11 Facts About Railway gun

Railway gun, called a railroad gun, is a large artillery piece, often surplus naval artillery, mounted on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railway wagon.

Design of a railway gun has three firing issues over and above those of an ordinary artillery piece to consider.

Namely how the gun is going to be traversed – i e moved from side to side to aim; how the horizontal component of the recoil force will be absorbed by the gun's carriage and how the vertical recoil force will be absorbed by the ground.

Top-carriage recoil is the situation in which the Railway gun is mounted in an upper carriage that moves on wheels on fixed rails mounted on the lower.

On 29 June 1862, Robert E Lee had the gun pushed by a locomotive over the Richmond and York River line and used at the Battle of Savage's Station to interfere with General George McClellan's plans for siege operations against Richmond during the Union advance up the peninsula.

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The largest French gun produce by Schneider of France the Obusier de 520 modele 1916, a 20-inch railway "Fort Buster" to do what the German 16.

The Railway gun remained in storage and was captured by the Germans during World War II.

The Railway gun was disabled by a premature detonation and later abandoned.

The Railway gun was then placed on display outside the US Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard.

Three additional railway gun regiments were in France, but did not complete training prior to the Armistice, and they did not see action.

At least some of the 10-inch Railway gun barrels were shipped to France and mounted on French-made carriages, but sources do not indicate any use of them in combat.