The Biggest Guns in Human History

1. THE BIG FOR EVER

(top image: Captured WWII Railroad Gun; image via) 2.  Tsar's Bragging Monster Not to be outdone, the Russians swaggered up with their own Mutually Assured Demolisher. Forged in 1585, the Tsar Cannon was a 35-inch-wide yawning monster designed to toss 800 pounds of grapeshot -- a whole lot of little cannon balls instead of one big one. The Tsar Cannon was never fired, but that didn't stop the Russian military from boring everyone by bragging about how huge it was. (image credit: Will) (image via) 3. Trench Horror Upgrade It's said that the first world war was truly the first modern war. Poison gas, tanks, air combat, the machine gun -- they were all gleefully experimented with during those years of trench horror. But the classics were used as well, the old standby of thick metal cylinder, a charge of gunpowder, and a nasty surprise, never really going out of style. But as this was a modern war, the classic cannon got a big -- a very big -- upgrade as well. It's odd that such a monster got a woman's name, but the always-romantic Krupp engineers did just that: smashing champagne over the 17-inch-caliber gun, they christened it after their boss's -- possibly zaftig -- daughter. Big Bertha, or more accurately "Fat Bertha" was a hit with the German military, showing the Belgians at Liège, Namur and Antwerp, and the French at Maubeuge who had the really big one. (image courtesy of C. Luzent, les Canons de l'Apocalypse) (images via) But that wasn't enough. Sure Bertha had the thickness and the length, but what the Germans wanted was something to really show off -- especially since those swaggering Americans were about to enter the game. 4. Long Max to follow Big Bertha Searching for something they could get to their Eastern Front, German military engineers glanced out at sea and hit on the idea of transplantation instead of simple enhancement . To put it simply, the Long Max was a naval gun, the biggest one the Germans had. Luckily it quickly got its land legs: on the battlefield it showed its potency by shooting off 1,600 pound shells a respectable distance ... of 30 miles. (Comparison of 30.5 cm/50 and 38 cm/45 guns, image by Peter Lienau) A naval ordnance on wheels - a 14in., 30 mile gun... an entire train composed of rail artillery... (images via) 5. The First Terror Weapon But that wasn't enough. The Paris Gun wasn't named because it reminded those warm-hearted Krupps of the famous City Of Light. Hardly. Another transplanted naval piece, the gun has sometimes been called the first terror weapon. Although it needed a lot of maintenance, didn't shoot anything very heavy or destructive, but it still horrified that romantic city by dropping shells from ... wait for it ... 80 miles away. It was a monster to the Germans as well -- mounted on a special train carriage, it was so loud that a set of regular artillery was fired along with it to hide its thunderous discharge.

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Source from darkroastedblend