The largest gun ever built was the Gustav Gun, built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by Friedrich A.G. Krupp. To preserve the tradition of naming heavy guns after family members, the Gustav Gun was named in honor of the ill head of the Krupp family, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.

A strategic weapon of its time, the Gustav Gun was built on the direct orders of Hitler specifically to destroy the defensive forts of the Maginot Line on the French border. Carrying out orders, Krupp developed giant rail-mounted cannons weighing 1,344 tons and 800 mm (31.5") caliber, which were operated by a crew of 500 men under the command of a major general.

Two types of shells were produced for the cannon, using 3,000 pounds of smokeless powder to ignite: a conventional artillery shell filled with 10,584 pounds of high explosive explosive(high explosive - HE) and a concrete-piercing projectile containing 16,540 pounds, respectively. The Gustav Gun shell craters measured 30 m wide and 30 m deep, and the concrete-piercing shells were capable of breaking through (before exploding) reinforced concrete walls 264 feet (79.2 m) thick! The maximum flight range of high explosive shells was 23 miles, and of concrete-piercing shells - 29 miles. The muzzle velocity of the projectile was approximately 2700 ft/sec. (or 810 m/sec).

Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfred Krupp personally received Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the Hugenwald test site during the official acceptance tests of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941.

In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun, and DM 7 million was paid for the second gun, the Dora (named after Dora, the wife of the chief engineer).

France capitulated in 1940 without the help of a super-gun, so new targets had to be found for the Gustav. Plans to use the Gustav Gun against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco opposed the decision to fire from Spanish territory. Therefore, in April 1942, the Gustav Gun was installed opposite the heavily fortified port city of Sevastopol in the Soviet Union. Having come under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, the “forts” named after. Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorky were allegedly destroyed and destroyed (there is a different opinion on this matter). One of Gustav's shots destroyed an entire ammunition dump, 100 feet (30 m) below North Bay; another capsized a large ship in port, exploding next to it. During the siege, 300 shells were fired from the Gustav, as a result of which the first original barrel was worn out. The Dora gun was installed west of Stalingrad in mid-August, but quickly removed in September to avoid its capture. The Gustav then appeared near Warsaw in Poland, where it fired 30 shells into the Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising (see Supplement).

The Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau in Germany to avoid the gun being captured by the Russian army. The partially assembled third gun was scrapped directly from the factory by the British Army when it occupied Essen. An intact Gustav was captured by the US Army near Metzendorf, Germany in June 1945. Soon after, it was cut up for scrap. Thus, the history of the Gustav Gun type was put to an end.

Addition: In fact, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 occurred a year before the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. In neither the first nor the second case, the Gustav Gun was used. To bomb the city, the Nazis then used Thor, a 2-ton mortar of the Mörser Karl Gerät 040 type with a caliber of 60 cm.

During World War II, the Nazis tried to create new destructive weapons that the USSR and the Allies could not do anything against. One such development is the huge Gustav and Dora guns. These superguns were used during combat operations, and if not for some problems, they could have led the Third Reich to victory.

The Fat Gustav gun was named after Gustav Krupp, head of the German industrial concern Friedrich Krupp AG. It was the most big gun in the world ever used in combat. It began to be designed back in 1934, and Hitler planned that the gun would be ready by the start of the war with France.

As was later confirmed, huge Gustav shells pierced up to 7 meters of reinforced concrete or armored steel 1 meter thick. It was precisely such a super-large-caliber cannon that was needed to destroy the fortifications of the Maginot Line forts.

The production of guns began at the Krupp military plant in Essen in 1937. In addition to Gustav, Dora was also built, named after the wife of the chief designer. The supergun cost Germany 7 million Reichsmarks, while the Krupp concern produced the Gustav completely free of charge, as its contribution to the war.

The guns were tested for a long time, and at the beginning of 1941 they were officially adopted by the Wehrmacht. Gustav did not have to take part in the 1940 campaign, since France successfully resisted for only a month and a half.

"Gustav" and "Dora" were the same type artillery installations caliber 80 centimeters. Chief engineer Eric Miller designed a carriage platform 47 m long and 7 m wide, weighing 1350 tons, transportable by rail. It turned out the only way make the weapon mobile.

The shells for the super-weapon still amaze the imagination. Thus, a concrete-breaking machine weighs 7 tons and is filled with 250 kilograms of explosives. And high-explosive ammunition is a little lighter, but already carries 700 kg of charge.

The shells were fired from a 32-meter-long steel barrel, which was aimed horizontally by moving the entire gun mount in a curved arc. railway. To service the Gustav, a crew of 250 people was required. Another 2,500 soldiers provided railway construction, air defense, and ground security.

"Gustav" was used during the siege of Sevastopol in 1942. Wehrmacht soldiers prepared firing positions throughout May, and in June 48 shells were fired at the fortifications of Soviet soldiers. German artillerymen knocked out several forts.

After the fall of Sevastopol, the Gustav was transported to Leningrad, and the Dora arrived near Stalingrad. During the Wehrmacht's retreat, the superguns were taken to Poland to suppress the Warsaw Uprising, and then to Germany.

At the end of the war, both guns were destroyed, and the remains of another, third gun in the series were discovered at a factory in Essen. It was built on the same carriage, but to increase its range, the barrel was designed longer (48 meters) with a smaller caliber (52 centimeters).

In general, Hitler's superguns showed themselves to be extremely expensive weapons that are very difficult to use, and the results obtained can hardly be called anything other than modest. Nevertheless, in Germany they believed that such weapons could bring victory.

Huge guns of the Third Reich are just one of

Hitler had certain ideas - from massacre Jews before the conquest of Europe. And he tried in every possible way to show his greatness. The Nazis even built what would have been the world's largest hotel, but the project had to be canceled because there were more pressing issues, such as the invasion of France.

In the 1930s, France built a series of massive fortifications and obstacles called the Maginot Line to protect the country from invasion from the east. These fortifications were among the strongest at the time, with deep underground bunkers, modern retractable turrets, infantry shelters, barricades, artillery and anti-tank guns etc. The Wehrmacht was unable to penetrate this formidable defense. So Hitler went to the ammunition manufacturer Krupp to solve the problem.

11 PHOTOS

1. Krupp engineer Erich Müller calculated that to penetrate seven meters of reinforced concrete or one full meter of steel armored plate they would need artillery with massive dimensions.
2. The gun must have an internal diameter of more than 80 cm and a length of more than 30 meters if it were to fire projectiles weighing 7 tons each from a distance of more than 40 kilometers.
3. The cannon itself will weigh 1,300 tons and will have to be moved by rail. When these figures were presented to Hitler, he approved them, and the creation of the huge weapon began in 1937.
4. Two years later the super gun was ready. Alfred Krupp personally invited Hitler to the Rügenwald test site in early 1941 to evaluate the weapon's power. Alfried Krupp named the gun Schwerer Gustav, or "Fat Gustav", in honor of his father Gustav Krupp.
5. Schwerer Gustav was an absolute monster. Because he was so big and heavy, he could not move on his own. Instead, the cannon was broken into several pieces and transported on 25 freight cars to the deployment site, where it was assembled on site—a task that required 250 men to labor for nearly three days.
6. Laying paths and digging embankments took weeks of work and required 2,500 to 4,000 people working around the clock. 7. Schwerer Gustav moved along many parallel rails, which limited his mobility. Despite the huge firepower, Schwerer Gustav had no means to defend himself. This was decided by Flack's two battalions, which guarded the weapons from possible air attack.
8. For all the time and money spent on building the gun, it did little on the battlefield and did absolutely nothing against the French for whom it was originally intended. 9. Germany had already invaded France in 1940 before the gun was ready. They did this by simply bypassing the Maginot Line.
10. Schwerer Gustav was instead deployed to Eastern Front at Sevastopol in Russia during its siege in 1942. It took 4,000 men and five weeks to get the gun ready to fire.
11. Over the next four weeks, Gustav fired 48 shells, smashing distant forts and destroying an underwater ammunition depot located 30 meters under the sea, protected by at least 10 meters of concrete protection. The gun was then moved to Leningrad, but the attack was cancelled. Krupp built another weapon with the same dimensions. It was named Dora after the wife of the company's chief engineer. Dora was deployed west of Stalingrad in mid-August 1942, but was hastily withdrawn in September to avoid capture. When the Germans began their long retreat home, they took Dora and Gustav with them. In 1945, the Germans blew up Dora and Gustav.

The first concrete-piercing projectile weighing 7088 kilograms "Dora" was fired on June 5 at the northern part of Sevastopol. But the use of the weapon did not produce the results that the Wehrmacht command had hoped for. Only one successful hit was recorded, which caused an explosion of an ammunition depot on the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, located at a depth of 27 m. In other cases, a cannon shell, penetrating into the ground, pierced a round barrel with a diameter of about 1 m and a depth of up to 12 m (according to some sources - up to 32 m). At the base of the barrel, as a result of the explosion of the warhead, the soil was compacted and a drop-shaped cavity with a diameter of about 3 m was formed. This result did not cause much harm to the defenders of the city. The damage could have been colossal if the gun’s shell had hit the reinforced concrete floors of an important facility. Any defensive structure could be seriously damaged only by a direct hit from a shell. But more accurate shooting The hindrance was that it was impossible to keep such a weapon near the front due to its extreme vulnerability. With a minimum firing range of 25 km, the gunners aimed the Dora not at a specific target, but at an approximate area. At the same time, it was possible to hit a specific target with great luck. In total, the gun used 48 concrete-piercing shells. Also, 5 test long-range high-explosive shells were fired from the Dora, which went 35 kilometers into the sea. The shelling from the gun lasted 13 days. After which the weapon was dismantled. Even the armored turret batteries of the B-30 and B-35 were most likely blown up by the defenders of Sevastopol themselves on orders from the command when they ran out of shells. Compared to the efforts spent on combat operations, the supergun was of little use. However, reports of successful Dora hits were sent to Berlin in order to reassure General base and leadership. After the capture of Sevastopol by German troops, the Germans carefully removed all traces of the secret weapon and transported the weapon near Leningrad to the Taitsy station area.

The commander of the 11th Army, which besieged Sevastopol, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, wrote:

... And the famous Dora cannon of 800 mm caliber. It was designed to destroy the most powerful structures of the Maginot Line, but it was not necessary to use it there for this purpose. It was a miracle of artillery technology. The trunk had a length of about 30 m, and the carriage reached the height of a three-story building. It took about 60 trains to deliver this monster to the firing position along specially laid tracks. To cover it, two divisions of anti-aircraft artillery were constantly at the ready. In general, these expenses undoubtedly did not correspond to the achieved effect. However, this gun, with one shot, destroyed a large ammunition depot on the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, hidden in the rocks at a depth of 30 m.

No information about the presence of "Dora" was found in Soviet documents about the defense of Sevastopol.

By that time, about 300 shots had been fired from the Dora’s barrel, taking into account field tests, and the barrel, due to severe wear, was sent for repairs to Essen. The carriage and all the equipment, as mentioned above, were transported to the Taitsy station area, where the repaired barrel was later delivered. They also planned to transport a second Gustav gun of the same type there. The advance of the Red Army deprived the Germans of the opportunity to use heavy-duty weapons. With the beginning of the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad, the guns were urgently evacuated to the rear.

According to Russian historians, the Dora was used again during the Warsaw Uprising in September-October 1944. About 30 shells were fired at Warsaw. After the bloody suppression of the uprising, the guns were evacuated deep into Germany. At the end of the war, there were plans to use a heavy-duty weapon to fire from occupied French territory into London. Three-stage H.326 rockets were developed for this purpose.

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In 1935, the Heereswaffenamt (HWA) turned to Krupp for an expert assessment of the possibilities of creating artillery piece, capable of destroying the largest fortifications of the Maginot Line. Krupna's designers carried out design calculations and compiled a report with ballistic data on three guns of 70.80 and 100 centimeters calibers suitable for these purposes.

The report was noted, but no further action was taken until Hitler asked Krupp the same question during a tour of his factory in March 1936. Having received a copy of the year-old report, Hitler inquired whether the project of constructing such huge guns was practically feasible, and received assurances that although the task would be difficult, it was by no means impossible. Sensing Hitler's weakness for striking weapons, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, head of the Krupp consortium, ordered detailed calculations for the 80 cm gun.

? The defeated giant is the damaged barrel of the Gustav, discovered by American units at the Wehrmacht training ground Grafenwoehr in Bavaria. It was probably one of the spare barrels, since they had to be changed no later than every 300 shots.

As he expected, the order for the manufacture of such a gun was received in 1937, and work on its implementation began under the leadership of Doctor of Technical Sciences Erich Müller. The entire program was carried out in the strictest secrecy, thanks to which Allied intelligence was not even aware of the work on the creation of a new German superweapon.

Despite the utmost efforts of the most qualified specialists, the implementation of the project progressed slowly. And this was not surprising, considering that specifications the guns had to meet the highest requirements - its concrete-piercing projectile had to penetrate a meter layer of armor, seven meters of reinforced concrete and thirty meters of compacted earth. Such indicators could only be demonstrated by a truly massive weapon, and its very size caused endless problems - it was clear that it could only move by rail, and it would have to be disassembled in order to be placed on a platform moving along a standard-width track. The barrel and breech assembly had to be designed in such a way that it could be disassembled into four independent components for transportation. The task of creating such a unit capable of withstanding the monstrous pressure generated by each shot was far from easy, so the barrel was ready for test firing from an improvised platform only at the beginning of 1941.

The ammunition was no less impressive a sight than the gun itself - one high-explosive fragmentation projectile weighing 4800 kg, containing 400 kg of explosive, created a crater, the average diameter and depth of which was 12 meters. The concrete-piercing projectile weighing 7100 kg contained an explosive charge weighing 200 kg. The accelerating charges also amazed the imagination - total weight The charge used to fire each concrete-piercing projectile was 2,100 kg, while the charge for each high-explosive fragmentation projectile weighed 2,240 kg.

As soon as the test firing was completed, work began on manufacturing the platform, and the assembled gun was delivered to the artillery range near Rugenwalde, where it was demonstrated to Hitler at the beginning of 1942. This happened almost two years later than planned, and Hitler became increasingly impatient and irritated by what seemed to him endless delays, but was deeply impressed by both the stunning spectacle of the firing gun and the results of test firing on “hard” targets, which were fully consistent with those stated in the document. specifications characteristics. Without doubting the prospects of receiving lucrative contracts in the future, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach officially announced to Hitler that his company was donating this weapon, now named “Gustav Herat” in his honor, as a gift to the Reich. There is some disagreement as to exactly how many of these guns were actually produced - according to many sources, a second similar gun, called the "Dora", was also created. However, it seems more likely that the German gunsmiths called “Gustav” among themselves “Dora,” thereby creating the impression that there were two such guns.

The search for suitable targets for this weapon also presented some difficulties - at various points it was supposed to be used both on the Maginot Line and against the fortifications of Gibraltar, but these plans were not destined to come true due to the unexpected fiasco in France and General Franco’s refusal to violate the neutrality of Spain. This automatically solved the problem, since the only possible targets remained in the territory Soviet Union, and Sevastopol was chosen first among them, since it became clear that only with the help of the most severe artillery shelling could the city’s defensive fortifications be overcome without colossal losses in manpower.

Siege of Sevastopol

“Gustav” was hastily disassembled and sent on a long journey to Crimea in a train of 28 special cars, which, in addition to the gun itself, contained an assembly crane and two diesel locomotives for maneuvering at the location. At the beginning of March 1942, the train reached the Perekop isthmus, where the gun remained until the beginning of April. From the railway connecting Simferopol and Sevastopol, a special branch was laid to Bakhchisarai, located 16 km north of the target, at the end of which four semicircular railway tracks were equipped for horizontal guidance of the Gustav. External tracks were also laid for the 112-ton gantry crane, with which the Gustav was to be assembled, and, in addition, a small marshalling station was built for storing auxiliary equipment. In order to protect the weapon from attacks Soviet aviation and return artillery fire, a ditch was dug 8 meters deep, and at a distance of several kilometers a fictitious firing position with a mock-up gun was equipped. Finally, two lungs were pulled up anti-aircraft batteries to provide short-range air defense of the entire complex.

Despite all of Krupp's technical genius in the design of the gun's components, assembling it was far from an easy task, especially the stage when the second half of the 102-ton gun barrel, swinging under the boom of a gantry crane, had to be combined with the first half and attached to it . The entire assembly process took three weeks and required the combined efforts of 1,720 men working under the direction of a major general, but on August 5 the Gustav was ready to open fire. Its maximum rate of fire was approximately four rounds per hour, since due to the size and weight of the ammunition, the gun could not be loaded faster even with the use of technology. In addition, each salvo required a wide variety of information, such as muzzle velocity, flight time, powder mass and temperature, powder chamber pressure, firing range, atmospheric conditions, powder chamber wear, and barrel rifling.

Locations of railway gun batteries

(Battery……Type of guns - Number of guns - Location)

Battery 701……21 CMK12V - 1 - 1 in 1941, 2 in 1943-1944. Artillery Regiment 655, August 1944

Battery 688……28 cm K5 - 2

Battery 689……28 cm Schwere Bruno L-42 - 2

Battery 711……37 cm MIS - 2 - Captured gun (not a unit since 1941)

Battery 697……28 cm K5 - 2 - Speed ​​measurement unit

Battery 713……28 cm K5 - 2

Batteries 765 and 617……28 cm K5 - 2 - Velocity Measurement Unit

Calculation 100……28 cm K5 - 2 - Division of study and replenishment

Battery 694……28 cm Kurze Bruno - 2 - 1941, was not a connection in 1943-1944.

Battery 695……28 cm Kurze Bruno - 2 - 1 in 1941 +32 cm in 1943-1944. Artillery Regiment 679, August 1944

Battery 721……28 cm Kurze Bruno - 2 - 1 in 1940, 2 in 1943-1944. Artillery Regiment 780, merged with Regiment 640 in August 1944.

Battery 692 ...... 27.4 cm 592 - 3 - Artillery Regiment 640, merged with Regiment 780 in August 1944.

Battery 722……24 cm T. Bruno - 4 - Coastal artillery

Battery 674……24 cm T. Bruno - 2 - Artillery Regiment 780, merged with Regiment 640 in August 1944

Battery 664……24 cm Kurze T. Bruno - 2 - Artillery Regiment 780, merged with Regiment 640 in August 1944

Battery 749……28 cm K5 - 2 - Artillery Regiment 640, merged with Regiment 780 in August 1944.

Battery 725……28 cm K5 + 28 cm N. Bruno - 2 + 2 - Artillery Regiment 646, N. Bruno withdrew in August 1944.

Battery 698 ...... 38 cm Siegfried - 2 - 1 in 1944, when 1 Siegfried transferred to the 679 regiment; Artillery Regiment 640, merged with Regiment 780 in August 1944.

During the siege, the Gustav fired 48 shots at various targets, in particular:

June 5: Coastal defense batteries were fired at from a distance of 25 km by fire, which was corrected by the Gustav's own gunner. The targets were destroyed with eight shots. Then Fort Stalin came under fire and was destroyed by six concrete-piercing shells.

June 6: The first target of the day was Fort Molotov, which was destroyed by seven shells. After this, “Gustav” began to fire at an object that was, perhaps, the most fortified military structure in Sevastopol, White Rock. It was an artillery ammunition depot located 30 meters below Severnaya Bay and protected by at least a 10-meter layer of reinforced concrete. Nine shells were fired at the target, and the last of them provoked an impressively powerful explosion of ammunition, as a result of which the object was completely destroyed.

June 17: Gustav fired its last five shells of the siege at Fort Maxim Gorky I, a well-defended firing position equipped with two twin 305mm guns.

After the capitulation of Sevastopol on July 4, the Gustav was sent to Germany to have its worn barrel restored. In the future, the gun was supposed to be used in the battles for Stalingrad and Leningrad, but it is likely that the Gustav no longer participated in hostilities, although, according to unconfirmed information, it fired several shots in 1944 during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising.

Krupp proposed some modifications to the basic design, including the construction of a 52 cm gun on the standard Gustav platform. Such a gun would be capable of firing 1,420-kilogram shells at a distance of up to 110 km. As alternative ammunition, 52/38 cm container projectiles with a maximum firing range of 150 km or 52/38 cm rocket-accelerated projectiles capable of covering a distance of 190 km were offered. However, it was clear that the implementation of any of these projects would require several years of hard work, so it was decided to limit ourselves to half measures and equip the standard 80-centimeter barrel with a smooth internal nozzle and thereby increase the firing range when using Peenemünde swept-fin missiles. For this purpose, two types of projectiles were proposed: 80/35 cm with a maximum flight range of 140 km and 80/30.5 cm, capable of covering 160 km. However, all these proposals remained on paper, although work began on a prototype of the 52-centimeter gun, which was never completed due to serious damage caused by British aircraft bombing attacks on Essen.

80-centimeter gun "Gustav Geret Dora"

Specifications

Length: 47.3 m

Barrel length: 32.48 m (L/40.6)

Caliber: 800 mm

Elevation angle: 65 degrees

Horizontal aiming angle: none

Projectile weight: 4.8 t (high-explosive fragmentation) and 7.1 t (armor-piercing)

Firing range: 47 km (high-explosive fragmentation) and 38 km (armor-piercing)

The end of Project Gustav

There are several conflicting versions regarding the fate of the Gustav, but the most likely one is that it was dismantled towards the end of 1944. The Gustav was never a practical weapon, as it was incredibly expensive - the cost of its production, including additional equipment, was about seven million Reichsmarks. With this money it was possible to build at least 21 Tiger IIs, costing 321,500 Reichsmarks each!

In addition, this weapon also absorbed enormous amounts of human resources - many of the 1,720 people involved in its maintenance were highly qualified specialists, especially the 20 scientists and engineers who calculated the required data to fire each shot.