Destroyer500
Member
Hello hello how is everyone doing ? Ok i know the title may sound cartoonish but hear me out lads.I had an idea some months ago about big German guns shooting rocket propelled shells at all kinds of directions in a ww2 setup with the aim of defending the country or bombarding the enemy.
It all started when i learned that Germany was about to make a thing called Langer Gustav that was supposed to shoot 180km far.It was close to 500mms (800mms and with some changes ended being 500mms) big and would shoot rocket propelled shells across the British channel into London and other cities(Schwerer Gustav - Wikipedia go close to the bottom of the page to find it).It was destroyed by the RAF before it was fully assembled and or completed so it never saw action.So i thought to myself 180km is pretty darn impressive,could we make it shoot further ? What if we could make it bigger and at the same time able to shoot further ? What if we could hit far enough so that it could support ground armies the way standard artillery would ? What if we turned that kind of gun to the sky,gave it a shrapnel shell and had it shoot at bomber formations ? Wouldnt it make strategic bombing impossible after a certain point ? What if it could fire at ships ?
The hardest part would be increasing the range for the bombardment shell since creating a big shrapnel round for AA wouldnt be an issue and giving the thing a basic time fuse wouldnt really be a problem the way it was with smaller calibers.Even if it didnt set off on time the blast radius would be huge.In this scenario they could also push for contact fuses and develop them a bit earlier.But again how do you increase the range ? Well theres that thing called ramjet which was a tech that was thought of as early as ww1 and was supposed to increase the range of artillery.You can read all about it here Ramjet - Wikipedia or watch this short video .Finally the US a few years back made a functional 1000km range cannon from a far smaller caliber from the ones im proposing and that goes to show a lot The Army’s New 1000-Mile Cannon Will Match The Navy And Air Force's Ranged Strike Capabilities Leaked Army photos show they’re building a cannon that shoots over 1,000 miles and ‘Merica couldn’t be more excited .Ramjets require fuel to do their thing and the bigger the shell the more the fuel the more the flight time.Of course the bigger the shell the more it weighs but i recon that wouldnt create that many problems since we are going to be cutting some of its payload anyway to make room for the fuel.Of course the ramjet edition would mostly be there for land based targets since we dont have to shoot planes with something so sophisticated.
At this point i was thinking why not go even larger ? Why not go at 1500mm or 2000mm or hell go comically big like10kmms and shoot at your enemy with what would be a mixture between a ballistic missile and a very huge shell ? Well i dont know
Maybe it wouldnt work,maybe it wouldnt be needed,but the only reason i propose this is because with more size and thus fuel you can go further,and with more size you could possibly strap some low yield nukes in there.What if this what if Germany made such monsters and opptained the range to hit American cities Moscow or the Urals ? What if they destroyed so many bombers and hurt so many allied pilots that they would no longer continiou to consider the air raid campaign an option ? Yes the US could make more planes but they couldnt replace men,at least not the way the Soviets did,without the outrage of the public.What if,even if they managed to land at Normany,got decimated on their way to the shore by these monsters ? A whole another realm of posibilities is open.
Many of the 400mm guns im talking about looked like this 40.6 cm SK C/34 gun - Wikipedia 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun - Wikipedia and belonged to the Atlantic wall so were not making something new really apart from the shells.I would also personally not make that many more than the ones the Germans officialy made.Guns like these could be placed around major cities or important industry and protect if from aerial targets and if the need arises ground ones too.When they aint forced to shoot at air they can bombard enemy cities,industry,millitary bases,airfields or anything for that matter.
Also could these guns in a Germany (or any nation for that matter) entering the cold war,be used as anti missile defense and a hybrid between ICBMS ? Since we cant shoot down a missile with a missile that easily why not throw a nuke shell at it and not even care for a direct hit ? The US tried something similar but with missiles and for AA purposes Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era
I initially talked about all this here German mega defense - Axis History Forum .At first i had an ultra defensive Germany in mind but i no longer think that is necessarily needed.
One a final note one could say "Why not just make a missile and be done with it ?" I initially though of these guns firing shrapnel shells to planes while also being able to shoot ground targets from range but slowly but surely i saw a lot more going for it.Missiles are complex in their own way and require far more than just an advanced shell and a targeting computer.On the other hand huge gun facilities are not that mobile and make for large targets so they have their cons too but who said that ICMBs fired from silos can be that easily moved.In the end the huge guns could always have elevators for them to move bellow ground once theyre done.I think in the end they could cost less than ICBMs while also serving many more purposes and that could be the main thing going for them.You have an AA,an anti missile-ICMB system (for the more cold warshit modern era),a long range cruise missile payload like shell that can be fired almost anywhere you want,a small to medium yield nuke that can also be fired almost anywhere you want in one package.
I may add some more stuff to this post that i will remember latter on but i think this is pretty much all i can say.Its a fun topic and i thought why not share it ? Share any of your thoughts down bellow and lets have a nice discussion
It all started when i learned that Germany was about to make a thing called Langer Gustav that was supposed to shoot 180km far.It was close to 500mms (800mms and with some changes ended being 500mms) big and would shoot rocket propelled shells across the British channel into London and other cities(Schwerer Gustav - Wikipedia go close to the bottom of the page to find it).It was destroyed by the RAF before it was fully assembled and or completed so it never saw action.So i thought to myself 180km is pretty darn impressive,could we make it shoot further ? What if we could make it bigger and at the same time able to shoot further ? What if we could hit far enough so that it could support ground armies the way standard artillery would ? What if we turned that kind of gun to the sky,gave it a shrapnel shell and had it shoot at bomber formations ? Wouldnt it make strategic bombing impossible after a certain point ? What if it could fire at ships ?
The hardest part would be increasing the range for the bombardment shell since creating a big shrapnel round for AA wouldnt be an issue and giving the thing a basic time fuse wouldnt really be a problem the way it was with smaller calibers.Even if it didnt set off on time the blast radius would be huge.In this scenario they could also push for contact fuses and develop them a bit earlier.But again how do you increase the range ? Well theres that thing called ramjet which was a tech that was thought of as early as ww1 and was supposed to increase the range of artillery.You can read all about it here Ramjet - Wikipedia or watch this short video .Finally the US a few years back made a functional 1000km range cannon from a far smaller caliber from the ones im proposing and that goes to show a lot The Army’s New 1000-Mile Cannon Will Match The Navy And Air Force's Ranged Strike Capabilities Leaked Army photos show they’re building a cannon that shoots over 1,000 miles and ‘Merica couldn’t be more excited .Ramjets require fuel to do their thing and the bigger the shell the more the fuel the more the flight time.Of course the bigger the shell the more it weighs but i recon that wouldnt create that many problems since we are going to be cutting some of its payload anyway to make room for the fuel.Of course the ramjet edition would mostly be there for land based targets since we dont have to shoot planes with something so sophisticated.
At this point i was thinking why not go even larger ? Why not go at 1500mm or 2000mm or hell go comically big like10kmms and shoot at your enemy with what would be a mixture between a ballistic missile and a very huge shell ? Well i dont know
Maybe it wouldnt work,maybe it wouldnt be needed,but the only reason i propose this is because with more size and thus fuel you can go further,and with more size you could possibly strap some low yield nukes in there.What if this what if Germany made such monsters and opptained the range to hit American cities Moscow or the Urals ? What if they destroyed so many bombers and hurt so many allied pilots that they would no longer continiou to consider the air raid campaign an option ? Yes the US could make more planes but they couldnt replace men,at least not the way the Soviets did,without the outrage of the public.What if,even if they managed to land at Normany,got decimated on their way to the shore by these monsters ? A whole another realm of posibilities is open.Many of the 400mm guns im talking about looked like this 40.6 cm SK C/34 gun - Wikipedia 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun - Wikipedia and belonged to the Atlantic wall so were not making something new really apart from the shells.I would also personally not make that many more than the ones the Germans officialy made.Guns like these could be placed around major cities or important industry and protect if from aerial targets and if the need arises ground ones too.When they aint forced to shoot at air they can bombard enemy cities,industry,millitary bases,airfields or anything for that matter.
Also could these guns in a Germany (or any nation for that matter) entering the cold war,be used as anti missile defense and a hybrid between ICBMS ? Since we cant shoot down a missile with a missile that easily why not throw a nuke shell at it and not even care for a direct hit ? The US tried something similar but with missiles and for AA purposes Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era
I initially talked about all this here German mega defense - Axis History Forum .At first i had an ultra defensive Germany in mind but i no longer think that is necessarily needed.
One a final note one could say "Why not just make a missile and be done with it ?" I initially though of these guns firing shrapnel shells to planes while also being able to shoot ground targets from range but slowly but surely i saw a lot more going for it.Missiles are complex in their own way and require far more than just an advanced shell and a targeting computer.On the other hand huge gun facilities are not that mobile and make for large targets so they have their cons too but who said that ICMBs fired from silos can be that easily moved.In the end the huge guns could always have elevators for them to move bellow ground once theyre done.I think in the end they could cost less than ICBMs while also serving many more purposes and that could be the main thing going for them.You have an AA,an anti missile-ICMB system (for the more cold warshit modern era),a long range cruise missile payload like shell that can be fired almost anywhere you want,a small to medium yield nuke that can also be fired almost anywhere you want in one package.
I may add some more stuff to this post that i will remember latter on but i think this is pretty much all i can say.Its a fun topic and i thought why not share it ? Share any of your thoughts down bellow and lets have a nice discussion
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