WW1 Railway Gun & Units/Uniforms of Crews ?

[Guest Rick Research]

I've been asked by an offline pal to try you wonderful sources of obscure knowledge for information on the

Imperial German railway gun 24cm S.K. L/40 Eis.

He's looking for photos, drawings or (hopefully) plans.

He also would like to know what units operated the railroad guns. I.E. what Foot

Artillery straps did they wear?

That's an interesting question and one I don't think I've ever seen any information on!

Any assitance from the community here would be greatly appreciated.

[Bernhard H.Holst]

I've been asked by an offline pal to try you wonderful sources of obscure knowledge for information on the

Imperial German railway gun 24cm S.K. L/40 Eis.

He's looking for photos, drawings or (hopefully) plans.

He also would like to know what units operated the railroad guns. I.E. what Foot

Artillery straps did they wear?

That's an interesting question and one I don't think I've ever seen any information on!

Any assitance from the community here would be greatly appreciated.

Hello Rick.

The Handbook of the German Army in War April 1918 contains some specifications. But plans etc ? Have to look some more.

Bernhard

[David Gregory]

Rick,

These two images are shown in volume 1 of Das Ehrenbuch der Deutschen Schweren Artillerie.

The text suggests that this type entered front-line service some time in 1916. They only had a limited traverse of a few degrees, which meant that they required curved sections of track to aim at targets not in line with the main railway track. These purpose-built curved sections were easily detected from the air and received special attention from Allied artillery to destroy them. The guns were ready to fire within 10 minutes and could be fired on any normal railway track. Long-range fire with full charges was usually only possible on reinforced lines.

24-cm-Eisenbahnkanone L/40 of Batterie 1001 in firing position, Champagne 1917:

[attachmentid=30526]

From the end of 1917, turntable arrangements were developed to allow targets to be engaged more easily.

24-cm-Eisenbahn-Bettungskanone L/40 on a turntable bed in Guise, September 1918:

[attachmentid=30527]

I haven't found any reference to them in Cron, so I can only assume that the crews were made up of army artillery units, as the images suggest.

I recently acquired a Milit?rpass to a man who served with Fussartillerie-Regiment Nr. 3 from 1912 and was assigned to Marine-Kanonenbatterie Nr. 3 and Fussartilerie-Batterie 722 during the war. These units were equipped with heavy naval guns and siege howitzers with a calibre of 30.5 cm and he was involved in sieges at Nancy, Antwerp, Dixmuiden, Przemyzl, Nowo Georgiewsk and D?naburg.

The guns used by naval artillery units were crewed by sailors.

David

[Guest Rick Research]

THANKS!!!!!

[gregM]

I spent a couple hours last night doing a online search. There isn't much out there for info on these.

Tony picked a pretty tough subject.