Finnish 12in railway guns

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Finnish 12in railway guns - 5/31/2001 6:37:00 PM

JTGEN

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I was just reading the history of Finnish coastal artillery(i served there myself)and found something wery interesting. We had in 1943 a battery of 3 305mm railwayguns with the range of 52km and 4 180mm railwayguns. I want these in the oob so I can blast the soviets back to stone age :D :D :D . Well actually the 12in were too vulnerable to ever be taken close to front line as we had not enough aircraft to protect them. But the 180mm were used if I remember right. The guns were catched partially destroyed when Soviets pulled out of Hanko in 1941 and could not take them with them. They were repared but the work was wasted as they were not used. In 1944 they were handed back to Soviets. Too bad would have been great peaces in some museum.

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- 5/31/2001 6:44:00 PM

skukko

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Hi :) These 3 pieces are close to Leningrad military-base now and one enthusiast -group has done work almost a year now to get them bought back to Finland. Place where they were stationed in Hanko is cleaned up and is part of our historical places in here, thou there ain't much to see :D But railroads remnants are still in the forests. Did you that chinese people were building it ? FYI mosh (Hanko/Fi.)

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- 5/31/2001 6:47:00 PM

risto.nikula

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Now that you mention, i remember reading something about finns leaving and booby trapping one bloody big rail arty in viipuri or near lenigrad, if i remember corretly. It may have been a 305mm or 180mm. I have a picture of it in one of my books, in 5 sodan vuotta, i think.

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- 5/31/2001 7:00:00 PM

JTGEN

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I serwed in Ut� and �r� and I know about the chinese that were used to build there. I guess they all died in the process. (To those who do not know it the Russians did them so we did not kill the Chinese.) It was nice to serve in a place where you knew the guns you took care of were used to defend your contry succesfully and where there was nice old guns to look at.

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- 5/31/2001 7:49:00 PM

Fredde

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I think (not quite sure about this, i'll check the source when i get the book back again) I remember reading something about Finnish rail guns belonging to the coastal artillery used against the Soviet landing in Tuulos. I have no idea about the calibre though.. and if it was these huge guns or other smaller.

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"If infantry is the Queen of the battlefield, artillery is her backbone", Jukka L. M�kel� about the Finnish victory at Ihantala.

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- 5/31/2001 7:50:00 PM

Belisarius

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Which makes me ask: Why aren't rail guns in the German OOB?

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- 5/31/2001 8:17:00 PM

skukko

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Fredde my quess is that you remember right ;) Why should these guns be in German OOB? Its full already :) I would put them to Finnish OOB... mosh

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- 5/31/2001 9:29:00 PM

Fredde

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Skukko, good to know that i remember right for once.. :D Know anything about the calibres?

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"If infantry is the Queen of the battlefield, artillery is her backbone", Jukka L. M�kel� about the Finnish victory at Ihantala.

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- 6/1/2001 2:29:00 AM

john g

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quote:

Originally posted by Belisarius: Which makes me ask: Why aren't rail guns in the German OOB?

Stepping in where Paul V. no doubt will. Because no battalion level commander would get control of an asset like that. It would take a div or corps commander at least to be able to ask for fire from the railroad guns and the army commander that it was attached to would have to ok the request. Remember the big German guns were for concrete cracking. With the ability to pentrate 17 feet of concrete, you wouldn't be firing them at infantry or pillboxes above the ground. thanks, John.

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- 6/1/2001 2:44:00 AM

Voriax

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Hello As I have the book in hand.... :) There were three types of railroad guns in finnish use. The smallest one was domestic built battery using a 152/45 Canet gun. (same gun that coastal arty used). 1 gun participated in the Winter War and eventually the battery had 4 guns. These guns were used in Tuulos. Second type was captured 180mm soviet gun. The soviet designation was TM-1-180 and the Finnish one was 180/57 NRaut. These guns were obtained when Soviets withdraw from Hanko and some were also captured from Carelian Isthmus during 1941. 4 guns were eventually repaired into working condition and these guns were used between autumn 1941 to June 1944 in western Carelian Isthmus. 3rd type was the big one :) Captured soviet 305 mm gun with original designation TM-3-12. Finnish designation was 305/52 ORaut. 3 guns were captured from Hanko and eventually they all were repaired into shooting condition. These guns were not used operationally, only trials and some demonstration shots were fired. Voriax

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- 6/1/2001 4:13:00 AM

Fredde

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Thanks Voriax! I suspected it was smaller ones at Tuulos.. else those Russian marines wouldn't have put up such hard resistance.. ;)

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"If infantry is the Queen of the battlefield, artillery is her backbone", Jukka L. M�kel� about the Finnish victory at Ihantala.

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- 6/1/2001 4:35:00 AM

Belisarius

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quote:

Originally posted by john g: Stepping in where Paul V. no doubt will. Because no battalion level commander would get control of an asset like that. It would take a div or corps commander at least to be able to ask for fire from the railroad guns and the army commander that it was attached to would have to ok the request. Remember the big German guns were for concrete cracking. With the ability to pentrate 17 feet of concrete, you wouldn't be firing them at infantry or pillboxes above the ground. thanks, John.

Good point, John. So why are they available in the Italian OOB? (308 mm if I remeber it correctly) :eek:

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- 6/5/2001 3:21:00 AM

john g

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quote:

Originally posted by Belisarius: Good point, John. So why are they available in the Italian OOB? (308 mm if I remeber it correctly) :eek:

The Italians are not rail guns they are battleship guns. Just as the US has 14in and 16in gunfire support for the marines. Firing he rounds designed for shore bombardment they impact the ground in a different way than a fort busting round from a rail gun. thanks, John.

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- 6/5/2001 2:34:00 PM

Jarkko

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quote:

Originally posted by Fredde: Thanks Voriax! I suspected it was smaller ones at Tuulos.. else those Russian marines wouldn't have put up such hard resistance.. ;)

This little document about them was in the net: http://www.cix.co.uk/~nrobinson/railgun/russia.htm The 305mm railway-guns didn't really have any impact to any important battle as much I remember (repairing them to usable condition took so long that they didn't participate into battles that much as far as I remember). The smaller ones (100mm and 180mm however were repaired and used, some were probably rearmed with 152mm L/45 coastal guns). In fact 2 or 3 batteries of Finnish coastal guns had been in Tuulos area (north coast of Lake Ladoga, Soviets made landing in there at summer of 1944), but they had been transported away little before Soviet landing (talking about bad luck). Finns allso used 152mm:n railway-guns build earlier (build from 152mm:n L/45 Obuhov naval guns): http://www.winterwar.com/Numbers/FinArmy/FINartiller.htm Anyway, all these railway-guns should be scenario-only (there is no room for them in oob-file at units-level anyway), the 152mm and 305mm guns are available in weapons-level of Finnish oob-file. Adding every field artillery piece that Finns simply is not possible as there are no enough room for it in oob-file (Finns used more then 100 models of field artillery pieces during WWII after all). BTW: I am at the moment making an imporoved version of Finnish 5.01 oob that includes some of the most usual artillery weapons that Finns had but we could not add into oob because of running out of space. They are going to be in weapons-level only (so they can be used in building scenarios only).

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