Paris Gun (Kaiser Wilhelm Geschutz) March-August 1918.(revis

I have long wondered just where these legendary guns were located. I think that this is reasonably accurate.

(Not to be confused with "Big Bertha' or `Long Max`- totally different weapons.)

Three guns located here in triangular formation.

320-367 shells fired at Paris, at rate of 20/day.

The Crepy position was abandoned due to counterbattery fire and a second site was established at Beaumont-en-Beine, opening fire in late May- early June with a single re-bored gun (210-232 m/m). This was also driven out by counterbattery fire and a third position was established at Bruyeres-sur-Fere. This gun fired briefly in July before it too, was abandoned due to movements of the front lines. Finally the program ended back at Beaumont in early August, firing for only four days.

The Paris gun reminds one of the V-2 program in WW2: huge technical efforts, resources and man-power invested in a weapon with little strategic value! Walter Dornberger, the Director of the A4/V2 program, was an artillery officer in WW1 and was familiar with the Paris Gun. His view of the V2 as very long range artillery no doubt came from this experience.

Much of this information comes from:

'The Paris Gun: the bombardement of Paris by the German long range guns and the great German offensives of 1918.' Henry W. Miller: New York, J. Cape & H. Smith, 1930.

A link to the book-

hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000010021709


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Gun


For the technically-minded:

www.landships.info/landships/artillery_articles/Paris_Kanone.html

Attachments:

Paris Gun Kaiser Wilhelm Geschutz March-Aug....kmz (3.09 KB)

Good post, Larry.

There are a number of alignments in the woods near the Crepy Gun;  they could just be fire-breaks, but they may have also have been the tracks deploying the gun from the main line:




Cheers,

Frank

Apr 9, 2015 16:22:47 GMT larryc1 said:

[…] The Paris gun reminds one of the V-2 program in WW2 […]

Sure that you don't mix with V-3 the multi-chamber cannon? But Dornberger was not involved in that project.

Detail: #3 gun position of Crépy in your .kmz file is little bit misplaced. The position is about 500 m northwest. What finally corresponds with the map on page 74 in your cited book (thanks for the link, very helpful).

Chriusha - No, I was not comparing the so-called London Kanon with the Paris Gun. I was attempting to point out the similarities between the big gun and the V-2 in that they both delivered a very small pay-load on distant targets wit poor accuracy at very great expense!  Dornberger was an artilleryman and saw the rocket as yet another form of long range artillery.  In my opinion the V-2 helped the Allies win the war as it (the V-2) sucked up huge resources while a Lancaster could deliver ten times the pay-load night after night with more accuracy. (Until it was shot down, that is!)