Dora Railgun Locomotive Question

Found it--it's in :dietailed interior tanks--railway guns--and scratch building-on the 2nd. page. 

Thanks Santa! I enjoy a research challenge and this thread is particularly interesting.  Don't worry about the spelling.  I'm both dyslexic and dysgraphic.  It took me 3 tries to spell "lap" the other night. I hate the ball and stick letters.  I pull myself as a result to be correct.  Of course, I also take multiple language courses so I turn my letters in 2 alphabets and confuse words in 4 additional languages.

Hmmm... I think that Sq/Si book has just got bumped higher on my want list.  {Then again that list includes every book in every subject I'm interested in, minus those I already have...I try to limit the written list to those 100 or so I most want.  (Yes I'm a bibliophile. Deal with it.)}

In a couple of those pics, it seems to have a muzzle cap.  That seems odd.  I can see them wanting to keep debris out when not in use, but did they use the gantry crane to place and remove it because I can't really see it being done by hand.  The kit would be tricky to display in firing position on a base.  All those track lines to space just right.  Of course, Evergreen I beam, hot water and something with the right curvature would net you the rails easily enough, especially in 1/144.  Those gantry cranes though, those would be a prize winners.

 SupressionFire--I think my compleated 1/144th Soar Art model is in this forum somewhair-I will look it up for you.  That kit is the werst kit I have ever strugoled through--a LOT of corrections need to be made to it to make it look like the coler photograph suplied on the box top---I'm not talking about the [box art]. I would be happy to discuss the corrections I made to mine with you.

cassibill--I liked readind your last two posts , thair is good film footage on -Yuthtube  [ please forgive my spelling ]

Heres are some pics and text that might help with this discussion .

They are from squadrons German Rail Guns in action and are property of Squadron Signal publications and are for educational purpose's only.

  The gun was assembled on two sets of tracks with two locomotives built into the base. These were used to move the gun up from the Assembly area to a curved section of track were the gun could be traversed.

Hope they can clear a few things up and good luck with the build. Don't forget to post some pics.

   Steve

I too have read where there is some debate over there being one or two built.  I'm not exactly sure what to believe there. 

On one hand, since the gun was mounted on a temporary caisson for testing, that could reasonable be cause to make someone think there were two seperate guns since the photos would be very different.  However, by tradition the first one is a gift from the maker and they only pay for the rest and there are apparently records of 7 million Reichmarks being paid so I would think that at least a second one far enough along that it was paid for but it could be a sort of "preorder".  There is a lot of evidence that TWO additional guns were well under constuction when Essen was bombed and the factory damaged, causing them to remain incomplete.  Now on that note there is mention of the BARREL of (one of) the gun being changed out and the first sent to the factory for re-man.  The price for the gun was set at something like 10 million RM, so the 7m RM paid to Krupp could have perhaps been for spare parts and/or specialized tools, a second gun, or as I said before, a down payment on the 2 unfinished guns, which would be 3.5m each or 35% which is actually a very reasonable scenario.  Could have also been for the development of something else for the program like a new shell type or the self propelled version that was discussed.  I haven't acquired many references for German armor (it's on my "gap" list for my ref. library), so I'm going by the web and odd bit's I've picked up here and there.  I'm trying to see all the angles and figure out the most likely one.  Anybody see something I've missed or an angle I haven't covered?

Wirraway Great thread! Heh can you get link to 'airlandseacrats' home page, the link to 'engine' page swamps this computer

My Dora in 1/144 scale is only 30% assembled. Somewhere I decided to remove all planks to replace with real wood. Thought the hand rails are out of scale and want to replace them, possibly 'N' scale train types. Boared out the gun to show open breech, that was a project!  Added lots of details to the empty voids on the inside of the superstructure. Would post WIP's, just the kit is 3000 miles away, waiting for me and completion.

Not really an armour guy, but this is a pretty interesting thread!

Wirraway,

  just to clarify, the Warsaw ghetto (the jewish quarter) was brutally cleared by Germans in 1943 with its occupants either killed or sent to concentration camps. So in 1944 DORA would have to fire into the part of the city held by fighting Polish insurgents. Many records indicate some kind of heavy cannon was used to shell Warsaw during the uprising. I found reports about using DORA in september 1944. A Karl Morser No.6 "Ziu" was also used then. My sources also indicate DORA and GUSTAV could have actually been the same machine, GUSTAV being the official name, and DORA given by the artillery men. In the mentioned article: http://www.konflikty.pl/a,785-0,II_wojna_swiatowa,Wielkie_dziala_III_Rzeszy.html (unfortunately in Polish) it's also mentioned that the unit serving the gun counted about 5000 people including: slave workers, Todt organisation contractors, guard batalion, transportation corps batalion, fighter unit, aerial observation unit, HQ, field bakery, camouflage company, field post and two field "fun houses" a 20 women each. What a waste of resources, huh? Have a nice day

Pawel

Wirr, Look at the bottom of the wiki entry for the gun. There is a link of a video of the loading and firing of the gun. At the very beginning it shows the gun advancing.  JUST the gun.  No engine in front and, best I can tell, nothing behind it in push mode, so it had it have some sort of internal propulsion to move it to some degree and the engine also likely powered the loading mech.  It was easier to move in parts but could move itself with some success. But not quickly.

santa

YES !!!   it -was- TRANSPORTED "in parts by rail--THEN assembled "on sight" -as you discribed.   It THEN propelled itself to and from fiaring position.  THEN was "dissasembled back into its componet parts and rieturned to Germany by rail.    You due NOT need an engin to display with an -assembled- Gustav gun.  Only-several trains cairring the component parts.

Well, now I dont know WHO to believe.  The website I referenced initially, has it the other way around- that DORA was the operational gun and GUSTAV never fired a shot in anger.  While I know the dangers of accepting anything on the www as gospel,  Wikipedia says they were BOTH operational, GUSTAV at Sevastopol and DORA near Stalingrad.    I just found another site claiming that DORA was operational during the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and fired 30 rounds into the Warsaw ghetto.  Seems like theres a lot of conflicting stories out there and I'll stick with my call of two engines for propulsion of  DORA until I see proof of something otherwise.

I remember something about the rail spur built for Sevastpol having extra sets of rails at the end not just for Gustav to aim but also for the cranes to manuver while assembling, meaning they were also a form of rail stock. Could they have been the type used in rail yards, maybe modified or were they custom built?  I'm hazarding a guess but I suspect the support train would have contained not only the cars to transport Gustav, but also to carry the ammo, an antiaircraft car or two (something this big needed air cover desperately not only when being used but also when being set up or taken down), troop cars, a boxcar or two to haul supplies for the crew and other types of cars maybe a mobile machine shop to fix parts on site.  The train was supposed to stretch a mile and I would guess that if you combined the right cars you could form an entire support unit.  Dinning cars, bunk cars, it took a crew of 1000 2 1/2 days to set up.  It would be reasonable that the unit was self contained so it would be the most flexible.  Part fact, part logic and a little guess work.

YES !!!   it -was- TRANSPORTED "in parts by rail--THEN assembled "on sight" -as you discribed.   It THEN propelled itself to and from fiaring position.  THEN was "dissasembled back into its componet parts and rieturned to Germany by rail.    You due NOT need an engin to display with an -assembled- Gustav gun.  Only-several trains cairring the component parts.

If it moved itself, did it also move the 25 cars that travelled with it or the rail cranes that assembled it.  I wouldn't think so, since something would have to manuever the cranes while Gustav was stationary or could they have been self propelled as well? Would one of those engines then be accurate for the companion train?  Perhaps the railgun followed by the engine pulling the begining of the trailing cars would make an effective display.

Whot is shown in the Soar Art 1/144 kit is a proposed --3rd--unnamed railway gun with an exstended bairole and smaller bore.  The -2nd- gun that was to be named Dora was never built. The coler photograph that Soar Art suplies on it's box top is the Gustav gun on it's roaling out day.     The Gustav gun was not poshed or pulled by engins--it had it's own -internal-disle elictric drive morters to move it along its raidiased aming tracts.

Wow.. you're right.  None of Trumpeter's kits are even close.  These engines look more like passenger cars than locomotives.  I'll take your advice and look at the scale railway stuff.  Thanks!

I had the same idea for my  small soar art kit.   I have been looking on e-bay in "N" scale, which is pretty close to 1:144 scale, but so far no luck.  There are plenty of diesel loco's but none that look like these.

http://airlandseacraft.blogspot.com/2009/03/doras-engines.html

I recently picked up 100 1:150 scale figures (unpainted)  I'll have to ditch some of them, but should be able to have some crew standing about (considering the actual crew was something like 1000)

I dont think any of the Trumpeter 1/35 offerings look even close.  The WR360 C12 Armoured Loco isnt even close enough for my liking, and the roofline is all wrong.  I think you would be better off looking at scale railway stuff than a model kit loco.  They can be quite cheap second hand if you dont need one that runs.