Book Review: New Vanguard Series Introduces Railway Guns and Large Weapons Systems

By Dean Roxby

Railway guns hardly qualify as “small arms,” I agree, but it is hoped that guns of all sizes are of interest to Small Arms While searching through the Osprey Publish-ing online catalog for suitable books to review, I came across these three titles. Being interested in guns of all sizes and shapes, I was intrigued.

These three titles come from Osprey’s New Vanguard series. This series covers all manners of large weapons systems, from 16th century warships to modern-day tanks and helicopter gunships. The series consists of approximately 270 (titles are continuously being added) small booklets, each measuring 7 ¼in x 9 ¾in and 48 pages in length. Many different authors and illustrators have contributed to this series, so the writing style varies slightly, but the layout is basically the same.

Numerous photographs of the weapon in service, along with new, full-color artwork are featured. Similar to the Weapon series of booklets from Osprey, the New Vanguard booklets are meant to be a solid introduction to a topic, not the final word.

Railway Guns of World War I (NVG 249), by authors Marc Romanych and Greg Heuer, opens with the comment “World War I was the Golden Age of railway artillery, with more types and numbers of these guns employed than in any other conflict.” I was quite surprised to learn that by the end of WW I, over 600 individual guns had seen action, and perhaps 200 more were either on order or under construction.

The first attempt at a railway gun was during the U.S. Civil War, when the Confederate forces mounted a 32-pound naval gun to a railway flat-car. This was followed by two Union guns of similar design. Similar early versions are noted during the Anglo-Egyptian War (1882) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902). Across Europe, the idea of transporting artillery pieces to the battle front was catching on. However, these were generally just regular field guns on flatcars or old naval guns cobbled together. France was the first nation to design and build a railway gun from the ground up, in 1888. This is briefly mentioned in the “Introduction” and the “Before the War” sections.

The chapter titled, “Design and Development” is the heart of the book. It is subdivided into individual years, so the overall progression is laid out in chronological order. The subsection “1914 and 1915: The First Railway Guns” covers the transition from field guns bolted to flatcars, to the beginnings of large guns on specially designed heavy mounts. France took the early lead here. Interestingly, Germany did not build any true railway guns during this time. Instead, she focused on building large guns that fired from concrete and steel firing platforms, rather than a stretch of rail.

“Subsection 1916: Greater Range and Fire-power” discusses exactly that, and an accompanying chart lists one French gun with a bore of 400mm (approximately 16 inches) and another with a range of 33km (roughly 22 miles).

French and British designs, as well as Italian, Russian and American types. Also, in early 1917, Germany introduced the 24cm “Theodore Karl” E. gun. Designed by the German Navy in 1916, it used a 24cm (240mm, or roughly 9 ½ inches) naval cannon to fire shells to a range of almost 27km (roughly 17 miles).

As the subsection “1918: Super-Heavy Railway Guns” explains, Britain and France had ramped up production of tanks by 1918, so fewer railway guns were produced in the final year. However, several huge guns were built, even if in limited numbers. The largest bore railway gun of any nation was the French 520mm (approx. 20.5 inches) Obusier Mle 1916 Howitzer. Two were built—one blew up during testing, and the other didn’t finish testing before the war ended.

Railway Guns of World War II (NVG 231) is written by author Steven J. Zaloga. Rather a year-by-year study, Zaloga lays his book out by country. Countries profiled are France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, USSR, Finland, Japan, Britain and USA. The booklet notes that Mr. Zaloga has a Masters degree in history, so perhaps it is not surprising that his writing focuses on the battles and usage, more than the technical aspects, as compared to the WWI book by Romanych and Heuer.

Superguns 1854-1991: Extreme Artillery from the Paris Gun and the V-3 to Iraq’s Project Babylon (NVG 265) is also written by Steven J. Zaloga. This covers four specific guns that don’t qualify as railway guns but are definitely super-sized. These are the Paris Gun, the V-3 London Gun, the M65 Atomic Cannon and the Iraqi Project Babylon gun.
The Paris Gun was so named as it was designed to shell Paris from behind the German lines, 120km (74.5 miles) away. This is an extraordinary range by today’s standards and was unheard of in WWI. While this astonishing gun was delivered to its firing site by rail, it was set up on a permanent concrete firing pad, so it cannot be classed as a true railway gun. Ger-many built three of these massive guns, none of which survive today. All three were destroyed by Germany at the end of the war to prevent the allies from capturing them.

The V-3 London Gun was a WWII project that was supposed to shell London, as the name suggests. The most notable feature of the London Gun was the use of multiple chambers to boost the velocity. Each of these chambers contained an additional propellant charge. As the shell traveled down the barrel, it ignited these charges as it passed by. Several smaller prototypes were fired on testing ranges, but it was never fired in actual combat. A full-size underground gun emplacement was under construction in northern France, roughly 100 miles from London; however, it was badly damaged in a bombing raid before it was completed. This site is now a museum.

The M65 “Atomic Annie” was a U.S. Army cannon that could fire an atomic shell. The 280mm-diameter (roughly 11 inches) canon contained a 15 kiloton warhead. This is equivalent to the Hiroshima “Little Boy” bomb.

Project Babylon refers to an Iraqi gun that was built into the side of a mountain, somewhat similar to the WWII German V-3 London Gun. The Babylon guns included a 300mm prototype, to be followed by a 1000mm (39-inch diameter) monster meant to shell Israel at a range of about 450 miles! Although the Babylon guns did not use the multiple chamber system of the V-3, they were built into the side of a hill to support the huge barrel. As the book explains, the project came to a sudden end when the designer was killed. The strong suspicion is that Israeli Mossad agents assassinated him to end the project.

Each of these three booklets does a nice job of describing the equipment. They contain many period photographs, as well as several full-color painting illustrations. These artworks are very well done, often portraying the guns in action. Other illustrations depict a side view of significant guns.

Each title is available as a paperback or as an ePub or PDF ebook (ospreypublishing. com). The paperback editions sell for USD $18.00 each.