Saddam's "Super-Gun"

[Sims2789]

He tried to build an artillery piece over two football fields long. The only problem is that after it would have fired one shot, Israeli jets could have easily bombed it since it obviously would have been imobile.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=123

 

[Turner]

Which is why you treat it as any other immobile resource, with lots and lots of sam/radar coverage, AAA, and anything else you can throw up to keep the jets away.

Weren't the germans working on something simular in WW2? Maybe it wasn't them, but this sounds vaguely familiar. I seem to recall it being mounted on railroad tracks, too.

 

[Lifeblood]

You mean those massive artillery pieces the Germans used to bomb Stalingrad and other sites at the Eastern Front? Impressive to say the least and the destruction was enormous. I think they might have wheeled them on railroad tracks. It was either railroad or in parts I can't recall. There was a documentary recently that showed them in use. They were a ***** and a half to reload too. The Germans were working on all kinds of crazy stuff like the whole UFO deal. I think the era of super cannons is pretty much over unless they are Transformers.

 

[Case]

Originally posted by Turner_727
Weren't the germans working on something simular in WW2?

Yeah, the Germans attempted to build a super gun in the Pas De Calais which would have been capable of shelling London. It was destroyed by the famous 617 (Dambuster) Squadron before it was completed. However, most experts think that the gun's design was fatally flawed and it would never have worked.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Check out the source of this: www.debka.com

They are wholly unreliable and sensationalist, they reported that Saddam had fled to Belarus and that New York was at real threat of being nuked of Feb 2nd 2004. Not to mention 101 other crazy reports and conspiracy theories that promote a neo-con and Israeli anti-Arab agenda. Take for example their numerous stories trying to pin the missing WMDs to Syria having written that spy planes saw these convoys and used instruments that detected the payload was biological and chemical weapos...utter nonsense.

I spit upon it and the multitude that quote from it.

 

[privatehudson]

Originally posted by Lifeblood
You mean those massive artillery pieces the Germans used to bomb Stalingrad and other sites at the Eastern Front? Impressive to say the least and the destruction was enormous. I think they might have wheeled them on railroad tracks. It was either railroad or in parts I can't recall. There was a documentary recently that showed them in use. They were a ***** and a half to reload too. The Germans were working on all kinds of crazy stuff like the whole UFO deal. I think the era of super cannons is pretty much over unless they are Transformers.

Uhmm, most of the stuff I read suggests that the Nazi UFO thing was a total load of rubbish. Fortean times did an article on it about 6 months back that refuted most of the more popular ideas surrounding such claims quite effectively.

Case is right about the mega gun, and also right that like a whole load of Nazi wonder-weapons, it's effect was either minimal, or the design flawed anyway. The railway guns on the other hand are another story entirely, check this link out for a picture of "Anzio Annie" currently in Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland. A 280mm monster of a gun that could throw a shell 31 miles with accuracy

To put it another way, the gun was just larger diameter wise than those carried by the pocket battleship Graf Spee

The site says 25 of them were made.

As for the Iraqui one... well as Kitten says, such a site has some pretty dubious stories on it, the authenticity of such a thing needs checking.

 

[vonork]

Originally posted by privatehudson
Case is right about the mega gun, and also right that like a whole load of Nazi wonder-weapons, it's effect was either minimal, or the design flawed anyway. The railway guns on the other hand are another story entirely, check this link out for a picture of "Anzio Annie" currently in Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland. A 280mm monster of a gun that could throw a shell 31 miles with accuracy

And that should be BIG... you forget the Dora & Gustav 800mm and 65miles range. Two rail-tracks to move it around and a 2000 man crew.
http://palpatine.chez.tiscali.fr/Page13/page13.htm

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

The German multichamber super gun was never completed. Small experimental version of multichamber guns have been completed and test, but they were just labratory versions. The priciplace is multiple propellant chambers branching onto the barrell firing in timed sequence to keep the pressure up behing the projectile.
Building more aircraft and figthing you way through to a target with bombs is a more more cost effective method than a meg-huge imobile gun.

 

[pman67]

The super gun story is true. The news covered the recovery of the parts last year some time. Here are a couple of links I found: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/other/supergun.htm
and

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20650

and

http://www.downport.com/~bard/bard/vera/vera7000.html

sorry, they're not clickable

 

[privatehudson]

Originally posted by vonork


And that should be BIG... you forget the Dora & Gustav 800mm and 65miles range. Two rail-tracks to move it around and a 2000 man crew.
http://palpatine.chez.tiscali.fr/Page13/page13.htm

Thanks, I knew of their existence, but couldn't find any info on them

Given that only one was ever used and was of minimal effect anyway though, their use in war was strictly limited.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by privatehudson
Given that only one was ever used and was of minimal effect anyway though, their use in war was strictly limited.

They were for assualting heavy fortifications (heavy in term of construction strength) which the Germans did not ecounter much after the time they were completed. The opriginal intened target was the Maginot, but Hitler got the war started a little earlier than planned.

 

[privatehudson]

They were for assualting heavy fortifications (heavy in term of construction strength) which the Germans did not ecounter much after the time they were completed. The opriginal intened target was the Maginot, but Hitler got the war started a little earlier than planned.

Precisely, that and the mentality that goes with such warfare had been bypassed by Blitzkreig makes their construction almost needless, much better to use the resources and time on something more useful

 

[Speedo]

It would have been no different from the scuds. Absolutely useless, and Saddam knew it. It's sole purpose was to make people huddle in shelters crapping themselves, with the main casualties coming from people that suffocated in their gas masks or overdosed on atropine.

 

[vonork]

Originally posted by privatehudson
Precisely, that and the mentality that goes with such warfare had been bypassed by Blitzkreig makes their construction almost needless, much better to use the resources and time on something more useful

You all seams to forget the "Cool" factor... yes, a station wagon is more practical but a ferrari is far more Fun. Now if you was a dictator would you not speend a lot of time with cool super weapons

 

[IceBlaZe]

Well the other problem was that Israel assasinated the designer. A Canadian guy, Bull something.

 

[privatehudson]

Nothing cool about being removed from power because I spent too long developing useless superweapons and not long enough developing conventional weapons

 

[Duke Togo]

There was an HBO movie about this, wasn't there?