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Any Pre-War German "Big Gun" experts?

Adam Baker

Active member
So I had a picture pop up in a group on Facebook this weekend that really has the gears grinding & rolling in my brain.

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There was no info with the pic when it was posted, so I used my Google-Fu and was able to at least piece together a bit of information, and came up w/ 1 more picture.

This is the 2nd picture I was able to find. Appears to be the same emplacements, from another angle (obviously).

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Today I found this posted on a website with the picture above.

German_Rail_Artillery.JPG


So it appears to be a 15cm (150mm) gun piece, apparently a Naval version of the 15cm Kanone.

There seems to be conflicting info regarding timeframe. Some say it's 1939 during the invasion of Poland. Others, such as this image, state it's in 1940. Not sure how much of a difference that might make, other than being able to pin down an exact date/location might make it possible to find more images.

I did find the book mentioned in the image above for sale on Amazon, I am considering purchasing the book.

I'm just curious if anyone might know of other images of these guns mounted on these rail carriages, and have any info on the guns and/or carriages.

Since seeing these pictures, its got me seriously considering attempting to scratch build one or two of these and make a small diorama. It does appear that Trumpeter has a 15cm Kanone model, but it's not this exact version, but it could possibly give me a model to start with for the gun emplacement, and might be able to start w/ one of the various flatbed rail carriages that is available.
 
Squadron In Action 2015 German Railway Guns has a few more pics and drawings. They dont give specific dates but the building of railway guns was to be done by 36 I think. At the start of the war there were 9 Regiments with 20 Batteries and 33 guns total. After the invasion of France they also used French guns to bulk up the rail batteries. One of them was a Naval battery. The development of the 150mm and 170mm big guns meant they were no longer necessary especially as they had limited mobility (being rail bound). Thats paraphrasing.
 
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