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80 cm K (E)

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Also known as Schwerer Gustav, 80 cm Kanone (E), Dora, Dora and Schwerer Gustav, 80cm Gustav, 80 cm

German 80 cm ultra-heavy railway guns

Key facts

Type
Railway gun
Place of origin
Nazi Germany
In service
1941–1945
Used by
Wehrmacht
Wars
World War II
Designer
Krupp
Manufacturer
Krupp
Unit cost
7 million ℛ ︁ ℳ ︁
Mass
1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons ; 1,330 long tons )
Length
47.3 metres (155 ft 2 in)
Barrel length
32.5 metres (106 ft 8 in) L/40.6
Width
7.1 metres (23 ft 4 in)
Height
11.6 metres (38 ft 1 in)
Diameter
800 mm
Crew
250 to assemble the gun in 3 days (54 hours), 2,500 to lay track and dig embankments. 2 flak battalions to protect the gun from air attack.
Shell
Armor-Piercing Shell ( AP ), High-Explosive Shell ( HE )
Caliber
80 cm (31 in)
Elevation
Max of 48°

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Mass
1350000
Image
DoraVSScarab.svg
Height
11600
Width
7100
Length
32480
Show 11 more facts
service entry
1941-01-01
Commons category
80-cm-Kanone (E)
service retirement
1945-01-01
native label
80-cm-Kanone (E)
caliber
800
slope
10
effective firing range
47000
field of view
0
inception
1937-00-00
total produced
2
muzzle velocity
720
Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Article

Schwerer Gustav ( German pronunciation: [ˈʃveːʁɐ ˈɡʊstaf]; lit. 'Heavy Gustav') was a German 80-centimetre (31.5 in) railway gun. Two were developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rügenwalde; however, only one was ever actually fired. They were created as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons) and could fire high-explosive shells weighing 4.8 t (5.3 short tons) to a range of 47 km (29 mi), or armour-piercing shells weighing 7.1 t (7.8 short tons) to a range of 38 km (24 mi).

The guns were designed in preparation for the Battle of France but were not ready for action when that battle began, and the Wehrmacht offensive through Belgium rapidly outflanked and isolated the Maginot Line, which was then besieged with more conventional heavy guns until French capitulation. Gustav was later deployed in the Soviet Union during the Battle of Sevastopol, part of Operation Barbarossa, where, among other things, it destroyed a munitions depot located roughly 30 m (98 ft) below sea level. The gun was moved to Leningrad, and may have been intended to be used in the Warsaw Uprising like other German heavy siege pieces, but the uprising was crushed before it could be prepared to fire. Gustav was destroyed by the Germans near the end of the war in 1945 to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army.

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