"Dora" and "Gustav" are giant weapons. Tower coastal batteries of Sevastopol

The biggest weapon The only one ever built was the Gustav Gun, built in Essen, Germany in 1941 by the firm of Friedrich Krupp A.G. To preserve the tradition of naming heavy guns after family members, the Gustav Gun was named in honor of the ill head of the Krupp family, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.

A strategic weapon of its time, the Gustav Gun was built on the direct orders of Hitler specifically to destroy the defensive forts of the Maginot Line on the French border. Carrying out the order, Krupp developed giant guns rail-mounted, weighing 1,344 tons and caliber 800 mm (31.5"), which were served by a crew of 500 people under the command of a major general.

Two types of projectiles were produced for the cannon, using 3,000 pounds of smokeless powder to ignite: conventional artillery shell, filled with 10,584 pounds of high explosive (HE) and a concrete-piercing projectile containing 16,540 pounds, respectively. The Gustav Gun shell craters measured 30 m wide and 30 m deep, and the concrete-piercing shells were capable of breaking through (before exploding) reinforced concrete walls 264 feet (79.2 m) thick! The maximum flight range of high explosive shells was 23 miles, and of concrete-piercing shells - 29 miles. Initial speed the projectile was approximately 2700 ft/sec. (or 810 m/sec).

Three guns were ordered in 1939. Alfred Krupp personally received Hitler and Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments) at the Hugenwald test site during the official acceptance tests of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941.

In keeping with company tradition, Krupp refrained from charging for the first gun, and 7 million German marks were paid for the second gun - Dora (named after Dora, the wife of the chief engineer).

France capitulated in 1940 without the help of the super-gun, so new targets had to be found for the Gustav. Plans to use the Gustav Gun against the British fortress of Gibraltar were scrapped after General Franco opposed the decision to fire from Spanish territory. Therefore, in April 1942, the Gustav Gun was installed opposite the heavily fortified port city of Sevastopol in the Soviet Union. Having come under fire from Gustav and other heavy artillery, the “forts” named after. Stalin, Lenin and Maxim Gorky were allegedly destroyed and destroyed (there is a different opinion on this matter). One of Gustav's shots destroyed an entire ammunition depot, 100 feet (30 m) below North Bay; another capsized a large ship in port, exploding next to it. During the siege, 300 shells were fired from the Gustav, as a result of which the first original barrel was worn out. The Dora gun was installed west of Stalingrad in mid-August, but quickly removed in September to avoid its capture. The Gustav then appeared near Warsaw in Poland, where it fired 30 shells into the Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 uprising (see Supplement).

The Dora was blown up by German engineers in April 1945 near Oberlichtnau in Germany to avoid the gun being captured by the Russian army. The partially assembled third gun was scrapped directly from the factory by the British Army when it occupied Essen. An intact Gustav was captured by the US Army near Metzendorf, Germany in June 1945. Soon after, it was cut up for scrap. Thus, the history of the Gustav Gun type was put to an end.

Addition: In fact, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943 occurred a year before Warsaw Uprising 1944. In neither the first nor the second case, the Gustav Gun was used. To bomb the city, the Nazis then used Thor, a 2-ton mortar of the Mörser Karl Gerät 040 type with a caliber of 60 cm.

History After World War I, the development of German artillery was limited by the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was prohibited from having guns with a caliber of over 150 mm, as well as any anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. Therefore, according to the leaders of Nazi Germany, the creation of powerful and large-caliber artillery was a matter of prestige. In 1936, while visiting the Krupp plant, Adolf Hitler demanded that the concern's management create a super-powerful weapon to destroy the French Maginot Line and Belgian border forts (such as Fort Eben-Emale). The gun was supposed to have a vertical guidance angle of 65 degrees and a maximum range of 35-45 km, and the gun shell was supposed to penetrate armor 1 m thick, concrete 7 m, hard soil 30 m. The design team of the Krupp company, which began creating a new heavy-duty weapon according to The proposed tactical and technical task was headed by Professor Erich Müller, who had extensive experience in this field. In 1937, the project was completed, and in the same year the Krupp company was given an order to manufacture a new gun, after which the concern began its immediate production. In 1941, the Krupp company built the first gun, named "Dora", in honor of the wife of the chief designer. In the same year, a second 800 mm gun was created, which was named “Fat Gustav” in honor of the director of the company, Gustav von Bohlen and Halbach Krupp.

The order cost the state 10 million Reichsmarks. A third gun of an identical type, but with a barrel caliber of 520 mm and a length of 48 meters, called “Long Gustav”, was also designed and not completed. In 1941, the guns were tested at the test site in Rügenwald and Hillersleben (120 km west of Berlin) in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer and other high-ranking army officials. The test results met the requirements of the technical specifications, although the installations did not have some mechanisms. By the end of 1942, all tests were completed and the gun was completely ready for use. combat use, by this time more than one hundred 800-mm shells had been manufactured

Design Features The gun's breech was wedge-type, and the loading was separate-case. The vertical guidance mechanism used an electro-hydraulic drive, and the horizontal guidance was carried out due to the fact that the railway tracks were made in the form of curves of a certain radius. The opening of the shutter and the delivery of projectiles were carried out by hydraulic devices. The gun had two lifts - one for shells, the other for cartridges. The gun's recoil devices were pneumohydraulic. The barrel had a rifling of variable depth - the first half of the barrel had a conical rifling, the second - a cylindrical rifling.

The equipment and placement of the firing position was innovative. The standard railway track, through a regular railway switch, turned into a double track, which served for assembling and moving the gun; in the direction of the target, the double track continued with a curvature, and in parallel, on both sides, two railway lines were laid for two installation cranes, connected by arrows to the main line. Half of the conveyor was installed on each side of the double track. Two main span beams were laid on each pair of pedestals using cranes. The chassis halves were connected by transverse links. Thus, the conveyor was located on 40 axles and 80 wheels, 40 wheels each on a double track track, which was spaced 6 meters apart in width.

In February 1942, after the first unsuccessful assault on Sevastopol, the chief of the general staff ground forces General Franz Halder ordered the artillery system to be sent to the Crimea and placed at the disposal of the commander of the 11th Army to strengthen the siege artillery. A group of staff officers flew to Crimea in advance and selected firing position for a cannon in the area of ​​the village of Duvankoy. The commander of the heavy gun formation, General Zuckerort, was responsible for choosing a position and organizing preparations. For engineering preparation of the position, 1,000 sappers and 1,500 workers, forcibly mobilized from among local residents, were allocated. Guarding the position was entrusted to a guard company of 300 soldiers, as well as large group military police and a special team with guard dogs. In addition, there was a reinforced military chemical unit of 500 people, designed to provide a smoke screen for air camouflage purposes, and a reinforced air defense artillery battalion of 400 people. The gun was delivered to the front by rail, and an entire shunting station was built in the area of ​​the combat position. Also, to shelter and camouflage the artillery system, a special cut was made in the mountain near Bakhchisarai. Upon completion of the preparatory work, the main parts of the gun were delivered. Assembly and preparation for firing took the staff 6 weeks.

The first 5.35 concrete-piercing projectile weighing 7088 kilograms "Dora" was fired on June 5 at the northern part of Sevastopol. But the use of the weapon did not produce the results that the Wehrmacht command had hoped for. Only one successful hit was recorded, which caused an explosion of an ammunition depot on the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, located at a depth of 27 m. In other cases, a cannon shell, penetrating into the ground, pierced a round barrel with a diameter of about 1 m and a depth of up to 12 m (according to some sources - up to 32 m). At the base of the barrel, as a result of the explosion of the warhead, the soil was compacted and a drop-shaped cavity with a diameter of about 3 m was formed. This result did not cause much harm to the defenders of the city. The damage could have been colossal if the gun’s shell had hit the reinforced concrete floors of an important facility. Any defensive structure could be seriously damaged only by a direct hit from a shell. But a more accurate hit was hindered by the fact that it was impossible to keep such a weapon close to the front due to its extreme vulnerability. With a minimum firing range of 25 km, the artillerymen did not aim the Dora at specific goal, and to the approximate area.

At the same time, it was possible to hit a specific target with great luck. In total, the gun fired 48 shells, and the columns of smoke from the explosions rose to a height of more than 150 m. Also, 5 test long-range high-explosive shells were fired from the Dora, which went 35 kilometers into the sea. The shelling from the gun lasted 13 days. After which the weapon was dismantled. The gun damaged armored turret batteries B-30 and B-35, as well as an underground ammunition depot. Compared to the efforts spent on combat operations, the supergun was of little use. . After the capture of Sevastopol by German troops, the Germans carefully removed all traces of their presence secret weapon and transported the gun near Leningrad to the Taitsy station area.

The commander of the 11th Army that besieged Sevastopol, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, wrote: ... And the famous Dora cannon of 800 mm caliber. It was designed to destroy the most powerful structures of the Maginot Line, but it was not necessary to use it there for this purpose. It was a miracle of artillery technology. The trunk had a length of about 30 m, and the carriage reached the height of a three-story building. It took about 60 trains to deliver this monster to the firing position along specially laid tracks. To cover it, two divisions of anti-aircraft artillery were constantly at the ready. In general, these expenses undoubtedly did not correspond to the achieved effect. Nevertheless, this gun with one shot destroyed a large ammunition depot on the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, hidden in the rocks at a depth of 30 m. No information about the presence of the Dora was found in Soviet documents about the defense of Sevastopol.

By that time, about 300 shots had been fired from the Dora’s barrel, taking into account field tests, and the barrel, due to severe wear, was sent for repairs to Essen. The carriage and all the equipment, as mentioned above, were transported to the Taitsy station area, where the repaired barrel was later delivered. They also planned to transport the second Gustav gun of the same type there. The advance of the Red Army deprived the Germans of the opportunity to use heavy-duty weapons. With the beginning of the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad, the guns were urgently evacuated to the rear.

The Dora was used again during the Warsaw Uprising in September-October 1944. About 30 shells were fired at Warsaw. After the bloody suppression of the uprising, the guns were evacuated deep into Germany. At the end of the war, there were plans to use a heavy-duty weapon to fire from occupied French territory into London. Three-stage H.326 rockets were developed for this purpose. On April 22, 1945, during the offensive of the 3rd American Army in Bavaria, forward patrols of its units, while passing through a forest 36 km north of the city of Auerbach, discovered the remains of a huge and complex metal structure, severely damaged by an explosion, in a railway cul-de-sac. In an old tunnel nearby, scouts found two monstrous gun barrels. The commander of the army unit, Colonel Porter, organized the collection of the scattered parts and, after a thorough examination by specialists and interrogation of prisoners of war, came to the conclusion that they were parts of two heavy-duty artillery pieces and belonged to the Dora and Gustav guns. After the investigation, the Americans sent the remains of the guns for melting down.

The Dora super-heavy railway-mounted artillery gun was developed in the late 1930s by the German company Krupp. This weapon was intended to destroy fortifications on the borders of Germany with Belgium and France (Maginot Line). In 1942, "Dora" was used to storm Sevastopol, and in 1944 to suppress the uprising in Warsaw.

The development of German artillery after World War I was limited by the Treaty of Versailles. According to the provisions of this treaty, Germany was prohibited from having any anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, as well as guns whose caliber exceeded 150 mm. Thus, the creation of large-caliber and powerful artillery was a matter of honor and prestige, the leaders of Nazi Germany believed.

Based on this, in 1936, when Hitler visited one of the Krupp factories, he categorically demanded that the company's management design a super-powerful weapon that would be capable of destroying the French Maginot Line and Belgian border forts, for example, Eben-Emal. According to the requirements of the Wehrmacht, a cannon shell must be capable of penetrating 7 m thick concrete, 1 m thick armor, 30 meters hard ground, and the maximum range of the gun should be 25-45 km. and have a vertical guidance angle of +65 degrees.

The group of designers of the Krupp concern, which began creating a new super-powerful gun according to the proposed tactical and technical requirements, was headed by Professor E. Muller, who had extensive experience in this issue. The development of the project was completed in 1937, and in the same year the Krupp concern was given an order for the production of a new 800mm caliber gun. Construction of the first gun was completed in 1941. The gun, in honor of E. Muller’s wife, was given the name “Dora”. The second gun, which was named “Fat Gustav” in honor of the management of the company Gustav von Bohlen and Halbach Krupp, was built in mid-1941. In addition, a third 520 mm caliber gun was designed. and a trunk length of 48 meters. It was called "Long Gustav". But this weapon was not completed.

In 1941, 120 km. west of Berlin, at the Rügenwalde-Hillersleben training ground, guns were tested. The tests were attended by Adolf Hitler himself, his comrade-in-arms Albert Speer, as well as other high army ranks. Hitler was pleased with the test results.

Although the guns did not have some mechanisms, they met the requirements that were specified in the technical specifications. All tests were completed by the end of the 42nd year. The gun was delivered to the troops. By this time, the company's factories had produced over 100 800 mm caliber shells.

Some design features of the gun.

The locking of the barrel bolt, as well as the delivery of projectiles, were carried out by hydraulic mechanisms. The gun was equipped with two lifts: for cartridges and for shells. The first part of the barrel was with a conical thread, the second with a cylindrical thread.
The gun was mounted on a 40-axle conveyor, which was located on a double railway track. The distance between the tracks was 6 meters. In addition, another railway track was laid on the sides of the gun for installation cranes. The total weight of the gun was 1350 tons. To fire, the gun needed an area up to 5 km long. The time spent preparing the gun for firing consisted of choosing a position (could reach 6 weeks) and assembling the gun itself (about 3 days).

Transportation of implements and maintenance personnel.

The gun was transported by rail. So, “Dora” was delivered to Sevastopol by 5 trains in 106 cars:
1st train: service (672nd artillery division, about 500 people), 43 cars;
2nd train, auxiliary equipment and erection crane, 16 cars;
3rd train: cannon parts and workshop, 17 cars;
4th train: loading mechanisms and barrel, 20 cars;
5th train: ammunition, 10 cars.

Combat use.

In World War II, Dora took part only twice.
The first time the gun was used was to capture Sevastopol in 1942. During this campaign, only one case was recorded of a successful hit by a Dora shell, which caused an explosion of an ammunition depot located at a depth of 27 meters. The remaining Dora shots penetrated the ground to a depth of 12 meters. After the explosion of the shell, a drop-shaped shape with a diameter of about 3 meters was formed in the ground, which did not cause much harm to the defenders of the city. In Sevastopol, the gun fired 48 shells.

After Sevastopol, "Dora" was sent to Leningrad, and from there to Essen for repairs.
The second time Dora was used was in 1944 to suppress the Warsaw Uprising. In total, the gun fired more than 30 shells into Warsaw.

The end of Dora and Gustav.

On April 22, 1945, the advanced units of the Allied army were 36 km away. from the city of Auerbach (Bavaria) they discovered the remains of the Dora and Gustav guns blown up by the Germans. Subsequently, everything that was left of these giants of the 2nd World War was sent for melting down.

The supergun was assembled at the end of 1941. in the workshops of the Krupp plant.
Caliber - 813 mm.
Barrel length - 32 m.
Projectile weight - 7100 kg.
The minimum firing range is 25 km, the maximum is 40.
The total length of the gun is 50 m.
Total weight - 1448 tons.
Barrel survivability - 300 shots.
Rate of fire - 3 shots per hour

The Dora shell pierced an armor plate 1 m thick or an 8-meter reinforced concrete floor. At first the supergun was called “Gustav”, but the company’s tradition is to give its products female names turned out to be stronger, and the invention changed its “gender”.

The super-weapon was transported using several trains (up to 60 locomotives and wagons with a staff of several hundred people).

Engineering preparation of the area was carried out by 1.5 thousand workers and a thousand sappers for four weeks. Since the Dora equipment was delivered in 106 cars on five trains, an entire marshalling yard was built at the site where the gun was deployed. For disinformation, trains with Dora equipment were first delivered to Kerch, where they remained until April 25, and after preparation, the positions were secretly transferred to Bakhchisarai. In 43 cars of the first train, service personnel, kitchen and camouflage equipment arrived. An assembly crane and auxiliary equipment were brought in 16 cars of the second train. In 17 carriages of the third, parts of the gun itself and the workshop were delivered. The fourth train of 20 cars transported a 400-ton, 32-meter barrel and loading mechanisms. In 10 cars of the fifth train, in which an artificial climate was maintained (constantly 15 degrees Celsius), shells and powder charges were placed. The gun was assembled in 54 hours and was ready for firing by the beginning of June.
The number of Dora service personnel is 4139 soldiers, officers and civilians. Among other things, the crew of the gun included a guard battalion, a transport battalion, a commandant’s office, a field bakery, a camouflage company, a field post office and a camp... brothel with a staff of 40 “workers”.

The Dora was to enter its first battle under the walls of the French Maginot fortification. However, during the design and manufacture of the gun, the Germans bypassed the Maginot from the rear and forced Paris to capitulate.

In the spring of 1942, Hitler summoned the commander of the 11th Army, General Erich Fritz von Manstein, to Berlin. The Fuhrer was interested in why the military leader was delaying the capture of Sevastopol. Manstein explained the failure of the two assaults by saying that the approaches to the city were well fortified, and the garrison was fighting with incredible fanaticism. “The Russians have a lot of heavy naval artillery, including an invulnerable fort with guns of incredible caliber,” he said.

The position for “Dora” was chosen by General Zukerort himself, the commander of a formation of heavy guns, while flying an airplane over the outskirts of Bakhchisarai. The cannon was supposed to be hidden in the mountain, for which a special cut was made in it. Since the position of the gun barrel changed only vertically, to change the direction of fire horizontally, the Dora was mounted on a railway platform standing on 80 wheels, moving along a sharply curved arc of the railway track with four tracks.

"Dora" was used in battle against the famous Soviet 30th battery of Captain G. Alexander. A group of Wehrmacht staff officers flew to Crimea in advance and chose a firing position in the area of ​​​​the village of Duvankoy. For engineering training, 1,000 sappers and 1,500 workers, forcibly mobilized from among local residents, were allocated. A special railway line was equipped at the Dzhankoy station, where the tracks were four-rail.

Data on the use of a supergun near Sevastopol are contradictory. In his memoirs, Manstein claimed that Dora fired 80 shells at the Soviet fortress. The German cannon was soon spotted by Soviet pilots who attacked its position. serious blow and damaged the energy train.

In general, the use of "Dora" did not give the results that the Wehrmacht command had hoped for: only one successful hit was recorded, which caused the explosion of a Soviet ammunition depot located at a depth of 27 m. In other cases, the cannon shell, penetrating the ground, pierced a round barrel with a diameter of about 1 meter and a depth of 12 m. As a result of the explosion of the warhead, the soil at its base was compacted, forming a drop-shaped deep funnel with a diameter of about 3 m. Defensive structures could only be damaged if there was a direct hit.

On the morning of June 5, 1942, two diesel locomotives with a power of 1050 horsepower each rolled out this colossus with a total weight of 1350 tons into a combat crescent position and installed it with centimeter precision. The first shot consisted of a projectile weighing 7088 kilograms, two powder charges 465 kilograms each, cartridges weighing 920 kilograms. The barrel lift gave it an elevation of 53 degrees. Especially to correct the shooting, a balloon was raised into the air a little further from the Dora. When fired, the maintenance team hid in cover several hundred meters away. The shot caused a mini-earthquake effect. The roar when over 900 kilograms of gunpowder burned in 6 milliseconds and pushed out a 7-ton projectile was simply monstrous - in the carriage 3 kilometers away, according to contemporary eyewitnesses, dishes were bouncing. The rollback pressed the rail track by 5 centimeters.

Erich von MANSTEIN: "...On June 5 at 5.35 the first concrete-piercing shell was fired at the northern part of Sevastopol by the Dora installation. The next 8 shells flew into the area of ​​battery No. 30. Columns of smoke from the explosions rose to a height of 160 m, but not a single hit armored towers was not achieved, the shooting accuracy of the monster gun from a distance of almost 30 km turned out to be, as one would expect, very low. On this day, Dora fired 7 more shells at the so-called “Fort Stalin”, only one of them hit the target.

The next day, the gun fired at Fort Molotov 7 times, and then destroyed a large ammunition depot on the northern shore of Severnaya Bay, hidden in an adit at a depth of 27 m. This, by the way, displeased the Fuhrer, who believed that Dora should be used exclusively against heavily fortified fortifications. Over the course of three days, the 672nd Division spent 38 shells, leaving 10. Already during the assault, 5 of them were fired at Fort Siberia on June 11 - 3 hit the target, the rest were fired on June 17. Only on the 25th was new ammunition delivered to the position - 5 high-explosive shells. Four were used for test firing and only one was fired towards the city...."

Researchers remain silent about the question of how exactly “Dora” was taken out of Crimea. In any case, it is clear that the Germans dismantled all the equipment, which was of course secret, and carefully removed all traces.

After the capture of Sevastopol, the Dora was sent near Leningrad, to the Taitsy station area. When the operation to break the blockade of the city began, the Germans hastily evacuated the supergun to Bavaria. In April 1945, as the Americans approached, the gun was blown up.

The most accurate assessment of this miracle military equipment the boss gave General Staff ground forces fascist Germany Colonel General Franz Halder: “A real work of art, but useless”