not available. Finally, the payload of the shells would be absolutely terrible; a few dozen kilos of HE at most.
Pro tip: if you see [Crazy German tech, 194X], it's most likely either fake, worthless, ineffective, or some combination of the three.
3. Nope. The V-2 with it's "HiGh DeGrEe Of AcCuRaCy" as your image says had a realistic CEP of 12 kms. That was with a heavy guided missile. With a lightweight, unguided artillery shell, which is much more susceptible to wind, you might see a CEP of around 20 kms.
Seriously, why are you trying to parrot this supergun idea despite everyone here explaining its impracticality?
Artillery at range could be extremely accurate in WW2. In most cases, even close air support, if you had the range you could hit the target accurately and easily with trained people involved than other means of delivery of ordnance. If you are looking at a single shot on target you are are going to be in the Circular area of Probability, but not necessarily right on target.
1.Submarines were just idea and maybe they wouldnt have to totally surface to do their thing but only have an antena or something protrude out of the water,provide the guidance and then retract it.Its just an idea though.On the eastern front with an airfract that has enough range it could fly above factories that were close to Moscow and shell them,it could destroy the bridgehead on the other side of Stalingrad and probably stop the constant Soviet reinforcements,it could hit an army trying to organize and regroup and pretty much anything one wants within a reasonable range.Its not a war winning weapon but it would impact a war of the time significantly.If the Germans make wrong strategic decisions no gun will save them.
2.If you can fit a proximity fuze inside a WW2 artillery shell of 150mms caliber and have it absorb the shock and survive the entire journey then you can fit a crude guidance like that of the V2 on a shell 7 times bigger.I think even after the explosion the Americans found parts of the proximity fuze which is telling of how survivable they were.The engineers wanted to do exactly what im saying i want to do but of course noone thought of the guidance cause they werent looking at making a super gun rather just give more range to conventional artillery and in that case theres no need for guidance and no probability to do so at the time due to small sizes involved.
The only metallurgy needed is that of making a heat resistant aluminum alloy.I have chosen to discard titanium since with aluminum a lot of weight can be saved.
Also noone cared for ramjet artillery shells up until now because rockets have done the job of artillery far better.Rockets had a bigger accuracy,range and payload than any artillery shell could ever hope to have but they have become a bit too expensive so the only cheaper alternative is the use of a rocket-ramjet power gps guided artillery shell.If the US continioued the SLRCs development they could have a cheaper alternative to cruise missiles but they just dont care for such a thing yet.
The guy talked about having a 9kg payload on a 280mm gun which is close to 50% less than a SAP naval round of that caliber so not so small that it was irrelevant.Mind you this was a prototype still and could definitely be refined if given more time.Maybe he could achieve a reduction of only 30% of the original payload capability of the shell or even less but no matter what a reduction is certainly going to be there.Now i talked about having a 2000kg payload but going to 1500 or 1300 is something that wont make the gun ineffective.
Its also not crazy German tech. A few years after the mess that ww2 was was over everyone took German designs and scientists and tried to have them recreate their inventions and patents on every single level.Crazy German tech was non existent,it was just conventional tech but people just overestimate how much useful its was or how much it could change the course of the war.People go crazy like "Whoooaaa a jet planee" but could they actually produce enough of them reliably and have the manpower and fuel to man them ? No.Germany in the last months of the war had a prototype AA missile and people say "Whoaaaaa AA missile in WW2 " yea but then again i ask,was it ready for mass production and were there enough materials to make it work as it should at that time ? No.So its not that Germany didnt have plenty of good ideas or designs its that they came too late and even though they provided certain tactical victories sometimes,they were nowhere close to being war winning weapons.If one of those good designs came earlier and was produced in sufficient numbers then it could significantly alter the balance of power and level the playing field.For example a Me262 in 1941 would be devastating.But due to chaotic German R&D and in general everything being a mess it didnt along with many other projects.Wars are won by having enough resources for the fight,good logistics,a realistic plan and a well trained army and of course by exectuing your plans as best as possible.Of course there are many more variables but those are just a few and this threads scope is not discussing that.Germany didnt need any wundervaffe to win on the eastern front and have the western allies sign a peace.They just needed to make many better moves politically and millitarily.Like not helping Italy in its funny campaigns and having a single plan for Barbarossa not 2.In a single word,it wasnt that the "Wunderwaffe" were bad,its just that they came late and could never hope to win the war plus you need materials to built them.But i have gone totally off topic.
3.The V2 was very accurate for what it was and if they could somehow control its descent then it would be a ton more accurate.But it wasnt possible with the trajectory that it had and the supersonic speeds it reached on descent.Also I never said my shell will be unguided.If its unguided its accuracy would be similar to me throwing a bottle with a letter at sea and hopping it will find the friend of mine for to which i wrote the letter.
I even thought of having planes throw fritz x style an antenna at the intended target we want to hit with the shells and have the shells attract themselfs to the antenna like an acoustic torpedo would but although this time its radio waves.I understand that the antenna is destroyable but all this relies on good timing and assuming that it will provide a strong enough signal to attract the shell.
Im not trying to parrot i am trying to discuss and you seriously shouldnt get angry at all.Im doing this to relax and entertain myself so i dont have a reason to stop.Also as i said i will try to defend my idea until i no longercan and apparently i still can.In the end even if all the math and theories in the world work for my gun what ultimately would put it to the test would be its implementation which of course is not possible so we can only theorize which is exactly what this forums purpose is.However unless youre bored or too angry,dont stop telling me possible weaknesses or shortcomings of this idea cause i wont be able to think of solutions to them and get a better understanding of the situtaion.Purely agreeing would be like patting me in the back.Also if you can help or anything do so.
If monstrous guns were useful, we would've seen them in widespread use after World War II. We did not.
I dont imagine this as a barrage since i dont know yet how would that work with the planes having to guide them or if any other method of guidance is going to be used.So it will be more like shoot then guide,hit,then another shot guide,hit etc etc
But we have them and they are called ICBMs
Jokes aside unless the gun fires a projectile that is a mixture of a rocket-ramjet-scramjet and that is at very high velocities then it wont reach missile range ever.Also the thing with guns is that if they get damaged they cant shoot their projectiles so you are totally incapable of shooting back and you have lost a lot of money.But if you lose a missile you just lose a missile and nothing more.Plus missiles are more movable,at least up to a certain size.Now that the concept of something flying at hypersonic speeds is becoming more common theme in the military industrial complex and that many nations are developing ramjet and rocket powered artillery shells we might see a rise in the use of big guns.I mean the SLRC with the supposed 1800km range that gave me the idea for this thread would be some sort of 12-14" gun.I would love to see a ship with a modernized 16" gun firing such a gps guided shell at lets say 700-800+ kms.However i dont see them replacing missiles
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
It is, however, an idea that doesn't work. When submarines radioed back, they had to surface. Yet again, you're applying technology that won't be around for another 20 years.
Oh, please. Now you're given it an accuracy of being able to destroy a bridge? This is getting nonsensical.
Oh, you're spouting a lot of words. The trouble is, people who are professional engineers and in-depth historians on the period and military experts and so on are telling you that you're talking nonsense.
Rough rule of thumb: When pretty much everyone says that an idea is not workable, it's worth considering whether the idea is workable.
Well, you just proved the implausibility of your proposal yourself. AS YOU SAID, missiles are just better than a gun for the things you want it to do.I dont imagine this as a barrage since i dont know yet how would that work with the planes having to guide them or if any other method of guidance is going to be used.So it will be more like shoot then guide,hit,then another shot guide,hit etc etc
But we have them and they are called ICBMs
Also for the love of god, improve your grammar. I get a headache just trying to decipher your intended meaning.
If it can be used like the fritz x then why shouldnt it be able to hit a bridge ? The fritz x could hit moving ships after all
I have considered if its workable and i fail to see any argument other than "It will cost too much" "It will be hard" for which i dont care.The technicalities of the shell are something still being discussed and i wont accept that it cant be done just because someone said so.I am trying to have a conversation and find ways to make it work while you do the opposite and thats fine.If you are so good at doing this then eventually the truth will be shown and i will back off.But all that is happening is that we are exchanging 5 messages-posts and then you start complaining.I cant know if someone is a professional engineer, in-depth historian or military expert but even that doesnt make ones opinion infallible or unquestionable especially on something this hypotheticall.I will soon work as an electrical-electronic engineer,does that mean that i am some sort of god of electricity and circuits ? Even when it comes to my teachers only a handful have proper knowledge and understanding of the subject they are teaching.
Missiles are good but i also said they are expensive.You pay more for them,especially for the big ones,compared to having a big gun shooting similar payload projectiles,if thats possible.But they have the plus that they far more movable.That was also one of the arguments against the SLRC while the arguments for it were the far far cheaper projectiles it would fire compared to a 1 million dollar Tomahawk.For the 40s the most advanced missile couldnt do what i ask it to do.Maybe if it was launched from a rail horizontally to its targets and had a ramjet of some sorts to give it big range along with some guidance system like the one im describing for the guns ? If missiles are chosen for the job then something like the thing the Tromsdorff plane thrown ramjet should be used.
English is one of the many languages i speak and im doing my best to be coherent.Im sorry but it cant get any better than this
You need to have a warhead on a shell in the 2000lb range or greater to disable or let alone drop a bridge on a lucky hit. Bridges are designed to take a vertical load like a bomb or shell hitting it, and still it has to hit in such a way to destroy a structural member on it. There are many examples of bridges getting hit by heavy bombs or artillery shells and just having damage to them and not destroyed. One of the reasons Tall Boys were developed and deployed was the fact that even heavy bombs were not taking out bridges even it they had a direct hit. Even in the Vietnam war with the Thanh Hoa Bridge you had to have direct hits with laser guided bombs to drop it and disable it, even then it was rebuilt with in a few years and back in service.
What kind of temperatures will the shell be experiencing? Aluminium isn't particularly heat resistant (much less so than steel) and isn't particularly strong, which could be an issue with a very high speed shell [1].
Titanium is difficult to produce from the ore and OTL only became commercially available from about 1950.
So if you want weight saving you'll need thinner walls which means lower pressure when firing. I'd expect a naval weapons site or book would give some guidance on the trade offs.
[1] the shell in From the Earth to the Moon was made of aluminium, but in Jules Verne's defence aluminium was a novel and exotic metal at the time he wrote it.
Titanium is difficult to produce from the ore and OTL only became commercially available from about 1950.
So if you want weight saving you'll need thinner walls which means lower pressure when firing. I'd expect a naval weapons site or book would give some guidance on the trade offs.
[1] the shell in From the Earth to the Moon was made of aluminium, but in Jules Verne's defence aluminium was a novel and exotic metal at the time he wrote it.
We will have to alloy aluminum to make it heat resistant.Using aluminum "unmoded" wont work and i know that.I should look at what material Trommsdorff used
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