Building Custom 1/6th Scale Models - to the Xtreme!

Peter Shaw of the United Kingdom loves railways and military stuff and decided to combine the two together into a special project.  He was going to build himself one of those German Dora class rail guns.  Just think of that WW2 flick "The Guns of Navarone."  

Built by the Krupp Steel Industries in the late 1930s.  The 1000 ton monster was carried on parallel tracks.  The 80 cm (2 feet, 8 inches) shell weighing 7 tons.  Being fired from a 30 meter barrel and the shell can be fired over a distance of 29 miles at a velocity of 2,700 feet per second. The shell could penetrate up to 30 feet deep into earth making a crater over 90 feet in diameter.

Special twin railway engines with low speed gear was able to move the gun carriage an inch forward at a time if needed. First combat of the Dora took place at Sevastopol on the Eastern Front and in June 1942, the gun fired for the first time. A spotter plane like the Storsch was used to fly over the target area and report back on the locations where the shells hit the target area.

For transport to a combat area, the whole thing was disassembled and reassembled at a new location.

Check out this link to see his slide show of the building of this monster project.  

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Ref. Peter Shaw 1/6th Scale Dora Railgun ( http://www.vonabt.co.uk/models/Dora/DoraBuild.htm) and (http://www.vonabt.co.uk/models/Dora/index.html) & main gateway to website ( http://www.vonabt.co.uk/).  

History links of the Dora railgun cannon (http://www.vincelewis.net/dora.html).