Introduction
The Paris Gun, also called the "Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz" ("Emperor William Gun”), was a long-range siege gun produced by the German arms manufacturer, Krupp, during World War I. The guns were so called because they were distinctively built to shell Paris at an extravagant, never before procured range of 121 km (75 miles).
They were the largest pieces of artillery used during the war by barrel length, and are considered to be superguns.
When Was It Used
The gun was put into service from March to August 1918, and the gun was first fired from the forest of Coucy. The first shell landed at 7:18 a.m. on March 21st 1918 on the Quai de la Seine. Shells continued to land at 15 minute intervals, with 21 counted on the first day.…show more content… The Paris Gun shells weighed 106 kg (234 lb). The shells originally used, had a diameter of 216 mm (8.5 in) and a length of 960 mm (38 in). The main body of the shell was composed of thick steel, containing 7 kg (15 lb) of TNT. The shells were propelled at such a high velocity, that each successive shot wore away a considerable amount of steel from the rifled bore. Each shell was deliberately numbered according to its increasing diameter. The gun was capable of firing 106-kilogram (234 lb) shells to a range of 130 kilometers (81 mi) and a maximum altitude of 42.3 kilometers (26.3 mi). This was the greatest height reached by a human-man missle, 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 meters per second (5,400 ft/s)
And we're the first human-made objects to reach the stratosphere.
Who Used It?
The guns were used by The German Empire, and the gun itself was attentively protected until it was destroyed in March
