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s u b s c r i b e r b o n u s s p e c i a l
Fully assembled, the
massive Krupp-built
80cm gun was so heavy
it was transported on
two sets of special
parallel railroad tracks.
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summer 2015 | mhq 99
DAYS OF
ThunderThe making of Dora, the worlds biggest gun
by C. G. Sweeting
Zehn, neun, acht.The countdown for Doras first shot in anger
had
begun. Sieben, sechs, fnf.Colonel General Erich von
Manstein,
commander of the German Eleventh Army, accompanied by
Marshal
Ion Antonescu, Romanian head of state and armed forces
commander,
checked their earplugs and waited expectantly in the observation
post
over a mile from the enormous railway gun. Vier, drei,
zwei.Silence
prevailed. Feuer!.KABOOM! The thunderous roar was followed
by
a huge cloud of smoke; the air tingled and the earth shook as
the 4.8-
ton projectile whistled in a high trajectory toward its
designated target
15.5 miles distant. It may have resembled a fire-breathing
monster
from Norse mythology, but this was no myth. Dora was the
biggest
gun of all time, and it was firing at the port city of
Sevastopol, then the
worlds strongest fortress.
Doras entry to action on June 5, 1942, marked the culmina-
tion of a program that began six years earlier when Adolf
Hitler first discussed the construction of a giant cannon
with officials of the Krupp factory. Hitler was determined
to rearm Germany and establish hegemony over Europe, and he
realized
that his audacious plan could result in war with France,
Germanys pe-
rennial enemy. France was constructing a series of massive
fortifications,
the Maginot Line, along the Franco-German border, and Hitler
wanted
extremely heavy artillery capable of destroying even the
strongest forts.
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100 mhq | summer 2015
dora railway gun sevastopol 1942
Hitler liked to think big, and he thought a supergun would be an
important addition to Germanys new arsenal.
Krupp immediately commenced initial design work on its own
initiative. The German Army Ordnance Office (the Heeres-waffenamt)
issued a development contract to the firm of Fried-rich Krupp of
Essen in early 1937 calling for the design and development of an
enormous 80cm kanone eisenbahn geschtz, or railway gun. The design
and production of this gun, carriage, and special ammunition would
challenge the state of the art in metallurgy, ballistics, and
mechanics, and would require new procedures in the operational use
of heavy artillery.
Dr. Erich Mller was selected to supervise the construction of
the biggest gun ever built. Often called Kanonen-Mller because of
his accomplishments in artillery design, he as-sembled a team of
experts, and the entire development and manufacturing program was
conducted in secret. The gun was originally called the Gustav Gert
(Gustav Equipment) and later Schwerer Gustav (Heavy or Fat Gustav)
after the former head of the Krupp firm, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen
und Halbach. When finally delivered in early 1942, it was given the
cover name Dora, and was sometimes referred to in documents as the
D-Gert. The different names later caused confusion about how many
superguns were built and deployed.
The gun was planned to weigh ap-proximately 1,170 tons and to
have a range of about 25 miles when the barrel was elevated to 45
degrees. First estimates suggested a barrel life of 100 rounds. The
special projectiles had to be able to penetrate at least 18 feet of
the strongest type of steel-reinforced concrete fortification.
Not since the famous 21cm Paris Gun that bombarded the French
capital in 1918 from a distance of 72 miles had a weapon of this
size been planned. A large team of designers, engineers, and
technicians were employed not only to research and design the gun
and carriage but to develop special cranes for the assembly and
disassembly of the gun, special ammu-nition and equipment, and
special rail cars to transport the components. And when loaded,
each car had to be light enough to travel over existing
bridges.
Large steam locomotives could be used for moving the gun over
long distances, but a special engine had to be designed and built
to maneuver the gun precisely for firing. Conventional electric
engines were not powerful enough; regular steam locomotives burned
coal and thus would be impractical for maneuvering the gun at the
front, since smoke and steam would belch high into the air and
invite attack. A special diesel- electric locomotive of about 1,000
horsepower was designed not only to maneuver the gun for aiming but
to provide the electrical power needed to elevate the gun barrel
and operate the other electric and hydraulic components and
accessories. Two engines were ordered for each of the three guns
planned, and the design of the engines and the railroad cars had
to
be coordinated with the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the national
railway system.
In 1939 the German ordnance office placed an order with Krupp
for three complete guns. Construction began immedi-ately, and
detailed progress reports had to be submitted peri-odically to
Hitler. In anticipation of the production contract, Krupp had
already begun fabricating components of the gun, its carriage and
accessories.
Hitler achieved several bloodless political successes in Europe
during the 1930s, at the same time build-ing a powerful war machine
that threatened and intimidated his neighbors. His most
audacious
demand was the return of the corridor to the sea that had been
given to Poland by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the
swath of land separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany.
When Poland refused Hitlers demand, he invaded on September 1,
1939, and World War II began on September 3, when Great Britain and
France declared war on Germany.
Hitler wanted to attack France imme-diately, but the
redeployment of the Wehrmacht and the onset of winter weather
delayed his invasion of the West until the following spring.
An army of skilled Krupp workers was already toiling around the
clock, producing various weapons of war, but the three giant rail
guns were far from
completion when the German Blitzkrieg in the west began on May
10, 1940. The Dora guns were not needed for that, because the
German army bypassed the Maginot Line fortifications, striking
through the rugged Ardennes region. And with the fall of France and
Belgium there were no more fortifications in the west to bombard
with the powerful new weapon.
The construction of the complex components of the Dora gun
continued in the cavernous shops of Krupp: the huge steel carriage,
the gun cradle, the horizontal sliding breechblock of finest steel,
and the massive two-part 80cm barrel, just over 95 feet long. Large
hydraulic and electrical systems were also designed and produced.
The platform for the crew serving the gun was fitted on the upper
portion of the firing carriage.
The lower portion of the firing carriage was supported on two
twin-bogie units, each fitted with five two-wheeled axles. The gun,
when assembled and ready for action, was designed to run on two
parallel tracks, or four rails. Two 10-ton cranes were built to
assemble the gun in the field.
During this time, special railway cars were also developed and
built for transporting the entire weapon system. In travel-ing
position, the equipment ran on a normal European gauge railway
track. The entire program was a challenging manage-ment job even
for the experienced Krupp specialists, as well as for ordnance and
electrical and railway engineers. Crewmen who had previous railway
gun and heavy artillery experience were selected in early 1941 and
trained on smaller guns to be
Projectiles had to
be able to penetrate
18 feet of concrete
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ready for testing and deploying the superguns.The design and
fabrication of the special ammunition pro-
ceeded concurrently with the manufacture of the guns and rail
cars. The ammunition consisted of a projectile, a shell case with
charge, and bagged powder. Two types of shells were developed: A
high-explosive projectile weighing 4.8 tons and a special armored
shella concrete-penetrating projectile of chrome-nickel steel with
an especially hard point. It had a streamlined, pointed cover for
aerodynamic purposes and contained 550 pounds of high explosive
with a base fuze. This shell was designed to pierce fortifications
and explode inside. It had a length of 94.5 inches and weighed 7.1
tonsprobably the heaviest artillery shell ever built. Initial test
firings showed the maximum range with the high-explosive shell to
be over 29 miles and a range of about 23.6 miles with the
concrete-busting projectile. The range was later improved through
continued experiments.
A study by the U.S. Army Ordnance Department of shells found on
a test range in Bavaria in 1945 states the steel shell had a
hollow, thick-walled body 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) long and a
diameter of 80 centimeters (31.5 inches). The projectiles were
transported in heavy wooden crates in a horizontal position on flat
cars or in ammunition cars.
The powerful propellant was contained in the metal shell case
and two additional propellant charges. The one-piece shell case was
made of steel, plated with brass, manufactured in 1942, and marked
with the secret manufacturers code bwn, indicating the firm of
Friedrich Krupp A.-G., Essen. The two separate propellant charges
in white cylindrical bags were carried in wooden boxes marked with
the manufacturers
code dbg, indicating that they were made by Dynamit A.-G.,
Alfred Nobel & Co., Werk Dneberg. The weight of the three
propellant charges was 2,500 pounds. According to the U.S. Army
report, the muzzle velocity of the gun was 2,500 feet per
second.
Hitlers main objective at this time was the conquest of the
Soviet Union. He meant to invade Russia without warning in the
spring of 1941 in order to remove the threat of Soviet attack and
to secure for Germany the oil, labor, wheat, and other resources
that he hoped would make the Reich invincible. But unexpected
fighting in the Balkans delayed his attack on Russia. The German
attack finally began on June 22, 1941, when three army groups, with
Luftwaffe support, launched Operation Barbarossa. Army Group North
fought through the Baltic States toward Leningrad, Army Group
Center struck east toward Moscow, while Army Group South, with the
Ro-manian army, headed toward Kiev and across southern Russia.
By September the German Eleventh Army, under the com-mand of
General Erich von Manstein, part of Army Group South, was battling
its way through the heavily defended Per-ekop Isthmus, the entrance
to the Crimean peninsula. The Soviets were driven to the east and
off the peninsula, allowing Manstein to begin a siege of the port
city of Sevastopol, home of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. The area
around Sevastopol was protected by mountains in the south and hills
and rough country to the east, with the flatter northern sector the
logical area for a major attack. But this sector was heavily
defended with concrete forts, some with turrets armed with
artillery like that of the Russian battleships offshore. The
Germans brought up aircraft and artillery of all types to help
soften up
Adolf Hitlerwho had sought extremely heavy artillery in the
1930s as part of his buildup of German armed forceswith other top
Nazis,
pays a visit to a test site in Rgenwalde, Germany, in April,
1943 to inspect the Dora gun and its 4.8-ton explosive
projectile.
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102 mhq | summer 2015
dora railway gun sevastopol 1942
these defenses and support the fierce struggle to break through
the fortifications. After significant gains, the siege had to be
suspended when the Soviets made a landing in the east of the
Crimean Peninsula, resulting in months of battle before the
Russians were again defeated and ejected, allowing the siege of
Sevastopol to resume.
By the spring of 1942 more German heavy artillery and ammunition
were arriving on the railway that had been rebuilt to the
Sevastopol area. Romanian army units were deployed along the
eastern side of
the siege perimeter, and although no tanks were provided, the
German infantry divisions were fully equipped with self- propelled
assault guns (sturmgeschtz), most armed with 75mm cannons. The VIII
Fliegerkorps, the most powerful ground attack formation in the
Luftwaffe, joined the attack. Preparations were intense on both
sides of the Sevastopol siege line. The Soviets had used the
previous months to bring in reinforcements and prepare more field
fortifications, includ-ing trenches, barbed wire entanglements,
mines, antitank ditches, and pillboxes.
The heavy traffic on the railroad to Sevastopol included trains
with large items of German equipment covered with tarpaulins. A
small rail yard with double tracks was hur-
riedly constructed at the end of a new railway spur behind the
northern front near the city of Bakhchisaray. This was the assembly
area for Dora, where over 2,500 men began to put the gun together.
Its firing position, just south of the as-sembly area, was created
by cutting through a small hill and building a curved section of
double track. Two diesel-electric locomotives maneuvered the 25
railcars carrying the compo-nents of the gun into the assembly
area. After the major parts were assembled, the accessories were
installed: platforms and ladders for the crew and elevators for the
projectiles, powder bags, and shell cases. The gun was almost two
stories high when fully assembled, a complex task performed in just
over three weeks by about 250 engineers, artillerymen, railway
troops, and Krupp technicians. Ammunition was brought up in the
special cars, camouflage nets erected, and antiaircraft guns
positioned. A small detachment from Harko, the 306 Hheres
Artillerie Kommandeur, the army unit directing the artillery
bombardment of Sevastopol, was established near Dora. The big gun
was ready for action.
General Manstein gave the order to launch the offensive, and
before dawn on June 2, 1942, the sky lit up and the roar of
explo-sions echoed across the area as the German artillery barrage
struck the Soviet fortifications. The intense bombardment continued
around the clock causing great damage to Soviet
defenses and communications, Ger man infantry and combat
engineers, supported by assault guns and dive-bombers, advanced
along the northern front in fierce fighting.
Early on June 5, the two special loco-motives eased Dora onto
the newly built, curved section of double track facing Sev-astopol.
Ammunition was moved forward and everyone, including Manstein and
An-tonescu, waited impatiently for the order to load and commence
firing. Lieutenant Col-onel Robert Bhm, the unit commander, whose
command post was 1.2 miles from Dora, checked the details of the
previously selected targets. Lieutenant Colonel Knoll, the gun
captain, and his crew of 450 men, were ready and in place. Because
the gun and railway cars remained vulnerable to Soviet attack, f
lak guns and smoke gen-erators were positioned around the
well-guarded area. Harko notified Bhm to prepare for firing, and
Knoll began the loading and firing procedure.
The targets were a Soviet barracks block and fortified artillery
batteries along the coast, some 15.5 miles distant, out of range of
other German artillery. At 5:35 a.m. the order to fire was given to
the gun captain, who began the countdown on this first shot. Feuer!
The bright f lash and thunderous
First fired in anger in June 1942 during the German siege of
Sevastopol, Crimea, Dora targeted
otherwise unreachable Soviet fortifications with fearsome
powerbut middling accuracy. BAKE
R V
AIL
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roar was unlike that produced by any artillery shot Manstein and
the other observers could remember. The recoil of the gun shook
even its massive carriage, but all components functioned properly.
A flight of Luftwaffe observation planes was assigned to cooperate
with Dora and report the results of the firing by radio to Harko
and Bhm. Tensions mounted as the seconds ticked past. Thena hit,
sending a pillar of smoke and dust climbing high into the morning
sky. When the report reached Knolls crew, a cheer went up from the
men who had spent months training and working for this moment.
There was no time to celebrate, because eight more rounds were
ordered fired at Soviet coastal batteries and Fort Maxim Gorki I.
Those shells reached the targets and did some damage, although most
fell short of or beyond the target, destroying field fortifications
and hurling mangled bodies high into the air. That afternoon six
rounds were fired at another important target, Fort Stalin, again
with mixed results. One round was a direct hit, and a 90-foot-wide
crater was reported. Other craters observed during the siege were
about 50 feet deep and some up to 100 feet, exploding far
underground. Manstein, Antonescu, Alfried Krupp, and Dr. Erich
Mller of Krupp, witnessed the firing of several rounds.
Firing commenced the next morning with seven rounds aimed at
Fort Molotov, again with mixed results. An important
new target was selected for that afternoon: A major Soviet
underground ammunition storage facility had been identified through
aerial reconnaissance and interrogation of prisoners and deserters.
Called the Weisse Klippe or Munitionsberg (White Cliff or
Ammunition Mountain) by the Germans, it was thought by the Russians
to be immune to attack, because it was in a large cavern under a
hill facing, and partly under, Severnaya Bay, far inland on the
northern shore. Heavy steel doors protected the hillside entrance
and it was, in fact, in-vulnerable to aerial bombardment and
conventional artillery. This was a job for Dora.
Again, the locomotives positioned Dora to aim at the dis-tant
target. Seventeen rounds were fired at the mountain; the first nine
rounds of concrete-busting shells struck with great success,
including six direct hits. Firing began again on June 7, with more
of the huge shells striking the mountainside and throwing up large
clouds of dirt and rocks. Three rounds were direct hits, and at
least one evidently punched through the last 90 feet of earth and
rock and exploded inside the ammunition storage chamber. The result
was a tremendous thunderclap blast, with secondary explosions
adding to the destruction. Witnesses stated that the explosion was
like a volcanic eruption, with a huge plume of smoke soaring high
into the sky. It was felt and heard for many miles, especially
Supergun in action: A thunderclap explosion and a cloud of smoke
erupt as demonstration and test rounds are fired at the
facility
at Rgenwalde before an audience of Nazi leaders and other
observers.
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dora railway gun sevastopol 1942
ARCH
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The loss of ammunition at this critical time in the siege
weak-ened the Red Armys ability to defend Sevastopol. Strangely,
though, when Hitler learned of this, he sent an angry message to
Manstein directing that Dora be used only against concrete
fortresses.
On June 11 Dora bombarded another Soviet strongpoint, Fort
Siberia, with five rounds, and three direct hits caused massive
damage, rendering it vulnerable to ground attack. Dora continued to
roar periodically until June 17, targeting several forts, including
Fort Maxim Gorki II. The five rounds blasting that modern fort
softened it up for the coming ground attack. A total of 48
concrete-penetrating rounds were fired by Dora during the siege,
and the gun and its crew performed well, with only minor mechanical
problems. Five high-explosive shells were reportedly fired on June
25, the one against Sevastopol itself causing a large column of
smoke to rise over the city.
The explosion of shells from Dora and other German heavy
artillery had a considerable effect on the Russians morale, often
bursting the soldiers blood vessels even if it did not kill them
with fragments or flying debris. The drastic changes in air
pressure from the explosions also ruptured eardrums and sometimes
lungs of soldiers in the concrete chambers and
corridors. Fear and terror, or panic, often ensued.After the
capture of the fortresses and the fall of Sevastopol,
Dora was disassembled, loaded on railcars, and, on orders from
Hitler, moved to Army Group North for the bombardment of Leningrad.
But because of a Soviet offensive, it was instead dismantled and
returned to the test range at Rgenwalde, Ger-many (now Darowo,
Poland). There it was serviced and a new barrel installed. Dora
remained under camouflage at Rgen-walde where it was joined by
Schwerer Gustav 2, the other completed 80cm railway gun. Both were
used for testing and experiments with new longer-range
ammunition.
Dora and Schwerer Gustav 2 remained ready for action until late
in the war but the march of events made their further use
impractical. By 1945, Dora was still at the test range, while
Schwerer Gustav 2 had been moved to near Chemnitz in east-ern
Germany, where it was overrun by the advancing Rus-sians. At some
point the Germans destroyed Dora and scattered the remains along a
rail line near Grafenwhr, a Ger-man training ground in Bavaria,
where they were recovered by Allied forces. MHQ
C. G. Sweeting is the author of several books, including
Hitlers
Personal Pilot: The Life and Times of Hans Bauer.
Soviet strongpoints around Sevastopol, such as Fort Maxim Gorki
I shown here, were subjected to heavy artillery fire, including
rounds from
Dora. Aerial bombardment by German Fliegerkorps VIII added to
the destructiona prelude to the ground assault that captured the
city on July 1.