Railway Guns by Calais

In the area around Calais in northern France, where the distance to England was the smallest, the Germans during the war put up a series of railway gun battery’s.

This special type of guns were characterized by a very long gun barrol and a consequent very long reach. The guns had all been produced in the 30’s by Gustav Krupp.

One of the more famous types were a 210 mm. gun called K 12 (E) which could send its 50 numbered shells at a distance of 115 km. Two of these guns were positioned at Hydrequent, south of Calais.

The most common gun was a 280 mm. gun called K 5 (E). It had an effective range of 50 km. but did not provide any limitation of number of shots before the barrel had to be replaced! The long barrel gave the guns a very high precision.

To protect these vulnerable guns that had not armor or turrets, the Germans build in the area around Calais, three garage bunkers, popularly known asDom bunkers. These was in its simplicity a long tube of reinforced concrete with armored doors at the ends to which the guns could be kept until they have to give shots.

Each gun battery had generally two identical guns, one was in reserve. When the guns shouldfire, they were moved out of the bunker and by moving the front axis to the side, you could set the shot direction.