The 38 cm Siegfried K (E) was a German World War II

railway gun A railway gun, also called a railroad gun, is a large artillery piece, often surplus naval artillery, mounted on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railway wagon. Many countries have built railway guns, but the best-known are ...

based on the 38 cm SK C/34

naval gun Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for shore bombardment and anti-aircraft roles. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firing weapons and excludes ...

that served as the main armament of the s. Only four were produced. ''K'' stands for ''Kanone'' (cannon), ''E'' for ''Eisenbahnlafette'' (on railroad mounting).

Design

Like the 38 cm SK C/34 naval guns deployed as coastal defense, the 38 cm Siegfried K guns were modified with a larger chamber to handle the increased amount of propellant used for the special long-range ''Siegfried'' shells. The gun had no ability to traverse on its mount, relying instead on moving along a curving section of track or on a Vögele turntable to aim. The turntable (''Drehscheibe'') consisted of a circular track with a pivot mount in the center for a platform on which the railroad gun itself was secured. A ramp was used to raise the railway gun to the level of the platform. The platform had rollers at each end which rested on the circular rail for 360° traverse. It had a capacity of , enough for most of the railroad guns in the German inventory. The gun could only be loaded at 0° elevation and so had to be re-aimed for each shot.François, p. 75

Ammunition

The gun used the standard German naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag which was rammed first. Four types of shells were used by the ''38 cm Siegfried K (E)'', including the special long-range ''Siegfried shell (Siegfried—Granate'') developed by the army. Almost 40 per-cent lighter, it could be fired with a reduced charge at to . With a full charge it reached and could travel –equivalent to over 34.5 miles.Hogg, pp. 242-3

Notes

References

* Campbell, John. ''Naval Weapons of World War Two''. London: Conway Maritime Press, 2002 * François, Guy. ''Eisenbahnartillerie: Histoire de l'artillerie lourd sur voie ferrée allemande des origines à 1945''. Paris: Editions Histoire et Fortifications, 2006 * Gander, Terry and Chamberlain, Peter. ''Weapons of the Third Reich: An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the German Land Forces 1939-1945''. New York: Doubleday, 1979 * Hogg, Ian V. ''German Artillery of World War Two''. 2nd corrected edition. Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997 * Kosar, Franz. ''Eisenbahngeschütz der Welt''. Stuttgart: Motorbook, 1999

External links

38 cm Siegfried K (E) at NavWeaps.com

{{WWIIGermanGuns World War II artillery of Germany Railway guns 380 mm artillery Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1941