The Dora Gun

[Az]

I thought the V3 was a plan for a missile designed to get to the USA.

[CerberusIV]

V3 was a multi barrelled fixed gun installation intended to shell London. The barrels had side chambers with additional propellant charges to accelerate the shells. They never got the test weapons to work properly, then the RAF demolished the site where the battery was being constructed with 12,000 pound bombs, and that was the end of the project.

The A9/A10 missile proposal used an A4 (V2) missile as a second stage and had a projected range of 3,000 miles but never got off the drawing board.

The Germans actually fired an A4 missile from a submerged U-boat in the Baltic in 1942 but, for whatever reason, didn't try and build a missile carrying submarine to attack the US.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Azazel
I thought the V3 was a plan for a missile designed to get to the USA.

Here is a link for the V3 (but also in German):

http://www.bunker-ig.de/intro/start/waffen/hdp/body_hdp.html

It was also called "Hochdruckpumpe" or "Fleißiges Lieschen".

A Gunshell would be accelerated by a charge and after passing certain points within the (really long) Barrel there would be another charges which were ignited at those points and which were meant to further accelerate the shell. There were 96 further charges located within the barrel.

But it never fired a shot, but was abandoned while it was still in the process of being built.

Oh, here is an english link:

http://www.nat-military-museum.lu/pageshtml/museumspecial.html

[Proteus_MST]

Oh, I see, Cerberus was faster in posting the Informations

[CerberusIV]

The wierdest one of all was probably Dr Zeppermayer's wind cannon. It was intended as an anti-aircraft weapon. I will post some information about it later unless anyone can find a link.

[Lefty Scaevola]

The siege gun did some good work at Sevastopol. Blasting several forts and various bunkers tunneled into the rock. One shell (aimed at a bunker uner the harbor) with its splash capsized a samll naval vessel.

[GePap]

On the "rail issue" with Dora and Gustav. Dora and Gustav did NOT move fully formed. They had to be dismantled and moved in pieces by rail. Once a firing site was chosen, a set of double tarcs had to be laid down at the site, the gun reconstructed, all of which of course took immense time and effort an men. all in all, a waste of resources for what they got, actually.

The regura rail guns the germans had were very effective, like Anzio Annie.

[Urban Ranger]

This is not an actual rail gun, but Karl is still quite impressive being a 60cm mortar.

[Sava]

The German obsession with huge cannons was silly. They were grossly inefficient and a waste of resources and manpower.

[CerberusIV]

Following my earlier post the Germans actually built a prototype wind cannon, invented by a Doctor Zeppermayer. It induced pressure waves in air and could shatter a plank at up to 100 metres range. They installed this as an anti-aircraft defence at a bridge. Pity the allied bombers flew at rather more than 100m altitude.

The Germans real problem was that there was no single organisation co-ordinating research, rather the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and SS as well as other organisations all funded R&D. Anyone with a crazy idea could find someone to fund research, especially if they had any political influence. Some amazing inventions were produced but also a lot of rubbish.

Their work in the artillery field was pretty amazing and a lot of modern ideas can be traced back to German work late in WWII.

[Panag]

hi ,

one inch = 2.54 centimeters , ....

as for the gun , his short smaller brother was around also , ...

there is a museum dedicated to it in germany , ....

have a nice day

[Sava]

have a nice day

THANK YOU!

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
Following my earlier post the Germans actually built a prototype wind cannon, invented by a Doctor Zeppermayer. It induced pressure waves in air and could shatter a plank at up to 100 metres range. They installed this as an anti-aircraft defence at a bridge. Pity the allied bombers flew at rather more than 100m altitude.

The Germans real problem was that there was no single organisation co-ordinating research, rather the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and SS as well as other organisations all funded R&D. Anyone with a crazy idea could find someone to fund research, especially if they had any political influence. Some amazing inventions were produced but also a lot of rubbish.

Yep, this and the fact that Hitler himself also influenced research and had Ideas he wanted to be realized. Most of them where just influenced by the thought that larger and heavier automatically also means better (such as the "Maus" ).

I wonder if really useful inventions like the first "Jetfighter" could have been invented earlier if there had been more concentrated effort on realistic and useful projects

[Lancer]

"The Germans actually fired an A4 missile from a submerged U-boat in the Baltic in 1942 but, for whatever reason, didn't try and build a missile carrying submarine to attack the US."-Cerberus

Cerberus, I find it rather hard to buy this one. The Germans didn't have the submarine or technology to fire a V2 from a submerged submarine or even one on the surface.

Where did you get this info? Got a link?

[Tattila the Hun]

Wirbelwind Kanonen, anyone?

Sonic and wind weapons