"I'm convinced!" The prince is really a little helpless, but he really understands the stubbornness of some people. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info But the current situation is not bad, and Moltke has finally begun to seriously consider building a train artillery unit to make up for the lack of long-range firepower and strike power. Germany's tactical superiority on the Western Front will be maintained for a longer period of time, while on the Eastern Front, it will also be supported by railway artillery and transformed into a strategic ......advantage.

That's right, you read that right, it's a strategic advantage! The reason why it was a tactical advantage on the Western Front was because Germany had large-caliber train guns, and Britain and France also had them! The technical gap between the two sides is very limited, you can fight me, and I can fight you. No one can completely overwhelm their opponents. But the Eastern Front is different! Because the Russian army is a complete ** silk! In terms of equipment, it is more silky than Austria-Hungary!

Look at the world artillery giants at that time, France had Schneider, Germany had Krupp, Britain had Vickers, Austria-Hungary had Skoda, and Italy had Andolsa. What does Russia have? Haven't heard of it, have you? Among the army artillery, don't say France, Germany and Britain, the Italians all have 15-inch heavy guns. The Austro-Hungarian Empire even had two types of super-heavy guns, 15-inch and 420mm! Especially the M14 42CML15 super heavy gun, this is simply a big killer when the war starts!

This 1914 heavy gun weighed 105 tons, a total of 8 guns were built in history, and the shells of this gun weighed 1020 kg, and the muzzle velocity was 432 meters per second. The maximum firing range is 14600 meters! It has a rate of fire of 1 shot in 5 minutes! If you look at it comprehensively, this gun can almost be seen as the most powerful weapon in war! What a good train gun! (Well, this cargo started out as a shore gun--! ）

And what did the Russians have in the 1 World War? Not to mention the train guns that can be moved, counting all the artillery used by the army, it seems that there is only one M1915 305mm heavy gun that is okay. However, this thing weighing more than 69 tons is still a little unworthy of his tonnage, and the maximum range is only 13.47 kilometers!

Therefore, if the Eastern Front, which the prince is in charge of, could have deployed train guns from the beginning, then these powerful artillery pieces would have been almost no threat at the beginning of the war, and could safely drop a terrifying rain of bullets on the heads of the Russians! If the prince remembers correctly, there weren't even decent long-range cannons in the Russian field units of the First World War, right?

"The 12-inch L40 naval guns and 10-inch L40 naval guns retired from the Navy can be converted into very useful train guns. The 280mm gun, which Krupp bid failed, could also be changed to a train gun. Little Moltke thought for a moment and said. We have ready-made artillery, anyway, the navy is going to use new artillery, and if we hand over these guns and ammunition to the army, we can make full use of them! ”

"That's a good idea, but there's no need to equip Krupp's 280mm gun. The 12-inch gun can do better, and we now need to simplify our equipment system as much as possible to make it easier to replenish later. "The prince is still a little tired of Krupp and his 11-inch gun!

Now Moltke is taking a completely historical routine, and the first train guns in Germany are really waste-recycled, such as the 21cmsk "Peteradalbert" train gun at the beginning, the artillery of this thing was originally the main gun of the German Navy equipped on the Blücher and Hellhorst-class armored cruisers!

After the sinking of the armored cruiser Blucher, all the 210mm guns and shells in the stocks of the German Navy were useless, and not a single active battleship could use these weapons, and then the German Army decided to change it to long-range artillery. And these guns that are not good at fighting warships perform quite well in the army, although the power of the shells is not too large, but the range of up to 26 kilometers is still extremely powerful deterrent for many howitzers!

The guns, carried by two 4-axle trains, weighed about 110 tons. The Germans built 11 of these train guns successively, and used them in many battles on the Western Front, which played a certain role, and when the Germans found that these "waste" guns were very good to use, they also began to dismantle more guns from old battleships and install them on moving trains!

The subsequent improvement work of the Germans can be called frenzied! Almost all former dreadnoughts armed with 240mm guns are not immune to the black hand! The power of the 210mm gun is too small and not enough, so use the 240mm gun! At the beginning, the German Army also checked that in the manufacturing process of the first batch of 240mm train guns, the German Army also knew to cut the barrels shorter, and the weight of these short-barreled train guns was about the same as the weight of the 21cmsk "peteradalbert", but the weight of the bullets increased to 140-151kg. And it can be transported with the same trailer.

But then, the Germans found that this weight was reduced, but the muzzle velocity and range were also reduced, and the maximum muzzle velocity was only 640 meters per second. The range has been reduced to 18.7km. And this distance is still a bit of a dazzle in the face of demons of the same level on the Western Front, so after building 4 vehicles, he decisively stopped.

Then in February 1915, 5 German Caesar Frederick III class battleships were decommissioned, a total of 26 240mm guns were dismantled, except for 8 as shore defense guns, the other 16 were later handed over to the German Army as train guns, this is the largest production of 24cmSKL/40 "Theodorkarl" type train guns in Germany in World War 1, this train gun using 240mml40 guns was finally produced a total of 34 pieces!

The basic performance of this gun is basically the same as its predecessor, but because the barrel is longer and the muzzle velocity is larger, the maximum range reaches 26.6km. The largest weight of more than 110 tons can still be transported by two 4-axle trains, so the German Army is still very satisfied with this.

Although the production capacity of the 240mm train gun is large, if you want to talk about the effect, the 280mm train gun is larger, and there are two main types of train guns of this class, namely 28cmskl/40 "bruno" and 28cmkl/40 "kurfurst". The former was produced in 22 to 24 units, while the latter was produced in 6 units.

These train guns, made from the 280mmL40 guns of the last German pre-dreadnoughts, also performed well, especially in terms of range, which had a range of 20 km when using the 240kg old 240kg shells of the L2.9. And if you use the new 284kg shell of the L4.4, it has a range of 27.5 km!

However, both the train guns with 240mm guns and the train guns with 280mm guns have the problem of too little power of the shells, which are much better than the train guns converted by the French with old 240mm guns, but if compared with those train guns that use 12-inch or even 340mm guns, it is a grade lower.

However, fortunately, in this plane, the German Navy did not have the problem of small artillery, and even the problem of the less powerful train guns of the German Army was solved, and ....... Isn't there a separation between land and sea? Of course, there is only such a plan now, and as for how to do it in the future, a detailed plan needs to be formulated.

The prince and Moltke had talked a bit too much, and the latter would need some time to digest, so it was decided to postpone the visit to the Bavarian Army exercises a bit, and the prince had more time to prepare. (To be continued.) )