A day in the Life of DORA by the KVA - Part One

[johkaz]

Hi,

This is the first of a 3 part show that i have been asked to post about, regarding a photo shoot done recently with the 1/6th scale Dora railway gun and the the Kampgruppe Von Abt modelling group.

History of the Dora gun.

A website with the history of Dora - http://www.aopt91.dsl.pipex.com/rail...ra%20index.htm

The largest gun ever built had an operational career of 13 days, during which a total of 48 shells were fired in anger. It took 25 trainloads of equipment, 2000 men and up to six weeks to assemble. It seem unlikely that such a weapon will ever be seen again. The 80-cm K (E), for all its size and weight, to say nothing of its 'overkill' firepower, went into action on only one occasion. It was originally intended to smash through the extensive Maginot Line forts but when the campaign in the West took
place in 1940 the 80-cm K (E) was still in the Krupp workshops at Essen and, in any event, the German army bypassed the Maginot Line altogether. Thus when the 80-cm equipment had completed its gun proofing trials at Hillersleben and its service acceptance trials at Rugenwalde there was nothing for the gun and its crew to do.

To justify the labour and effort of getting the huge gun and its entourage into action, the potential target had to justify all the bother involved, and there were no really large fortification lines left in Europe for the gun to tackle. The two major fortification systems, the Sudetenland defences and the Maginot Line, were both in German hands and it seemed that the 80-cm K (E), or 'schwere Gustav' (heavy Gustav) as it became known, was redundant even before it had fired an aggressive shot.

'Schwere Gustav' was in action again on 6 June, initially against Fort Molotov. Seven shells demolished that structure and then it was the turn of a target known as the White Cliff, This was the aiming point for an underground ammunition magazine under Severnaya Bay and so placed by the Soviets as to be invulnerable to conventional weapons. It was not invulnerable to the 80-cm K (E) for nine projectiles bored the way down through the sea, through over 30 m (100 ft) of sea bottom and then exploded inside the magazine. By the time 'schwere Gustav' had fired its ninth shot the magazine was a wreck and to cap it all a small sailing ship had been sunk in the process.

Part one - Lunch











Gary

[Reizbar]

I'm locking all but Part 3 so we don't have multiple discussions of the same thing going on all over the place.