Landships II

biercemountain · Sergeant

French 32cm railway gun

MLW · Lieutenant-Colonel

Hi Paul,

I think it is a French Canon de 340mm modèle 1893 sur affut a glissement Schneider. Only two were built. To me, Rail Gun" by Batchelor/Hogg is also confusing and, as I have noticed, full of mistakes.

Regards,
Marc

CharlieC · Legend

Best match I can find is the 274/285 Modèles 1893-96/Mle 1887 sur affût à glissement Schneider from Gen Guy François book "Les Canons de la Victoire 1914-1918 Tome 2".

The Schneider sliding mount was a simple way to utilise a number of different obsolete naval calibre barrels. French railway guns is a complicated and confusing subject - many of the railway guns were hibernated between the wars and made a reappearance in Wehrmacht service in WW2. There is a manual for the sliding mount at:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6552187p

There is a problem with the image - the sliding blocks are shown in the raised position typical of the gun being transported but the barrel is elevated at about 20 degrees in a firing

position. The Schneider mount didn't work like that - the blocks had to be forced down on the I-beam before the gun was elevated (see the manual).

If you are looking for railway guns check out the cardmodel of the 381mm Italian railway gun on landships.info.

Regards,

Charlie

-- Edited by CharlieC on Monday 7th of November 2016 09:30:55 PM

-- Edited by CharlieC on Monday 7th of November 2016 09:36:49 PM

biercemountain · Sergeant

CharlieC wrote:
There is a problem with the image - the sliding blocks are shown in the raised position typical of the gun being transported but the barrel is elevated at about 20 degrees in a firing position. The Schneider mount didn't work like that - the blocks had to be forced down on the I-beam before the gun was elevated (see the manual).

Thanks for the information. For aesthetic purposes I've taken to depicting railway guns with the barrel elevated and appreciate you pointing out the contradiction of having the sliding blocks in the raised position. I could depict them lowered but don't have clue what the exposed gear would look like. If you could point to some reference images I'd be very grateful.

Paul

CharlieC · Legend

The Schneider sliding mount required two I-beams to be laid on the track sleepers close to the rails. Although these were normally laid

inside the rails the attached shows the beams laid outside the rails. The blocks were screwed down onto the I-beams by jacks and the

whole weight of the railway gun was taken by the blocks. Note that the normal railway wheels still provide the lateral control over the carriage

so there was hardly any gap between the rail wheels and the rails. The manual I referred to has images of the setup for the 274mm railway gun.

Regards,

Charlie

biercemountain · Sergeant

Many thanks Charlie. The diagram I used as reference actually shows the I-beam but provided no explanation so I wasn't sure why it was there. I'll have to flip farther through the manual you linked to. I looked at a number of pages but didn't see any images so I figured it was all text.

I guess the reference photo you attached is of a weapon taken over by the German army and later captured by the Allies. Looks to be wearing a white-wash winter camo scheme.

CharlieC · Legend

Most of the French manuals have the diagrams at the very end of the manual - for this one after Page 120.

I think the railway gun in the image was captured in 1945.

Regards,

Charlie

Epoch3 · Corporal

Hi - this is an old thread but I thought I would attach a few illustrations I did several years ago wrt the discussion on the Schneider sliding mount design. I was figuring out these parts and how they worked so that I could build a model of a US 10" sliding mount railway gun which utilized many of the same features of the French design. The basic sliding mount lifting jacks are shown in the one illustration (without any of the extra sleepers or ties) and I included a couple overall illustrations showing them lifted for transportation.
Regards