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Super heavy field gun
Paris Gun
The German Paris Gun, also known as the Kaiser Wilhelm Gun, was the largest gun of World War I. In 1918, the Paris Gun shelled Paris from 120 km (75 mi) away.
Type
Super heavy field gun
Place of origin
German Empire
Service history
Used by
German Empire
Wars
World War I
Production history
Designer
Dr. Fritz Rausenberger
Manufacturer
Krupp
Specifications
Mass
256 t (252 long tons; 282 short tons)
Length
34 m (111 ft 7 in)[1]: 84
Barrel length
21 m (68 ft 11 in)
Caliber
211 mm (8.3 in), later rebored to 238 mm (9.4 in)
Breech
horizontal sliding-block
Elevation
55 degrees
Muzzle velocity
1,640 m/s (5,400 ft/s)
Maximum firing range
130 km (81 mi)
Scale model of a Paris Gun on its fixed mounting, Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung Koblenz
The Paris Gun (German: Paris-Geschütz / Pariser Kanone) was the name given to a type of German long-range siege gun, several of which were used to bombard Paris during World War I. They were in service from March to August 1918. When the guns were first employed, Parisians believed they had been bombed by a high-altitude Zeppelin, as the sound of neither an airplane nor a gun could be heard. They were the largest pieces of artillery used during the war by barrel length, and qualify under the (later) formal definition of large-calibre artillery.
Also called the "Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz" ("Kaiser Wilhelm Gun"), they were often confused with Big Bertha, the German howitzer used against Belgian forts in the Battle of Liège in 1914; indeed, the French called them by this name as well.[Note 1][2] They were also confused with the smaller "Langer Max" (Long Max) cannon, from which they were derived. Although the famous Krupp-family artillery makers produced all these guns, the resemblance ended there.
As military weapons, the Paris Guns were not a great success: the payload was small, the barrel required frequent replacement, and the guns' accuracy was good enough for only city-sized targets. The German objective was to build a psychological weapon to attack the morale of the Parisians, not to destroy the city itself.
^Bull, Gerald V.; Murphy, Charles H. (1988). Paris Kanonen: The Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschutze) and Project HARP. Herford: E. S. Mittler. ISBN 3-8132-0304-2.
^Ley, Willy (December 1961). "Dragons and Hot-Air Balloons". For Your Information. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 79–89.
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Global Information
German Empire