Although unseen in the event of an actual battle, one of the world's biggest Artilleries, Little David, sit dormant in Maryland, USA. A technological marvel, Little David is a staggering 914 mm caliber mortar that the US prepared in case of an Invasion from Japan During World War II. The invasion never happened as Japan surrendered. Little David then became essentially useless. Still, even in the height of a battle, it's efficiency would be extremely speculative. The Gun itself couldn't fire too far (6 miles) and it's accuracy, speed, and set-up was limited. Nevertheless, Little David would be one of the largest guns ever made during the world war era. Many of Little David's predecessors came from World War I. The famous artillery pieces would include the Paris gun, which could fire upwards to 75 miles, German's 800mm rail guns that could travel up to 27 miles, Big Bertha, Napolean 12 pounder, etc.
Most of these guns would require a long time to assemble along with a long time to transport. Weighing 40 tons, Little David had to be converted to 2 different mobile units. The units would then be transported by artillery tractors along with a bulldozer, crane, and bucket in order to dig the hole required for the base. It would take 12 hours after arriving at the destination to set up Little David. While that may sound long, in World War I, a famous big rail gun, Schwere Gustav, would be required to be hauled by 25 different railway cars and a total of 3 weeks to put in firing position.
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The Schwere Gustav, Germans largest Artillery in WWI
3 comments:
Interesting things that you have provided here I was confused in the beginning but then thinks started to get clear.
I find it amusing how some of the more unique weapons (artillery specifically) were never really used due to things like ineffectiveness, the other side surrendering, or problems with them that hindered their efficiency. Including the other famous artillery pieces helped me get a perspective for the scale that this gun was on.
I've never heard of this before your blog. It was really nice to read about something new. I like the pictures and the informations is very clear and concise.
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