The Paris Gun: Germany's Infamous Artillery Weapon from World War I 

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"Barrel droop" - It can happen to the best of us.

Mega Project: The evacuation of the Soviet Union's war industry and work force to the Ural mountains, one of the largest migrations of population and material in human history.

I read somewhere that the range on this gun was so long that they had to take into account the Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of the Earth, which made the shells deflect to the west of where they were aiming. Tricky thing to do in an age before computers, or even calculators...

Mega Projects topic suggestion: The Greenbank Telescope (The world's largest fully steerable radio telescope in Greenbank, West Virginia in the USA)

The amount of technology and engineering for that time is impressive. So many details and effort went into the gun it boggles the mind. All done without computers.

Simonception: one week ago: "we already covered the paris gun on this channel..." today: the paris gun

The Parisian didn't realize they were being shelled at first, since they were miles from the front lines. They thought a gas pipe exploded.

Army: "Shooting civilians is easy, they don't shoot back" Civilians: "And I took that personally."

Is this gun big enough sir? More. Ok, And now? More! This is madness! MORE!!!!

‘Nooo you can’t just circumvent the front lines!’ “Haha Wilhelm go brr”

One of the most intresting things about the paris gun is, that thanks to the earth rotation and the long time the bulltets fly, they had to hold up for paris, as it was a moving target.

1:40 - Chapter 1 - The paris gun 3:20 - Chapter 2 - Big guns 5:10 - Mid roll ads 6:35 - Chapter 3 - Development 8:45 - Chapter 4 - Ammunition 10:55 - Chapter 5 - Mountings 11:30 - Chapter 6 - In action 13:45 - Chapter 7 - A psychological gun

Shelling at 15 minute intervals has the maximum psychological effect on its victims. Frequent enough to make you worry that you're next. Not so often that you get mentally numbed and accept your fate.

Thanks

I was a gunner on a 155m m198 howitzer in Iraq in 03 it could shoot 18 miles and hit within a 10 meters of the target with modern technology. Greatest adrenaline rush of my life. I couldn’t imagine shooting a gun that big insane!!!

5:06 you can tell that as a Brit Simon is enjoying the prospect of shelling Paris just a little bit too much.

I always get so pumped for the ad-reads, and then I remember that this is not a Business Blaze video😂 Great content as always Simon & team. Thank you for the many hours of entertainment you chaps provide.

Finally! Thank you, Simon.

Best part is that is still sub-battleship diameter shells Paris gun- 9.3"/233mm gun Treaty compliant cruiser- 8"/203.2mm gun Treaty battleship- up to 16"/406.4mm Yamato battleship- 18"/457.2mm One battleship can have 6-12 of these monsters making any land based artillery look like a common peasant

I’m surprised each time he DOESNT announce a new YT channel. “Hey if you enjoyed this video then you might enjoy our new channel...”

Always appreciate your videos, thanks to you and the crew.

I've had Magellan TV for a while. And there are not new documentaries every week. It's had the same history documentaries with nothing new since I got it about a year ago

Thank you for this and all of your great videos!

German soldiers:We can't get to Paris yet! How are we supposed to drop shells on it German High command:Hm L O N G G U N

Hi Simon ;~) ty for your channels! when you are disabled and mostly bed ridden, educational videos make it easier to ignore the pain and get through the day. ty again for the honorable mention to Queen Budica ;~)

Very good video once again, did a few shells fired by a similar (or the same) weapon hit the south coast of England, I seem to recall hearing about this happening. Thanks for this most interesting series.

Dambusters - Operation Chastise and the bouncing bombs would be a fantastic Megaprojects

Find yourself someone who looks at you the same way Simon looks at massive weapon mega projects

"Barrel Droop" Aaaaand, I'm suddenly a child again.

I could listen to you all day, watch all day. Please Simon, would you make longer Videos with regards to WWII logistics

Krupp now makes household appliances . These Big Guns were a waste of time and steel , They were a feat of engineering and manufacturing .

Simon thanks for your time and work also thanks for posting.......

Great presentation Simon!

There was a great movie called The Doomsday Gun with Frank Langella who played Canadian artillery designer Gerald Bull. He was inspired by the Paris Gun to build a modern version for the Iraqis.

Can't even express the joy I feel watching your new videos, Simon. Love your work!!

When your gun has a suspension bridge to hold it up, you know you've gone too large lol

Stupidly large guns may be a bad idea, but it's hard to deny they are pretty damn cool.

Literally choked on my coffee when Simon said "Now we'll start shelling the City of Lights in just a moment, don't worry..." 🤣

@megaprojects for some reason it bothers me that the door in the background is always open...... but that is just me. Keep up the good work Simon and the rest of the crew

When a gun is so big it needs its own suspension bridge on the barrel....

Simon, please do a megaproject on the origins, demise, and recovery of the Vasa, Sweden's greatest warship.

One of my German co-workers told me that Krupp hid the barrels of the Paris Gun in the smokestacks of Krupp Iron Works, but had no explanation as to how it was placed there.

Does it fire 600 rounds a second?

good series. make more pls

Last time I was this early, Simon still had an afro.

When the Paris Gun fired, the other artillery in the vicinity would open up in a coordinated salvo to disguise it.

Bloody hell you cover interesting things. Thanks folks!

I watched this after A Business Blaze video. High octane Simon vs barely alert Simon... How fun!

"Now we start shelling the city of lights in just a moment!" 5:07 I am German and I approve this message :-D Sorry, esp. to my fellow Frenchman, for my dark Humor, but I couldn't resist :-D

I have been to many cities in my life. None do I hate more than Paris. Where can I get a t-shirt of this gun?

Good video 👍

Anyone have a link to that MRE-sourcing series?

This was the most awaited video of the channel 🤩😭

It's weird to think how much crazier the world was just 100 years ago.

Hey Canada! Help a fellow canadian broaden the worlds knowledge of Canada and it's people! The Rideau Canal and river system for mega/side projects and Francis Pegahmagabow for biographics! Peggy is the most skilled sniper of the Great War!

Behind the Bastards has an excellent episode on this Krupp character

Mega Project idea: The "Mining and Chemical Combine" in Zheleznogorsk, Russia. A Plutonium production plant. The entire facility was built 200 meters into the mountain, and contains 3 Nuclear Reactors (Basically the same design as РБМК, like in Chernobyl),1 АД and 2 АДЭ (АДЭ-2 provided power and heating to the workers city, Zheleznogorsk). The facility has its own railway and electric locomotive. Now the Plutonium production is stopped (since 95'), and the reactors were shut down. Now they produce MOX fuel for fast liquid metal Reactors (for now, БН-800).

I think the barrel extended more like 7 mm with each shot, didn't it? I mean, with 7 cm, you have almost a meter at 14 shots.

Do a Side projects (or megaprojects) on MK Ultra

There ws no Sundy service' on 29 March 1918 since it was Friday. It was, however, Good Friday.

Very cool. Any chance you can do a video on the Karl Gerät?

The Paris Gun was not a tactical or strategic weapon. It was a terror weapon.

Now I know where the air cannon designs come from on the pumpkin chunkin guns

The French were able to reconstruct some of the fired shells by piecing together hundreds of fragments, that gave them the bore and also told them how the guns were wearing. Its thought two guns were in action for a period, according to a chapter in the book "The Big Guns" by Parnells.

There is some speculation that when the Paris gun fired its shells at 170-second trajectory with a maximum altitude at 40 km, those rounds might've been the first man-made objects to reach the edge of space!

Do a side projects on the Chrysler T-8 tank, and its Soviet counterpart.

Very good

Big gun day perfectly describes my watch pattern today, well played sir

You might add in the description that one reason we know about the specifics of the Paris Gun is because Gerald Bull (of the Iraqi Supergun) wrote a book about it. That book itself is long out of pring, and goes for hundreds of dollars last I looked, but think a lot of what we know about the Paris gun comes from it.

Whats sad is that the Paris gun is always overshadowed by the Schwerer Gustav, which was a successful version of it, and was more accurate. The Paris gun could shoot shells even more further away and could launch a shell so high up, it could literally touch the bottom of the stratosphere. Very under appreciated for being the Gustav's father. Wish its more appreciated.

Love your videos just a suggestion make video about suckoi 30 and f 22

I had a Krupp crane excellent quality. Thyssen Krupp make s elevator s and industrial equipment. Manitowoc Grove owns Krupp since 1996.

All I know is I want one. Don't worry about the crew, Hell I'll be so excited , I will crew it my self.

The most enjoyment came when you said it was a complicated pain in the ass to use, I laughed my ass off.

Imagine if the german thinking about how to make artillery move by giving an engine to it and giving it armor so the person that operate it didn't die. Essentially just a tank, but in keep in mind that tank is not present until in the later stage of the war and its because of the british made it, they named it tanks so it wouldn't heard that scary in the ear of german spy, because in that day and age tank is refered to water tank. Just imagine if the german think about tank first rathee that the paris gun, its kinda strect but germany win the great war is a posibilty, as well if the US official language change from English to German, because at the time, German is one of major language in the country

Simon any chance a video on the Appalachian trail would be possible on one of the channels?

Simon please do the Mecca Clock Tower!

Have you done a video about the Space Guns? This would essentially be the descendant of this concept.

not sure what channel it would fit on but a theoretical mega project would be the EVE online Keepstar

So where's the series on MREs? Got to watch it!

Ever done a video about the making of the road from the lower 48 states to Alaska?

In the phallic world of artillery I suspect that in addition to bore wear, Krupp & K. Willy also concerned about "shrinkage".

Have you done one on Arecibo?

Imagine if smaller shells were wrapped in something like teflon. It would save the barrels, increase the range, lower the weight, & be cheaper to make.

For a gun that wasn't very good it sure killed a bunch of people.

Topic suggestion : Mir Space Station

whats the very quiet background music playing through out the video around 9mins to 9:30ish? its the same as a piece of music I cant find that was used by a channel called Ask clauswitz in a video called "Why do we fight"

You know how many T 55 main battle tanks you could build with the steel used to build the Paris Gun?....... I don't either but I bet a Megaproject video on the most produced tank of all time would know ; ).

“Due to the weapon's apparent total destruction by the Germans in the face of the final Allied offensives, its capabilities are not known with full certainty. Figures stated for the weapon's size, range, and performance varied widely depending on the source-not even the number of shells fired is certain.” “ With the discovery (in the 1980s) and publication (in the Bull and Murphy book) of a long note on the gun written shortly before his death in 1926 by Dr. Fritz Rausenberger, who was in charge of its development at Krupp, the details of its design and capabilities were considerably clarified.” “The gun was capable of firing a 106-kilogram (234 lb) shell to a range of 130 kilometres (81 mi) and a maximum altitude of 42.3 km (26.3 mi) the greatest height reached by a human-made projectile until the first successful V-2 flight test in October 1942. At the start of its 182-second trajectory, each shell from the Paris Gun reached a speed of 1,640 m/s (5,904 km/h; 5,381 ft/s; 3,669 mph).” “The distance was so far that the Coriolis effect-the rotation of the Earth-was substantial enough to affect trajectory calculations. The gun was fired at an azimuth of 232 degrees (west-southwest) from Crépy-en-Laon, which was at a latitude of 49.5 degrees north.” “Seven barrels were constructed. They used worn-out 38 cm SK L/45 "Max"17,130 millimeter gun barrels that were fitted with an internal tube that reduced the caliber from 380 mm (15 in) to 210 mm (8 in). The tube was 21 metres (69 ft) long and projected 3.9 m (13 ft) out of the end of the gun, so an extension was bolted to the old gun-muzzle to cover and reinforce the lining tube.” “A further, 6-meter-long smooth-bore extension was attached to the end of this, giving a total barrel length of 37 m (121 ft).This smooth section was intended to improve accuracy and reduce the dispersion of the shells, as it reduced the slight yaw a shell might have immediately after leaving the gun barrel produced by the gun's rifling.” “The barrel was braced to counteract barrel drop due to its length and weight, and vibrations while firing; it was mounted on a special rail-transportable carriage and fired from a prepared, concrete emplacement with a turntable. The original breech of the old 38 cm gun did not require modification or reinforcement.” “Since it was based on a naval weapon, the gun was manned by a crew of 80 Imperial Navy sailors under the command of Vice-Admiral Maximilian Rogge, chief of the Ordnance branch of the Admiralty. It was surrounded by several batteries of standard army artillery to create a "noise-screen" chorus around the big gun so that it could not be located by French and British spotters.” “The projectile was flying significantly higher than projectiles from previous guns. Writer and journalist Adam Hochschild put it this way: "It took about three minutes for each giant shell to cover the distance to the city, climbing to an altitude of 25 miles [40 km] at the top of its trajectory.” “ This was by far the highest point ever reached by a man-made object, so high that gunners, in calculating where the shells would land, had to take into account the rotation of the Earth. For the first time in warfare, deadly projectiles rained down on civilians from the stratosphere". This reduced drag from air resistance, allowing the shell to achieve a range of over 130 kilometres (81 mi).”

the Aztec capital built in the middle of a lake might be a good mega project

Topic suggestions: the Thrust Ssc

Please do a video about the Gateway Arch National Park and monument in downtown St. Louis.

what was the kinetic impact like?

"Having a big gun day" is actually just called tuesday in America

Makes me wonder if this is the end game for railguns. They require enormous amounts of power so they are more suited to land. In the hands of the crowded nations of Europe I can see this type of long range guns being worth the investment. Unlike missiles these can not be intercepted.

The book “Paris kanonen” by Gerald bull is the definitive work on the Paris gun an includes almost all known photos and technical information on the gun.

The fun part of the weapon was that it required adjusting for the rotation of the planet in the aiming.

Mega projects topic suggestion: The royal arsenal in woolwich.

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