Taken from Tank-Net, with my thanks. A convoluted story: --- TM-1-12 305mm RR gun built in 1930s and used during WWII. It used the barrels from old Russian Dreadnoughts. Three mounts survive to this day - one n St. Petersburg RR museum, on in Fort Krasnaya Gorka near St. Petersburg and one in Moscow's Victory Park. Here is a walkaround of the gun in Moscow: http://svsm.org/gallery/305mm-TM-3-12 http://svsm.org/gallery/305mm-TM-3-12/IMGP0433 These guns were used in the defense of Leningrad, some were stationed on the Hanko peninsula at the mouth o the gulf of Finland and some were stationed in the Far East to guard against the possible Japanese invasion. This particular gun had a very interesting history. It was built in 1938-39 using the barrel from dreadnought Imperatritsa Maria that sank after the explosion in 1916 in Sevastopol. During Winter war it fired 150 rounds at the Finnish positions around Vyborg. After the war it was transported to the Hanko peninsula and was used during its defense from the Finns in 1941. The gun fired 108 shoots and fires a total of 570 (other sources 625) rounds. After the troops were evacuated in December 1941 the guns were blown up and pushed in the sea, but the Finns were able to recover them and from June 1942 to July 1943 they were repaired using the barrels from Black Sea Dreadnought General Alekseev, which was taken by the whites to Bizerta in Algiers in 1920. It was scrapped by the French in 1936 and the barrels were stored. After the defeat of France the Germans took the barrels and used some on the Atlantic Wall battery Mirius and some were given to the Finns. Not sure if they were ever fired at the Russians. After the capitulation of Finland they were turned back over to the Soviets in 1 January 1945. The gun was officially in service until 1991. --- Interesting to hear about the railroad gun surviving. Ove Enqvist's book about the finnish coast artillery pieces (Itsenäisen Suomen rannikkotykit 1918-1998) mentions this gun and has a couple of pages devoted to it. He writes that there was actually a battery of 3 guns in Hanko and the 3 guns together fired a total of 591 shells in 108 fire missions. The whole battery was repaired by finns, but none of the 3 guns were ever fired at the russians by the finns. The finnish designation for the guns was "305/52 ORaut", where O stands for Obuhov and Raut for Rautatiekanuuna (= Railroad Gun). The barrels that were used for repairing the guns were actually donated by France in 1940 during the Winter War and they came from the battleship (dreadnought?) Imperator Alexander III. France donated total of 12 guns, 8 of which arrived to Finland and 4 were captured by the germans. The 4 guns the germans captured, they installed as a coast battery to Guernsey.
It would be a fun experiment to leave the brakes off while firing the gun and see how far down the tracks the car goes.
