Landships II

Date: Oct 12, 2005

St Chamond Railway Gun Kit

Date: Oct 12, 2005

Curious about what calibre it represented, I dug around in my saved images folder (at work... ahem) and found these:

340mm gun

400mm gun

Of course, we all know that the French had a terribly a la carte attitude to railway gun barrels and chopped and changed them like nobody's business, and the photos aren't really clear enough to tell, so perhaps someone else can shed some light?

Date: Oct 15, 2005

Thanks, Roger, for posting these great images. I have some comments to make and some images to show, but I can't figure out how to make the images appear in the message. Could I trouble you to explain it one more time?

Jon

Date: Oct 15, 2005

Aye, Jim Lad, no problem...

You copy your image's URL - say you have it in Photobucket (I use the example 'cos that's where I store mine) like so (NOTE: all following URLs and tags have spaces in them, as otherwise the computer thinks they're real and you won't see them, but real URLs and tags have NO spaces anywhere):

w w w.photobucket.com/jonspics/image1.jpg

When you paste it into the message box, you embed it in HTML tags, like so:

[ img ]w w w.photobucket.com/jonspics/image1.jpg[ /img ]

With a real image URL and tags (i.e. those devoid of spaces), the computer will recognise it and post it as an image. It's similar to posting a link - although this forum enables you to do it using the chain-link icon, what that actually does is put these tags around your URL: [ url ]URL[ /url ].

So remember - there are NO s p a c e s in real URLs and tags!

I look forward to your images and comments, Jon!

Date: Oct 15, 2005

Roger, thanks for sending the image instructions.

I heartily agree that the model you show is very nice for 1/87 scale; did you build it? It looks like a 340mm type, per the discussion below. By the way, what it your understanding of the carriage configuration shown in the second model photo; doesn't this gun have to roll backwards on the track to expend recoil energy?

I just wanted to share some evidence for large French rr gun identification that I have found in books, etc.

I think the image you posted under the "400mm" label is actually a 340mm. (did you find it at http://freepages.military.rootsweb.com/~cacunithistories/defeating_the_hun.htm?) I base this judgement mostly on the caption for the photo below (from a book) which claims to show a 400mm. To me, the carriages look different.

I found these 400mm photos at http://www.firstworldwar.com/photos/artillery.htm:

Here are some 340mm photos I found in books:

I found this 340mm photo at http://www.home.planet.nl/ ~cosse001/railway.html some time ago, but apparently this site is inactive right now. My recollection is that it had many very nice RR gun photos identified in detail.

I am ready for many further discussions of French RR guns of all kinds, is anyone else?

Jon

Date: Oct 15, 2005

Can anyone see the images imbedded into my last message? If not, is there some way for someone to look at the text I typed into it and tell me what I did wrong?

Jon

Date: Oct 15, 2005

Blast, none of your images came out...

You're right about the 400mm gun photo's origins, it's here: http://freepages.military.rootsweb.com/~cacunithistories/400mm_gun.html

I would say that you're right and that the model guns (which I haven't got - yet!) and the first gun photo I posted are 340mm guns, and that the second photo I posted was mislabelled on the 'Defeating the Hun' site, for the simple reason that every other photo I've seen of French 400mm guns (or, to be precise, howitzers) shows a different carriage (again, I agree with you there). The 340mm gun carriage is level along the bottom and higher in the middle, whereas the 400mm carriage is the other way up.

Our very own Arie Dijkhuis on this site drew a superb set of plans of the 400mm gun in 'Tankette' some time ago - presumably he used them as the basis for his scratchbuilt model, here, in which you can see clearly what I mean about the carriage being the 'other way up':

As you can see, the carriage is level along the top and lower in the middle. Again, look at the real deal:

As for the model 340mm gun shown dismounted, it does look odd, but have a look at this photo (from http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/3495/FVerdun15a.html):

Also, I believe that the gun carriage would sometimes be lowered onto a turntable, and the bogies removed - I have a photo in a magazine of this, but it's taken from a funny angle and there's a load of camouflage netting obscuring damn near everything going on! I'll scan it in later.

It's all terribly confusing, though, when it comes to French railway guns. For example, I have read that there were four models of the 340mm gun, produced by both St Chamond and Schneider! The problem being, so far as I understand so please correct me if I'm wrong, that the French were so wedded to their war-of-manoeuvre doctrines and the 'Fabulous 75', that when it came to producing heavy (and superheavy) artillery, they did it in a massive panicked hurry, and grabbed whatever they could (ususally naval), no matter how old, and stuck it on more-or-less improvised carriages.

As usual, unless it's German (specifically Nazi, as there's not a hell of a lot of information on Great War German kit in English), there's not much information for the Anglophone reader, and so I, too, would be grateful if anyone with more information about the French superheavies can post here!

Date: Oct 16, 2005

Jon Hornbostel wrote:

Can anyone see the images imbedded into my last message? If not, is there some way for someone to look at the text I typed into it and tell me what I did wrong? Jon

Jon, looks like your URLs are wrong.

By doing a 'right-click' on the red cross and looking at 'Properties' I can see the URL you used, here:

http://www.activeboard.com/www.flinthills.com/~john/landships/french_400/400mm-01med.jpg

It makes no sense, but having a couple of guesses I got your actual URL:

http://www.flinthills.com/~john/landships/french_400/400mm-01med.jpg

Which gives this image:

And the rest:

This is the one I have that I was going to scan:

And I put this one up before seeing yours! Great minds...

Nice photos!

Date: Oct 16, 2005

BTW, I have read that the 400mm howitzer was produced by cutting down and re-boring a 340mm naval gun, in much the same way, I suppose, that the first British 8" howitzers were made from cut-down and re-bored 6" naval guns.

In the first photo you posted, Jon, I love the two little kids in the foreground, sitting mere yards from a gigantic artillery piece on a battlefield - what would Health & Safety say...?

Date: Oct 16, 2005

Roger, thank you very much for figuring out what was wrong with my image URLs. Now I have to figure out how that extra hunk of address was added on, because I don't believe I did it (although I may be wrong).

And thanks for the additional photos. That scratch-built 400mm is really amazing.

The fact that the 340mm was sometimes fired from a turntable sheds considerable light on the carriage configuration; it makes a lot more sense to me now.

By the way, do you sometimes have trouble with losing text in the "Reply to" text entry box? For me it is always the first sentence, and I can't tell what's happening.

Anyway, I will soon be posting some more RR gun photos under a new topic, and look forward to your comments.

Thanks again,

Jon

Date: Oct 16, 2005

'Now I have to figure out how that extra hunk of address was added on, because I don't believe I did it (although I may be wrong).'

It most likely isn't you, Jon - computers are mad, they do all sorts of weird stuff, and no-one knows why!

'By the way, do you sometimes have trouble with losing text in the "Reply to" text entry box? For me it is always the first sentence, and I can't tell what's happening.'

Oh God, yes!!! It drove me insane to start with, I even posted a really grumpy message solely about that! It's because the forum is very slow to react to page changes, such as (and especially) when you click 'reply'. The trick is to just wait a few seconds for it to settle down - the same goes for when you 'preview' your message before posting - give it a good few seconds to settle first before trying to edit your message! Something else I sometimes do if I'm typing a very long post is to do it in Word (or whatever WP application you have) first, then copy & paste (however, the forum then does weird things with your fonts...). It's just a very very weirdly set up forum (nothing to do with Peter K, I hasten to add, but the actual mechanics of the thing).

Arie's scratchbuilt 400mm gun certainly is excellent. If you look at his page in 'Galleries' (http://www.landships.freeservers.com/ariedijkhuis_models.htm) you can see other work of his. Not only is he a superb draftsman (see his article on Minenwerfers for a sample, as well as numerous plans in 'Tankette') and an excellent modelmaker, but also a great pattern maker - Convoy's St Chamond SPG is made from his master!