Paris Gun | Weaponry - Encyclopedia Britannica

Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos Paris Gun Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics Contents Technology Engineering Mechanical Engineering CITE verifiedCite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style MLA APA Chicago Manual of Style Copy Citation Share Share Share to social media Facebook X URL https://www.britannica.com/technology/Paris-Gun Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Select a type (Required) Factual Correction Spelling/Grammar Correction Link Correction Additional Information Other Your Feedback Submit Feedback Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites

• First World War - Paris Gun
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Science - Paris Gun

Paris Gun weaponry Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Kaiser Wilhelm Geschutz Written and fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors History Britannica AI Ask Anything Homework Help Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

Paris Gun, any of several long-range cannon produced by the German arms manufacturer Krupp in 1917–18 during World War I. The guns were so called because they were specially built to shell Paris at a range, never before attained, of approximately 121 km (75 miles).

The guns were fabricated by adding a tube to the barrel of a 380-millimetre naval gun. The barrel was thus elongated to about 34 m (112 feet), weighed 138 tons, and needed supports to hold it straight. A charge of 250 kg (550 pounds) of gunpowder was used to propel a shell out of the barrel at a velocity of 5,260 feet per second. The extremely long range of the guns (35 km had been the previous range limit for shellfire) was achieved by sending the shells on a trajectory 39 km (24 miles) up into the stratosphere, where atmospheric drag was almost nonexistent. After modifications, the Paris Guns were initially 210 mm (8.2 inches) in calibre, but successive firings eroded the inner linings of the gun barrels and their calibre was increased to about 240 mm. The Paris Guns were moved to their emplacements near the German front lines on railway tracks and successively carried out an intermittent bombardment of Paris over a period of about 140 days, beginning in March 1918.

Related Topics: Big Bertha field artillery (Show more) See all related content

The Paris Guns killed about 250 Parisians and wrecked a number of buildings, but they did not appreciably affect French civilian morale or the larger course of the war. The name Big Bertha, which was derisively applied to the guns by Parisians under bombardment from them, is more properly applied to the 420-millimetre howitzers used by the German army to batter Belgian forts in August 1914, at the start of the war.