• Title: WWII German Super-Heavy Siege Guns
• Author: Marc Romanych & Martin Rupp
• Genre/Subject: WWII History
• Publisher: Osprey
• Publication Date: 2020
• Start date: 11/12/24
• Finish date: 11/13/24

Review:

I have been looking forward to reading this for a while and I’m happy to report that it was worth the wait.

The book is published by Osprey publications, they are the premier military history publishing house and never disappoint. Lavishly illustrated with historic photos, drawings and even 3D computer renderings the book brings into clear focus what might otherwise be lost in a text only history.

The book is, just as the title indicates, a history of the super-heavy German siege guns of the second world war. This includes everything from the workhorse 30 cm mortars right up through the 80 cm monster known by the diminutive nickname of Dora.

To begin at the beginning, which would be at the end of the first world war in 1919. Due to the draconian terms of the Versailles treaty Germany was not allowed armaments bigger than a slingshot let alone 80 cm railway guns. But when the National Socialists rose to power this was tossed out and the rearming was off and racing. Two German arms and steelworks corporations were tapped with designing and building siege artillery, Krupp and Rheinmetall. The aim was to investigate the feasibility of building guns capable of penetrating the formidable Maginot Line defenses. So they had one of their engineers or spies, or engineer spies figure out the thickness of the reinforced concrete that made up the heaviest of the fortifications. Fine, got it. Then, all that was needed was to design and build an artillery piece large enough to penetrate the defences. Simple right? Well as it turned out, not simple, not at all. But they put a team on it and got to work on some options.

Meanwhile, Germany invades what was Czechoslovakia and finds that the Skoda works have some WWI siege guns kicking around and are willing to take a contract to build some new pieces. As it would turn out, the Skoda 30.5 cm mortars were the most useful siege pieces used in the war, not exactly a great comment on German arms manufacturing, but I digress, back to Germany.

Rheinmetall developed a 60 cm self propelled piece called the Karl-Gerat mortar. A monster on tracks, theu were all nicknamed after figures from Norse-Germanic mythology so Loki, Odin, Thor and so on.

While Rheinmetall was working on the mortars Krupp went to work on designing and building an 80 cm railway gun which when completed would be the largest artillery piece ever built and used in combat. This was the mighty Dora. A triumph of manufacturing and engineering, you should check out this book just to see it. A gun so massive that in order to assemble it, step one is; First, build a railway. Seriously, it needed a railway marshalling yard before you could even move it to the site. It needed three parallel tracks plus a set of narrow gauge tracks on both sides for the cranes to move along. Even the sight and sound of this thing moving would strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, unless that is, they knew what we know now…

Which is that this behemoth couldn’t hit the proverbial broad side of a barn from a meter away. When used in the siege of Sevastopol the Dora fired a grand total of 48 shells. None did any damage to anything of importance and only 10, count em’: ten shells landed within 60 meters of their target. The Karl mortars fared slightly better but really did very little and never did any serious damage.

The authors summed it up perfectly in two sentences, “The performance of Krupp and Rheinmetall’s super-heavy siege guns did not justify the enormous effort and resources expended for their manufacture. In battle the guns failed to destroy or force the surrender of a single modern fortification.” I see it as the Wehrmacht High Command using 1914 thinking in 1941. Siege engines used to be a formidable part of warfare but by the time the second war came around the primacy was gained in the air, not on the ground. One bomber-load of 10 pound bombs could easily do more damage than one ten tonne shell fired wide into the forest. And conversely, one Allied dive bomber could take out the greatest, biggest gun ever constructed.

This was a great read and will be an invaluable reference to me in the future, rumor has it that I might be building a scale model or something…Seriously this was an excellent book, well researched, well illustrated and well worth a read. I award this the rare and coveted Neilosian Five Stars.