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Bad ideas in war

Gawdzilla Sama said:
Were any of the rail guns (like Schwerer Gustav in WWII) mounted on curved rails? I imagine most would be on straight and pivot on the car but there's a limit to that.
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To return to this, after studying a bit more, most couldn't pivot on the car at all, though apparently some of the "smaller" guns could pivot +/- 1°. It appears that you were correct, sometimes they did build gently curved rails for them. So thanks, I learned something new. Also sometimes they would build a giant turnstile to turn the whole bloody thing around, if they wanted even more room to turn.
 
In WW1 a battery of 12" Railway Guns were stationed at Brotton the village where I grew up. It's on the southern edge of the Tees Bay in North Yorkshire.
They were to defend the mouth of the river Tees.
The railway through Brotton goes round Huntcliff in a big horseshoe curve and runs along the top of the cliffs giving it an uninterrupted field of fire right across the Tees Bay.

British 12" guns
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Huntcliff Brotton station is just round the curve about half a mile from the cliffs
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Well, to be fair, you're talking about 12" guns. The Germans built stuff like 800mm guns (about 31.5 inches,) because, you know, size is important for some guys with short staches;). You shoot one of those at a perpendicular angle, you plough into the ground sideways for an acre. And I don't think you could even load them at that angle, based on how moving the round worked. That crane couldn't reach around.
 
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The Ordnance BL 18-inch Mk I howitzer on truck, railway.
Five were built. Only barrel number one survives mounted on a proofing carriage, a gun carriage with very limited elevation and traverse intended for test firing.

Now in the Royal Armouries artillery museum at Fort Nelson.

The largest surviving railway gun in the world.

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SpuriusMaximus said:
Well, to be fair, you're talking about 12" guns. The Germans built stuff like 800mm guns (about 31.5 inches,) because, you know, size is important for some guys with short staches;). You shoot one of those at a perpendicular angle, you plough into the ground sideways for an acre. And I don't think you could even load them at that angle, based on how moving the round worked. That crane couldn't reach around.
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Karl-Gerät, also known as Mörser Karl, were self-propelled siege mortars designed and built by Rheinmetall. They fired a 600 mm (24 in) diameter, 2,170 kg, the range was just over 10 km. Each gun had to be accompanied by a crane, a two-piece heavy transport set of railcars, and several modified tanks to carry the ammunition.
There were six production examples, built in the 1930s for a planned assault on the Maginot Line in case of war with France. They entered service in 1940.
There were two barrel lengths, the original 600 mm barrels were replaced with 540 mm (21 in) calibre, longer barrels to increase their range but only three were converted before the war ended.

One survives in the Russian Kubinka museum


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