Contedicavour,
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A madman's idea... even in WW2 the key to victory was highly mobile units with big firepower.
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The key to victory was not vesting an outnumbered shock force 1,500 miles from their logistics head into MOUT combat where they could in turn be further encircled. That said, the gun actually supported such siege operations quite well with an average of only 7-8 shells needed to obliterate any fixed target. Compare this to the 30,000 /tons/ of conventional artillery necessary to 'lose' Sevastopol as a shattered ruin anyway.
Bypass and Maneuver. In this, a heavy rail gun can still actually be made quite useful IF it is designed along the lines of the Paris Gun, firing lightweight shells into enemy marshalling areas far enough back that the enemy has a hard time locating it (The Russians rarely pushed their tacair further than 20-40nm as BAI behind the FEBA and almost /never/ used it adequately against the German rail LOCs as a function of true Interdiction) as a function of light weight, low wear, fairly high rate _terror weapons_.
Yes, terror is a valid technique against military formations. Especially Soviet ones in which 'force security' was a gun at the back until it was too late to fear a greater threat in front.
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Guns based on rail tracks, heavily vulnerable to air bombardment, and inaccurate because of the sheer weight of its ammunition were totally useless, unless perhaps for some psychological effect when laying siege to enemy cities such as Leningrad/St Petersburg in 1941.
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The key to understanding the utility and restrictions of a supergun lies not in it's use as a landbased weapon but as a naval one. TONS of metal was utterly wasted armoring discrete features (turrets and superstructure and subdecks) on the battleships. NONE of their rounds could guarantee kills on some of the harder targets while paradoxically NONE of the armor was sufficient to protect them against either a (Hood) 'lucky hit' or concentrated airpower (1,500-2,000lb bombs crippled the Tirpitz long before 12,000lb ones sank her).
Furthermore, ALL of them lacked the firing rate to saturate even fixed landwards positions 'better' than a single bore in the 50-80mm range could have with proper (big ship=big rams) automation and double the landbased 14 rounds a day worth of precision targeted fires.
With massively better fixed land target effects and probably /similar/ straddle-to-impact achieved naval damage rates* using just 1-2 longitudinal bores; a supergun battlewagon could have truly altered tactical pictures by literally opening up wide, undefended, frontages in support of either an Overlord/Iwo type mission set (the enemy cannot defend a key point which has had all surrounding defensible/elevated terrain features _collapsed_ by overcratering and subsidization) at vastly less risk to the ship from beachhead mines or coastal artillery. Or by making events like the IJN attacks at Samar and Leyte less likely to be effective for want of much longer opening engagement ranges and much greater risk to IJN surface assets trying to disengage.
The key to which then becomes getting ONE round to fall where you want it to and while the availability of microelectronics able to withstand 20,000G launch excursions might have been a problem in the tube age, there is reason to think that a Hawaii type radio-CG reference beam for 'tipover and azimuth' might have been able to moderate a generalized parabola sufficient to be useful on even point targets from over 30nm away.
Given the Gustav averaged 190m CEP and maxed out at 60m with 20% of it's fall of shell, while the HE round had a 300ft lethal splash zone, you are looking at the ability to destroy entire city blocks or indeed enemy armor formations and even (unarmored) ships with near misses and few rounds.
Better by far to fire one round that hits before your enemy can even see you than 'exchange' dozens which dare him to cripple you slowly before scoring a lucky magazine hit which blows you in two.
Something which a spotter plane and a large RFCG array (for the Germans probably a Mammut or Freya) could have ensured with relative ease while remaining well over the horizon.
Thus, given that Hitler may have indeed been mad, the supergun missed it's true calling in application as much as 'bigger than you' intent.
Today, such a gun would be mounted on a container or VLCC type hull with precision stationkeeping shunt motors able to accomodate a 100m barrel run and undoubtedly use light gas or V3 type 'staged' technology (with the option to upgrade to EML) plus GPS/INS to loft much smaller rounds (7-8 inch ala HARP) upwards of 300-400nm inland.
In 100-200mm class, even with a restriction of one round every 10-15 minutes, this would make it vastly superior to the CVSF and indeed competitive with aeroballistics as a replacement for subsonic cruise and the 'arsenal concept' as another money pit.
It is for that very reason that it will never be built because cheap, effective, weapons are anethema to the established MIB multi-element golf bag $olution.
KPl.
*The Sevastopol attacks on the White Cliff bunker under 30m of water with 10m of concrete below that succeeded after less than 9 rounds of which 'near misses' capsized light vessels half a mile away in the bay.
With a superquick fuze or even a mechanical extender, 'air bursts' should do blast damage, even to larger/armored naval classes if they strike within one quarter hull length. On a BB that's on the order of a 200ft allowable miss distance. If you can straddle, serious hydraulic damage also becomes a conditional effect.
