The German Paris Gun, also known as William's Gun, was the largest rail artillery gun of the Great War. In 1918 the Paris Gun was able to shell Paris from 120 km (75 mi) away.

The Paris Gun (German: Paris-Geschütz) was the name of an artillery piece with which the Germans bombarded Paris during World War I. This oversized railway gun was used from March to August 1918. When it was used, Parisians believed they were being bombed by a new type of high altitude zeppelin, because neither the sound of an airplane nor of a gun could be heard. It was the largest piece of artillery used during the war, and is considered to be a supergun. Image File history File links Parisgun2. ... Image File history File links Parisgun2. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... This article is about the capital of France. ... For other uses, see Artillery (disambiguation). ... This article is about the capital of France. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... French 320 mm railway gun Krupp K5 railway gun A railway gun, also called railroad gun or railgun is a large artillery piece, designed to be placed on rail tracks. ... This is an article about Zeppelin airships. ... A SuperGun (or super gun) is a device used to play arcade games in lieu of requiring a full arcade cabinet. ...

Also called the "Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz" ("Emperor William Gun"), it is often confused with Big Bertha, the howitzer used by the Germans against the Liège forts in 1914, and indeed the French called it by this name as well. It is also confused with the smaller "Langer Max" (Long Max) cannons from which it was derived. Although the famous Krupp-family artillery makers produced all these guns, the resemblance ended there. German Emperor Wilhelm (born Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albrecht, Prince of Prussia 27 January 1859–4 June 1941), was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia (de: Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preußen), ruling from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. ... Big Bertha Big Bertha (German: Dicke Bertha; literal translation Fat Bertha) is the name of the L/14 model of heavy mortar-like howitzers built and used by Germany during World War I. The name Big Bertha is often mistakenly applied to the Langer Max and Paris Gun railway guns. ... 19th century 12 pounder (5 kg) mountain howitzer displayed by the National Park Service at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, USA A howitzer is a type of artillery piece that is characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at trajectories with... Geography Country Belgium Community French Community Region Walloon Region Province Liège Arrondissement Liège Coordinates , , Area 69. ... Langer Max (long Max) was a World War I German cannon officially called 38cm SKL/45. ... For the U.S. town, see Krupp, Washington. ...

As a military weapon the gun was not a great success: the payload was minuscule, the barrel had to be regularly replaced, and the accuracy was only good enough for city-sized targets. However, the German objective was to build a psychological weapon to attack the morale of the Parisians; not to destroy the city itself.

It was later one of the inspirations of Gerald Bull in his work on advanced artillery; he researched the history of the Paris Gun and published an extensive book about it. Gerald Vincent Bull (March 9, 1928 - March 22, 1990) was a Canadian engineer who developed long range artillery. ...

Description

The gun was also called the "Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz".

The Paris Gun was a weapon like no other, but its exact capabilities are not known, and all figures available are approximate. This uncertainty is due to the weapon's apparent total destruction by the Germans in the face of the Allied offensive. Figures stated for the weapon's size, range and performance may vary widely depending on the source — not even the number of shells fired is certain. Image File history File links Kaiser_Wilhelm_Geschütz. ... Image File history File links Kaiser_Wilhelm_Geschütz. ...

It was capable of hurling a 94 kilogram (210 lb) shell to a range of 130 kilometres (81 miles) and a maximum altitude of 40 kilometres (25 miles) — the greatest height reached by a human-made projectile until the first successful V-2 flight test in October 1942. Shown above is a computer-generated image of the International Prototype Kilogram (“IPK”). The IPK is the kilogram. ... The pound or pound-mass (abbreviations: lb, lbm, or sometimes in the United States, #) is a unit of mass (sometimes called weight in everyday parlance) in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ... ‹ The template below (Unit of length) is being considered for deletion. ... “Miles” redirects here. ... A projectile is any object sent through space by the application of a force. ... German test launch. ...

At the start of its 170-second trajectory, each shell from the Paris Gun reached a speed of 1,600 metres per second (5,200 ft/s).

The gun itself, which weighed 256 tons and was mounted on rails, had a 28 metre (92 ft) long, 210 millimetre (8.3 in) caliber rifled barrel with a 6 metre (20 ft) long smoothbore extension. This article is about a foot as a unit of length. ... An inch (plural: inches; symbol or abbreviation: in or, sometimes, ″ - a double prime) is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ...

Originally conceived as a naval weapon, the gun was manned by a crew of 80 Kriegsmarine sailors under the command of an admiral, and was surrounded by several batteries of standard army artillery to create a "noise-screen" around the big gun so that it could not be located by French and British spotters. The projectile reached so high that it was the first man-made object to reach the altitude of the stratosphere, thus virtually eliminating drag from air resistance, allowing the shell to achieve a range of over 130 kilometres (80 miles). The shells were propelled at such high velocity that each successive shot wore away a considerable amount of steel from the rifle bore. Each shell was sequentially numbered according to its increasing diameter, and had to be fired in numeric order lest the projectile lodge in the bore and the gun explode. Also, when the shell was shoved into the gun, the chamber was precisely measured to determine the difference in its length: A few inches off will cause a great variance in the velocity, and with it, the range. Then, with the variance determined, the additional quantity of propellant was calculated, and its measure taken from a special car and added to the regular charge. After 65 shells had been fired, each of progressively larger caliber to allow for wear, the barrel was rebored to a caliber of 240 millimeters (9.4 in). The Kriegsmarine (or War Navy) was the name of the German Navy between 1935 and 1945, during the Nazi regime, superseding the Reichsmarine. ... Atmosphere diagram showing stratosphere. ... A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to a bullet, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage includes large solid projectiles previously termed shot (AP, APCR, APCNR, APDS, APFSDS and Proof shot). ...

The Paris Gun was the largest gun built at the time, but it was surpassed in all respects but range in World War II by the Schwerer Gustav. The unfinished V-3 cannon and Iraqi super gun would have been bigger. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Preparing to fire the gun Schwerer Gustav and Dora were the names under which the German 80 cm K (E) railway guns were known. ... Like the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket, V-3 cannon was one of the three vengeance weapons (German: Vergeltungswaffe) built by Nazi Germany during World War II. Unlike the V-1 and the V-2, however, the V-3 was not a guided missile, but a... Project Babylon was a project allegedly commissioned by the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War to build a series of superguns, with the Canadian artillery expert Gerald Bull supplying the designs for the guns. ...

Use in World War I

The gun was too small a device to destroy the entire city of Paris, but it was meant to erode the morale of the Parisians

The gun was fired from the forest of Coucy and the first shell landed at 7:18 a.m. on March 21, 1918. Only when sufficient shell fragments had been collected was it realized that the explosion had come from a shell. It did not take long to discover the gun's location. Within a few hours of the start of the bombardment it was located by French aviator Didier Daurat. Image File history File links Paris_Gun. ... Image File history File links Paris_Gun. ... Coucy-la-Ville is a commune in the Aisne département of northern France. ... is the 80th day of the year (81st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Didier Daurat (2 January 1891 at Montreuil-sous-Bois - 2 December 1969 at {Toulouse) was a pioneer of French aviation. ...

The Paris gun was used to shell Paris at a range of 75 miles (120 km). The distance was so far that the Coriolis effect — the rotation of the earth — was substantial enough to affect trajectory calculations. The gun was fired at an azimuth of 232 degrees (west-southwest) from Crépy-en Laon, which was at a latitude of 49.5 degrees North. The gunners had to account for the fact that the projectiles landed to the right of where they would have hit if there were no Coriolis effect. In the inertial frame of reference (upper part of the picture), the black object moves in a straight line. ...

A total of 320–367 shells were fired, killing 250 people and wounding 620, as well as causing considerable damage to property. Twenty shells were fired per hour on a good day.

The gun was taken back to Germany in August 1918 as Allied advances threatened its security. The gun was never captured by the Allies; near the end of the war it is believed that it was completely destroyed by the Germans. One spare mounting was captured by American troops near Chateau-Thierry, but no gun was ever found. Ch teau-Thierry is a commune of north-eastern France, about 56 miles east-northeast of Paris. ...

The Paris Gun holds a significant place in the history of astronautics. In the 1930s, the German Army became interested in rockets for long range artillery as a replacement for the Paris Gun—which was specifically banned under the Versailles Treaty. Woodrow Wilson with the American Peace Commissioners The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 is the peace treaty created as a result of six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 which put an official end to World War I between the Allies and Central Powers. ...

Further reading

• Henry W. Miller, The Paris Gun: The Bombardment of Paris by the German Long Range Guns and the Great German Offensive of 1918, Jonathan Cape, Harrison Smith, New York, 1930
• Gerald V. Bull, Charles H. Murphy, Paris Kanonen: The Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschutze) and Project HARP, E. S. Mittler, Herford, 1988
• Ian V. Hogg, The Guns 1914 -18, Ballantine Books, New York, 1971

Ian V. Hogg (1926 - 2002 March 07) was a notable author of books on firearms, artillery, ammunition, and fortification, as well as biographies of several famous general officers. ...

External links

• The Paris Gun in the First World War.com Encyclopedia
• Paris Gun at S. Berliner, III's ORDNANCE
• The K5E German WWII Railway Gun