Structure 2: Vergeltungswaffe 3 (V-3 Cannon)

Structure 2: Vergeltungswaffe 3 (V-3 Cannon)

“Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.” - Frederik the Great

Nationality: German (Third Reich)
Years of Production: 1943 to 1944.
Number built: 6 (50 projected.)
Weapon: Multi-charge artillery.
Range: 93 km attained, projected 165 km.
Engine: Fixed position, unable to move.
Length: 130 metres, however, 45 metre length ones also built.
Weight: Unknown.

Background: So, after that short bit of fictional objects, now back to some more 'normal' things, like a really freaking goddamned big gun.

However, until I get to the really freaking goddamned big gun article, you'll have to put up with this little thing, sorry.

Anyway, England was being a bit of a pest to the Third Reich's plans of European (world?) domination, given the whole refusing to be bombed into submission part, and as such, proving that insanity is the art of repeating something to see if the outcome will be any different, an engineer called August Conders (umlauts over o) proposed an 'electrically initiated multi-charge weapon'. He caught the attention of the upper ranks, including Albert Speer, Minister of Munitions.

As a result of the attention, August was ordered to produce a prototype of the secretly named Hochdruckpumpe, or high-pressure-pump, and produced a 20 mm calibre gun. As such, August was ordered by the big cheese of the Third Reich himself to build 50 full-sized guns to bombard London. And if you believe that the guns were supposed to fire 300 shells an hour, 15,000 shells an hour would really suck.

For how much it would suck, that's over 21 million kilos of ammo falling on a city. Every hour, assuming the Allies didn't bomb the ever-loving crap out of them.

Given that London wasn't turned into a crater, they assumed wrong, but even before they started trying to build the guns in Mimoyceques, France, they had problems with the muzzle velocity being not quite what was promised, being only one kilometre per second.

Six companies produced designs that were judged to be satisfactory for the 150 mm finned projectile, of which were trimmed down to four designs, and with that, and the other minor issues like how to get the other charges in the barrel to fire as the shell was running up the thing, sorted, they began to play with the gun they'd constructed in Misdroy, on the island of Wolin, belonging to modern day Poland.

Trials held in late May, 1944 provided ranges of 88 kilometres, in early July, the gun reached 93 kilometres, and then the gun burst.

What was it for? And why should I be afraid of it?

“Only just in time did the Allied armies blast the viper in his nest. Otherwise the autumn of 1944, to say nothing of 1945, might well have seen London as shattered as Berlin.” - Winston Churchill speech, “Forward, 'Till The Whole Task Is Done.”

Now, if you read into this, this is really quite interesting stuff. August didn't come up with the idea of a multi-charge artillery piece, that was by three different people.

Azel Lyman was granted a patent in 1857, for improvement in accelerating fire arms, and later, in 1878, a patent for improvement in accelerating guns.

James Haskell was also working on the same idea, and the two teamed up, to show the US army what a gun like that could do. Unfortunately, the charges fired in front of the shell, slowing it down, and given that normal artillery could beat the result, the idea was abandoned.

Around the same time, a French engineer by the name of Louis-Guillaume Perraux had been working on the same idea, which was shown at the World Exhibition of Paris in 1878.

During World War One, the French had plans to build their own multi-charge gun to take out the Paris Gun, which was a large German gun that could shell Paris, but the plans were shelved when the Germans were forced back.

Then, during World War Two, Germany invaded France, and rediscovered the plans, which leads us back to the good August.

Now, kinetic weaponry is a lot harder to take out then a missile. If you want proof, and have a friend with a couple of guns, try to hit the bullet fired from his gun with your own bullet, while it's in the air. Now, go try it and get a decent accuracy, say over 60%.

I could not really begin to describe what a prolonged bombardment from 50 guns could do to a city, but it would be devastating, to say the least.

However, the Allies were tipped off about the construction, and started bombing to disrupt it, believing that it was where the V-2 Rockets were being launched from. Regardless, the work continued on, and in early July, 1944, the first five barrels were ready to be prepared to be installed.

Then the Allies invaded, and the power grid was cut, and the site was captured in early September by American forces.

At the moment, the site is used as a museum by the La Forteresse de Mimoyecques, an organisation dedicated to showing the history of the V-weapons, the site itself, and the bomber crews, and the labourers that lost their lives.

Sources:
V-3 Cannon – Wikipedia
Vergeltungswaffe – Wikipedia
Fortress of Mimoyecques – Wikipedia
La Forteresse de Mimoyecques Official Site
V-3 – Astronautix.com