Confederate railway gun captured by Union forces, US Civil War, 1864
Confederate railway gun captured by Union forces, US Civil War, 1864
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Does that thing have a big turntable under there somewhere? Because from the photo, it looks like it can shoot in exactly or almost exactly the direction the rails happen to be pointing, and if you need to shoot somewhere more than two or three degrees to either side, you're SOL…
It doesn't look like it. They did sometimes use a kind of turntable to allow regular cannons to easily change direction, but I don't think the same was done with these.
Maybe it's because of the recoil?
Having the canon alligned with the track allows it to move with the recoil while having it slightly angled may make it derail 🤷♂️
I'm guessing it was used almost exclusively to destroy trains.
Siege of Petersburg, I believe, so trading fire between two relatively static lines.
We're huntin trains today, Billy.
Id expect it was intended to be operated on a curved section of tracks to allow it to aim and function as artillery. Similar concept as the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav