(Moved from Ordnance Page 2 on 12 Feb 2002).
More on the 280mm Atomic Cannon - moved to this page 26 Aug 03.
On Ordnance Continuation Page 2:
RAILROAD GUNS.
ATOMIC CANNON - moved to this page 26 Aug 03.
SMALL ARMS.
On Ordnance Continuation Page 3:
CALIBER (Calibre).
Anzio Annie.
SMALL ARMS (moved from Page 2 on 13 Apr 00)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Russian Armor.
HELP!
On this Atomic Cannon Page:
ATOMIC CANNON
Atomic Cannon CQ (Seek You = HELP!)
On the Atomic Cannon Pictures Page:
Battery B, 265th Field Artillery
Battalion, Baumholder, Germany, 1955 and 1956.
Atomic Cannon Training Manual.
Comet Metal Products Authenticast Models Page.
As noted on Page 1, army ordnance buffs should visit the
Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen
Proving Ground off Routes 40 and I95 just south of Havre de Grâce and the
Susquehanna River Toll Bridge - very much worth the time (and allow plenty of that,
in proportion to your interest!). There are acres of tanks and armored vehicles,
domestic and foreign, of all eras, Anzio Annie, a 280mm Atomic Cannon, a 16" coastal
defence gun, a V1 buzz bomb and a V2 rocket, and a great indoor museum with a fine
small arms collection! This fabulous museum is an absolute must for the
ordnance devotée! More about the Museum and its history is on Page 1.
Here is Anzio Annie (the 280mm German "Leopold" K5 railroad
gun before she came to APG:
(Ordnance Museum Foundation Photo)
Annie was the design basis for our 280mm Atomic Cannon.
[More on Anzio Annie on Page 3.]
Atomic Cannon
(moved from Ordnance Continuation Page 2 on 26 Aug 03)
Actually, our own M65 280mm Atomic Cannon was also a
Schnabel@ vehicle; the T-131 cannon was mounted on a
bridgework carried between two huge rubber-tired 6x6 truck tractors with load arms
(the T-10 Heavy Artillery Transporter); the front truck has load arms pointed to the
rear while the rear truck had the load arms pointed toward the front. When
they were deployed in Germany after the war (WWII), as the production M65, they
tipped over with appalling regularity while traversing tight turns in tiny towns {a
tongue-tripper}.
A new (24 Feb 01) Web friend in Germany sent me these four photos (by his friend) of
an M65 set turning a corner, ca. 1955-56, in Geislingen an der Steige, a little town in
Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located by the railway line from Stuttgart to Ulm (that
small girl and the bicyclist are absolutely frozen in their tracks!):
(Photos by Frieder Welle, Neckarstrasse 59, 73329 Kuchen/Fils
(a little village near Geislingen) - all rights reserved.)
(Thumbnail images; click on photos for larger images.)
[09 Dec 04 - This is what I love about the Net; these images were
lost and my source,
after three years, responded instantly and replaced them!]
It looks as if it were monstrously difficult to manoeuver these beasts but steering the
rear unit was actually little different than steering the rear of an articulated
"hook-and-ladder' fire truck; any experienced fire department "tillerman" could easily
get the hang of it. The big difference was that the rear tractor was powered,
so that the rear unit could easily overpower the rig and, on a tight turn, push it right
over. Actually, the partcular intersection shown is quite broad, with a
convenient chamfer on the inside corner (probably very carefully selected for that very
reason), and the turn was quite moderate; it was on the more typical tiny streets,
often with a well or ancient monument smack dab in the middle of an intersection, that
even the most skillful drivers came to grief.
The gentleman who sent these photos wrote that the "noise of the engines in the
narrow street" was "tremendous!" I had forgotten how loud they were; my
tests at APG were all out in the open but a vague memory of the units running
between the facilities buildings stirs in the innermost recesses of my mind. I
am so very grateful for these photos; they, or similar ones, were published here in the
U.S. at that time but I never thought I'd see such on my site! I have a
ca.-1945 near-HO model (actually 1:108, 1" = 9'):
(29 Dec 06)
This 50+-year-old Comet Authenticast model still
looks reasonably good; it's 10" long (90' at 1:108 scale) and was made by Comet
Metal Products of Richmond Hill (Jamaica area), Long Island, New York, as part of their
WWII tank and armored vehicle series (and is older than the "M65" production designation);
Authenticast now has its own separate page. Here's what's left of the original
box:
(29 Dec 06)
(Ca. 1945 model and box and 1999 photos by - and © 1999 - S. Berliner, III)
Here's a more current shot of the real thing, the unit preserved at the U. S. Army
Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland:
(Ordnance Museum Foundation Photo)
@ - As I had noted on my Schnabel railroad car
page, I thought I had neglected to mention that the U. S. Army's 280mm Atomic
Cannon was actually a road Schnabel (I had done so elsewhere on this page, now
moved here). I have an original Comet Metal Products AUTHENTICAST
HO model; it turned up and I put the picture above.
11 & 14 Jan 2002 - I heard from the son of a sergeant "on a 280mm crew who was in
Frankfurt from 1960-62/3 with the 82nd Artillery and was one of the drivers.
He has a lot of stories about the cannon and quite a few of them revolve around
transporting it. Seems they stuck it into the sides of more than one building.
He also still has a crease in his skull from the barrel dropping down on him. It
seems some nitwit pulled the locking pin without checking to see if anyone was in the
way. The barrel dropped a few inches and nailed him in the head. He
said if it wasn't for the mud on the ground, it probably would have killed or maimed
him." Unfortunately, this gentleman's photo album was filched from his
footlocker, so no pix. Well, it turns out that "it was someone else that had the
barrel hit him in the head and was lucky he was standing in the mud. He didn't
see it, but had heard about it. What happened to my dad was a separate
incident. While doing maintenance, some guy pulled the lock pin without
announcing it. My dad was standing on the ground next to the crank wheel
that elevates the muzzle and when the muzzle fell, the wheel spun around and the
handle nailed him in the head. Knocked him out cold and left a small crease in
his skull. Kind of funny when you think about it....but lucky it didn't kill him."
"Said he had some pictures of the 280mm, carriage and transports, upside-down in a
ditch. Also had some pics of when the mechanism that retracts the muzzle for
transport failed and shot the works out the back of the carriage." Oh, would I
love to get and post those purloined pix!
"Son of a Sergeant" - e-mail me; a man who was in C
Battery, 265 FA BN, Baumholder, in January 1957, wants to get in touch.
On 12 May 02, I heard from Gary R. Del Carlo (USA, Ret'd), who was with B Battery,
3rd Gun Battalion, 80th Artillery, stationed in Bamberg, Germany in 1960; A Battery
was located in Schweinfurt, Germany. In his own words
{ever-so-slightly-edited, and annotated as italicized}:
- - - · - - -
" These were 280mm cannon. While I was there, we never had a motor on the
gun, so everything was manual. I was 6' 2" then, so I stood on the ground
while another guy stood on a platform, and we used the elevating crank to elevate
and lower the tube. The tube was taken in and out of battery (traveling
position and firing position). When bringing the tube back to the traveling
position, the tube is brought back by a large cable. It then comes to two large
blocks with a hole in each. Corresponding blocks on the tube match up with
them so the holes match up. Then a large pin is inserted into the hole, and a
cotter pin slid in that. The breech end of the tube is secure then. Our
training area was somewhere outside of Schweinfurt. One day they were
bringing the tube back into the traveling position, when the winch brought the tube
back too far, and the tube went all the way out, and onto the ground {I sure wish
I'd seen THAT!}. That tube weighed thousands of pounds. Luckily
there was no one back there. It sheared off the blocks that were attached to
the gun. They had to bring welders so they could attach two more blocks.
Then they had to bring a helicopter to lift the tube, and set it down on the gun.
I didn't have a camera back then so I don't have any pictures of this or of the gun
itself {just our luck!}."
"While with the 80th Artillery, I never saw or heard of a gun tipping over on it's side,
while turning {they did, in fact}. There were walls knocked out by the
B Unit (rear) while turning, though. We went to Grafenwohr, Germany to fire
the gun twice a year. I believe they only fired twice, because the tube life
wasn't very long, I understand. The gun was set down on it's base.
There were anchors that were driven into the ground, and attached to the gun.
Still, when the gun was fired, it seemed that the entire gun lifted off of the ground.
You could actually see the round coming out of the tube {I can attest to that},
and it smelled like rotten eggs {normal smell of burned propellant}.
The person that fired the gun used a long lanyard. It was either 50 foot or 50 yards,
I don't remember. Probably 50 feet. We were further away than that
and we laid down with our hands over our earplugged ears. They had to park
the vehicles at a certain angle because if they weren't, the concussion would break
the glass."
"Unlike other artillery pieces, the breech opened down, instead of to your right.
It took two crewmen to open the breech. If I remember correctly, it called for a
21-man crew. We never had that many, but you really didn't need that many
to set up and fire the gun."
"The A Unit had two forks coming out the back. The B Unit had two forks
coming out the front. On each end of the forks was a large link, like a chain link
{a loop}. They attached under a down curved piece on either side of
the ends of the gun. Then they raised the gun up off the ground for traveling.
When the gun was lifted to a certain point, two square holes lined up with the gun
and the Unit. Then a very large wedge fitted in the holes, with a very large
cotter pin through the wedges."
"We deactivated December 1960/January 1961."
- - - · - - -
Thanks, Gary!
More on the 280mm Atomic Cannon (moved from Ordnance page 1 on 26 Aug
03):
Hal Hildebrecht (haltrvlr@aol.com) from
Cleveland, Ohio, wrote 27 Sep 02 that he was with the 868 FA BN at Fort Bragg and
Baumholder, Germany, from 1953 to 1956 with the 280mm Atomic Cannon, serving as
driver, cannoneer, artillery mechanic, and finally Section Chief. He used to fire
the piece with a 3' rope and then ride the carriage back into battery (nuts, just like
me!) and is still surprised he can hear anything today. He wrote again on
03 Oct 02 that may he have started the "Atomic Annie" nickname by painting names
and pictures on all the battalian guns, Atomic Annie (with a witch riding a shell), L'il
Ajax, Ye Olde Ironsides, etc. His gun appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in
October, 1953, and the name may have stuck from that.
Hal sent pictures but I couldn't download them; stay tuned.
Hal is the guy who has a copy of that picture of an inverted 280 with all the wheels in
the air, after turning turtle in Germany; can't wait to see it again after all these years!
He also still has his 1958 Renwal model and sent a slew of pix; unfortunately, the
lighting was poor, so I'll only show a representative few, cropped and at much lower
resolution:
(Cropped and altered from photos by H. Hildebrecht - all rights reserved)
(Cropped and altered from photos by H. Hildebrecht - all rights reserved)
There is a kit on eBay as I write this (03 Mar 03), Item #3117941072, already over
$150.00(!) with 8 hours to go! Ludicrously, it's listed under
"Toys & Hobbies:Models:Military:Air! Hot, maybe.
Here's a stein from C Battery, 265th Field Artillery Battalion in Baumholder, 1955-58:
[eBay Item #2160347750 - photos by, and with permission of, A. W. (seller), NL - all rights reserved.]
The stein is 9" high and bears the shield of the 265th, reading "Optimus Peromnia".
The 265th was renumbered the 868th sometime in 1957.
Incidentally, the 280 (11") is an odd caliber; the U. S. Army has (or had) a standard
series of gun carriages and gun motor carriages in which the long gun and
corresponding short howitzer shared all components except barrel, ammo, recoil, and
equilibration. They are noted on Ordnance Continuation Page 1.
While rummaging around in old photos, I ran across this sequence I took from the
reviewing stand at Aberdeen Proving Ground at the Armed Forces Day
Demonstration on 19 May 1956; they are labelled "Approach, Set
Down, Remove Trucks, Fire, Pick Up, and Depart. Unfortunately, that last is
both out of focus and light-struck, so I excerpted a detail of the set moving away and
another of a tall, ramrod-straight, distinguished white-haired civilian in the stand who
I believe was my dearly belovèd professor (and department head) of Army ROTC at
MIT in 1951-52, Col. (ret'd) Samuel Hall (my notes say he was in the stands that day):
(19May56 photos by and © 1956, 2003 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
The whole procedure only took a few minutes and, as you can see, there's no 21 man
crew, either - perhaps a half-dozen can do it!
Dig the officer in a Sam Brown belt at the top left rear in the stand!
I was there as a guest, this time, as a member of the American (formerly Army)
Ordnance (and later Defense Preparedness) Association.
Something turned up from that review, that I had completely forgotten I (still)
had, a gift from a Chrysler rep., this lapel pin:
[Photo by and © 2005 - S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved]
It shows an M48 Patton II tank (Chrysler-built) with the word "Chrysler"
superposed where the return rollers should be. I had already left
Aberdeen when the M46 Patton was new and did not get to work on the M48
Patton II. The pin measures ¾" long, overall.
On 07 Dec 2004, I heard from "the 280 mm Instructor at the Ordnance School,
Aberdeen Proving Ground, in 1954 -1956 era", who advised that "the cannon barrel
was produced at the Watertown Arsenal, Watertown, MA, now a Home Depot."; he
was present at the Armed Forces Day May 1956 pictured above.
Not at all incidentally (it wasn't called the Atomic Cannon or Atomic Annie
for nothing you know), this is what it was all about:
(Photo courtesy of Les Canons de l'Apocalypse - all rights reserved)
This was on 25 May 1953, when gun #9 fired the only live round ever, a 15 Kiloton
weapon, at a distance of 17 miles (27 km) at the Nevada atomic test site; as best as
I recall, this was the idiotic exercise where real, live (then) soldiers participated and
were sent into the base of the mushroom cloud {wonder how they are today? -
SB,III}.
Speaking of gun #9, "Atomic Annie" survives at the Artllery Museum at Fort
Sill in Oklahoma; here she is in the background of a class picture taken for the
27 Oct 05 BNCOC (Basic Non Commissioned Officers Course) for SSG E-6:
[Photo courtesy of J. Jamison - all rights reserved]
Oddly, on Richard Seaman's fantastic
Aviation Museum page [see also his great
Air Shows page (this Kiwi gets around!)], I ran across another gun; this
one, misidentified as "Atomic Annie" (maybe they're ALL called that, now), is
sitting at the sadly-neglected Norfolk Air Power Park in Virginia:
[Photo by, and courtesy of, R. Seaman, by permission - artificially lightened -
all rights reserved]
That barrel looks so odd l hardly recognized the piece; what are all those
barrel bands all about?
On Jun 2006, I heard from one J. Shaffer who knew an infantryman stationed in West
Germany in '56 who was on bivouac one night when the crew of an M65 popped a
round which "happened to land on the tent of the guys next to him. Big hole
and lots of paperwork and such. Obviously a non-nuke". Obviously!
(29 Dec 06)
280mm Cannoneers - see this site:
42nd FA Bn, USAREUR.
Much more on the Atomic Cannon follows on the
Atomic Cannon Pictures Page.
I found three fantastic sites with coverage of the 280 and of AFVs and also one with
coverage of superguns; I started a new, separate
page on the latter. The sites are:
Les Canons de l'Apocalypse (The Cannons of the Apocalypse), in French, as noted above,
AFV Database, and
JED Military Enthusiasts Directory
and
Encyclopedia Astronautica - Gun-Launched.
Atomic Cannon CQ (Seek You = HELP!)
A correspondent thought that the atomic shells were carried to the gun by a
converted jeep amd asked for information on this jeep but I don't recall any such.
None appears on my 19 May 1956 photo sequence of setup, firing, and knock-down at
APG (above0 and those shells were 600 lbs each, with 158 lbs for each full powder
charge, so a ¼-ton truck wouldn't have been of much use. Even beefed
up, it would have only carried one shell and charge, let alone more than one set. Can
anyone set us straight on how the shells and charges were carried to the guns?
(12 Oct 06)
The son of an Atomic Cannoneer seeks information on his father's unit, "C" Battery,
868th Field Artillery Battalion; any help will be appreciated (08 Dec 04).
Others have written me for help reaching buddies. I am not a canoneer and
am not willing to serve as a clearinghouse for you guys to get together; if there is a
central website or e-address, please advise me and I will happily post it here.
The ORDNANCE Main Page had to be split; it continues on ORDNANCE Continuation Page 1, ORDNANCE Continuation Page 2, and, in turn, continues on ORDNANCE Continuation Page 3.
THUMBS UP!
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S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
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