WWI Artillery....

[delcyros]

Maybe. But does it make sense strategically to bombard a city sized target from indirect range? At least if You factor in the ressources necessary to use the Paris gun. It could be argued that the PG helped the allied war effort from this perspective. Technically an impressive object but strategically it wasn´t feasable. They needed to use a naval 15" gun as a base in which they put the 8.2" liners.

[davparlr]

The 75 was a revolutionary weapon but, I have heard, it was not very effective in the trench warfare of WWI. For one, the trajectory was too flat to accurately lob shells into defensive works.

Outside of that, I have no idea, although I built a model of a French 75 when I was a kid.

[LaggyMcLagLag]

hmmm, since messengar pigeons can be brough down with one shot and there were no Field Radios I spose the forward observer would be useless.

I also go with the 75.
Later in WWII they mounted them on B-25's for anti-shipping!

Although it couldn't destoy trenches like other artillery, and it couldn't elevate more then 18 degrees, It was probably devestating when massed, like all artillery.

[trackend]

Neat shooting to bring down a flying pigeon with an army rifle.

[LaggyMcLagLag]

It was done. A pigeon was awarded a metal for delivering a message after being shot.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by LaggyMcLagLag

hmmm, since messengar pigeons can be brough down with one shot and there were no Field Radios I spose the forward observer would be useless.

If it helps, they had field telephones

[rogthedodge]

And air observers, even before reliable airborne radio.

[Emac44]

Rail Guns are fine but limited in their usage in my opinion. And mostly mounted on converted rail carriages. and using either tracks or rail line plus to travese the gun using either curved track points or turntables. Hardly very effective and very costly and time consuming from WW1 aspect. Yes they had the range to bombard a city or fortifications but accuracy was a bit off. It was more of a propaganda tool to scare the **** out of local population in a city it was targetting. And more a nuisance artillery piece then anything. This is just my opinion. Railway Mounted Artillery had earlier usage in US Civil War so it wasn't a new novel idea. This type of Atillery from WW1 was expensive on man power to man the GUN plus use of Train Engines had to be employed to move this type of Artillery. Also Cranes and hoist had to be used to load the bloody thing as well. Range is one thing accuracy quiet another and its not something you could hide very well from observation and rate of fire was appaling. But then again these GUNS were not designed in WW1 to have rapid fire succession. In my opinion Rail GUNS were a waste of time effort and resources as they didn't achieve mostly what they were designed to do in WW1 except be a propaganda tool that fired a very large calibre projectile at a city or fortification. It wasn't until WW2 these large calibre guns became more effective with better range finding but these too became no more then expensive rail mounted artillery pieces or were casement emplaced or used similar to a mortar type mounted on an armoured large track vehicle as used in siege of Sebastapol by the Germans in WW2. To those fans of Rail GUNS I am sorry never been impressed by them. And I don't really see them as the higher techniques of real artillery used on a battle field