Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

ARTILLERY
Above: The barrels of very large-calibre guns were
transported dismounted. This barrel was captured by
Allied forces at the war's end.
Maginot Line. With no suitable target immediately to
hand, work slowed down, and it was the end of the
year before the first barrel was completed, and 1941
before it was proofed. Only then was it worth setting
to work on building the very complicated carriage,
and that took the rest of the year. It was 1942 before
the first complete gun was transported to the firing
ranges at Rügenwald on the Baltic coast, assembled
and tested, in the presence of Hitler himself. All went
well and 'Gustav', as the gun had been christened, in
honour of the company's Chairman, was presented to
the nation with the company's compliments, to be followed
almost immediately by 'Dora', named after the
wife of the chief designer, Erich Muller.
THE BOMBARDMENT OF SEBASTOPOL
By 1942, the course of World War II had taken a drastic
turn following Hitler's declaration of war on the
Soviet Union. There may have been no worthwhile
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targets for 'Gustav' in Western Europe, but there were
now plenty to the east. The gun was broken down into
its components, they were loaded aboard their specially
constructed railway flatcars, with the carriage
base trundling along independently, occupying twin
tracks, and the whole ensemble got underway for the
Crimea. 'Gustav' was set up some 16km (10 miles) to
the northeast of Sebastopol, which was still holding
out, where it fired 48 rounds in all (including one
which, most spectacularly, blew up an underground
magazine) and played a significant part in the fall of
the city, whereupon it was shipped back to Essen in
order for the barrel to be relined. 'Dora' took its place,
but it is doubtful whether it actually saw action, since
the Red Army soon counter-attacked and surrounded
the Germans, and by that time it had been safely evacuated.
There are no substantiated reports of either gun
having been used in anger again, though there are
reports of 'Gustav' having seen action at Leningrad
and 'Dora' having been sent to Warsaw to take part in
the bombardment after the uprising in 1944. At the
war's end, parts of 'Dora' were found near Leipzig,
parts of 'Gustav' in Bavaria, and components of the