Big Bertha (howitzer)

For other uses of the term, see Big Bertha (disambiguation).

Big Bertha
One of the first Big Berthas being readied for firing
Type	Cannon
Place of origin	Germany
Service history
Used by	Imperial Germany
Wars	World War I
Production history
Manufacturer	Krupp
Specifications
Mass	43 tn (96,000 lb)
Length	5.88 m (19.3 ft)
Shell	HE; 820 kg (1,807 lbs)
Caliber	420 mm (16.53 in)
Elevation	+40° - +75°
Traverse	4°
Muzzle velocity	400 m/s (1,312 ft/s)
Effective firing range	12.5 km (7.7 miles)

Model of the road-mobile "M-Gerät" version. The model can be seen at the Paris Army Museum

Gamma-Gerät - the railway-transported, concrete-emplaced predecessor to the Big Bertha

Big Bertha (Template:Lang-de; literal translation "Fat taul") is the name of a type of super-heavy howitzer developed by the famous armaments manufacturer Krupp in Germany on the eve of World War I. Its official designation was the L/12 (that is to say, the barrel was 12 calibres in length) 42-cm Type M-Gerät 14 (M-Equipment 1914) Kurze Marine-Kanone ('short naval gun', a name intended to camouflage the weapon's real purpose).

History

The howitzer was mainly designed by Krupp's Director of design, Professor Fritz Rausenberger, and his predecessor, Director Dräger, and it was these designers who christened the weapon Dicke Bertha after Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the wife of Gustav Krupp. The name "Big Bertha" subsequently came to be applied generically by the Allies to any very large German gun, such as the railway-mounted battleship guns known as "Langer Max" and the ultra-long range "Paris Gun". Strictly speaking, however, Dicke Bertha, or Big Bertha, is only applicable to the 42-cm M-Gerät howitzer. The term should not, again strictly speaking, even be applied to the 42-cm Gamma-Gerät howitzer, which was the forerunner of the Bertha.

It had its genesis in the lessons learned by the Germans (and Austrians) from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. During the war, the Japanese had dismounted a number of their coastal defence 28-cm howitzers and used them to help break their siege of the fortified Russian naval base at Port Arthur. This was a complete novelty as, until that time, it had been assumed by military experts that the largest transportable siege guns were around 20-cm in calibre. Nevertheless, most Europeans completely failed to draw the lessons the Japanese had taught - apart from, as mentioned, the Germans and Austrians (the latter also developed a series of road-mobile superheavy guns, including the 30.5-cm Schlanke Emma howitzer, the 38-cm Barbara and Gudrun howitzers, and their own 42-cm howitzer).

During the early 1900s, therefore, Krupp began to develop a series of road-mobile heavy mortars and howitzers, ranging from 28-cm calibre to 30.5-cm. These, in turn, built upon Krupp's experience with building coastal defence mortars (Küstenmörser), such as the 30.5-cm Beta-Gerät, the first model of which had been introduced in 1897 (though other nations, including Britain and the United States, also built similar weapons).

A new version of the 30.5-cm Beta-Gerät howitzer, vastly superior to the 1897 model, was developed in 1908, but finding it wanting in offensive power, the APK (Artillerieprüfungskommission, or 'artillery testing committee') asked Krupp to build a larger gun capable of smashing modern fortifications. Krupp first investigated the possibility of building a 35-cm weapon, but instead jumped to 42-cm as this was the smallest shell that could carry the large bursting charge required to fulfil the APK's requirements. The first 42-cm design was the massive L/16 (that is to say, the barrel was 16 calibres in length) Gamma-Gerät howitzer, which was basically a scaled-up version of the Beta-Gerät. Unusually for Krupp, both the Beta and Gamma weapons eschewed the usual sliding-wedge breech block in favour of a screw-type breech, after the practice common in Britain and France.

Gamma was massive, and was what the Germans called a Bettungsgeschütz, or 'bedding gun', i.e. it was mounted on a stationary carriage which was emplaced in a concrete foundation, which took days to prepare. The monster weighed 150 tons, and had to be transported in sections on ten railway wagons (six for the gun itself, and another four for the bedding). It was certainly impressive (it fired shells weighing up to 1,160-kg), but as can be readily imagined, merely moving it was a logistical nightmare.

Consequently, the APK asked Krupp for a more mobile version, and ordered one gun on 15 July 1912. Even before it was delivered (in December 1913), however, the APK went ahead and ordered a second sample in February 1913. The first howitzer was demonstrated to Kaiser Wilhelm II in March 1914, who was greatly taken by the new weapon, and the second was delivered in June 1914.

The new howitzer was a road-mobile weapon mounted on a two-wheeled field type carriage of conventional, if massive, construction. It owed very little to the preceding Gamma-Gerät, and should be considered a completely different weapon. The barrel was shorter than Gamma's (by 4 calibres length), and reverted to the conventional Krupp sliding-wedge breech. With thinner walls, the barrel was of generally lighter construction than Gamma's and, as such, fired lighter shells of around 830-kg. Fully assembled, it weighed a mere 43 tons, and did not have to be emplaced in concrete. Special steel 'mats' were developed, onto which the wheels were driven, with a steel aiming arc at the rear of the carriage which allowed limited traverse (this aiming arc was fitted with a massive 'spade' which was buried in the ground and which helped anchor the weapon). To prevent the weapon bogging down in muddy roads, the wheels were equipped with radgürtels, pedrail bands with feet which spread the load. Krupp and Daimler developed a tractor for the Bertha, though Podeus motorploughs were also used to tow the guns, which were broken down into five loads when on the road.

The contemporary US press claimed that the high explosive system was influenced by Louis Gathmann's work in America, and they cited Louis Gathmann as being the Big Bertha's inventor. No evidence was ever provided for the former claim, while the latter is simply wrong. As mentioned earlier, it was, in fact, Krupp's chief designer Prof Fritz Rausenberger who designed the weapon (he later went on to design the "Paris Gun"). In fact, the development of the gun is reasonably well known, and in terms of lineage, it fits with Krupp practice stretching back to the 1890s.

Service history

Only two examples of the howitzer were available at the beginning of World War I, and they were used to destroy the Belgian forts at Liège, Namur and Antwerp, and the French fort at Maubeuge, as well as other forts in northern France. Bertha proved very effective against older constructions such as the Belgian forts designed in the 1880s by Brialmont, destroying several in a few days. The most spectacular success was the Belgian Fort Loncin which exploded after taking a direct hit to its ammunition magazine. However, it must be said that the concrete used in the Belgian forts was of poor quality, and consisted of layers of concrete only, with no steel reinforcement.

Due to its early impressive successes, Big Bertha gained a strong reputation on both sides of the lines. The German press went wild with enthusiasm and declared the Bertha a Wunderwaffe. However, when used later during the German assault upon Verdun in February 1916, it proved relatively ineffective as the newer construction of this fort, consisting of concrete reinforced with steel, could withstand even the large semi-armour-piercing shells of the Berthas.

It is probable that a total of twelve Berthas were built during the war, with up to twenty barrels, though some sources state eighteen. As the war ground on, several Berthas were destroyed when their barrels burst due to faulty ammunition. Later in the Great War, an L/30 30.5-cm barrel was developed and fitted to a number of Bertha carriages in order to provide longer-range, though not quite as heavy, fire. These weapons were known as the Schwere Kartaune or Beta-M-Gerät.

Surviving examples

Two Big Berthas were captured at the end of the war, and one was taken to the United States, where it was evaluated at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Afterwards, it was placed on display outside, in the United States Army Ordnance Museum. Sadly, it was scrapped during the 1950s. The fate of the other is unknown.

Claims that another Bertha survived on Krupp's proving ground at Meppen, and was used again in World War II in the Battle of Sevastopol, are based on a misconception. It was in fact a Gamma-Gerät howitzer which was assembled at Meppen after the Great War from parts scavenged by Krupp, and went on to see action in the Second World War, along with the modern and even larger Mörser Karl and Schwerer Gustav.

A bizarre twist concerns what at least one author has implied was another Bertha to have survived the Great War. Joachim Engelmann, in German Heavy Mortars, reproduced a photograph purporting to show a Bertha in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. With one of the group of onlookers in the picture clearly wearing a Nazi uniform, the implication is that this is a Great War survivor. However, it transpires that what the photograph shows is, in fact, a full-scale wooden model built by Emil Cherubin in 1932. Cherubin had served with a Bertha battery during the Great War. Afterwards, he turned his modelmaking talents to building wooden models for museums, theatres, and other displays. Not only did he build a full-size Bertha model, which he took on tour around Germany in the 1930s, but he also built 1/4 scale display models of Bertha and the Paris Gun. Postcards of Cherubin's Bertha still appear on eBay from time to time.

Bibliography

• Gerhard Taube: Die schwersten Steilfeuer–Geschütze 1914 - 1945. Geheimwaffen 'Dicke Berta' und 'Karl', Motorbuch-Verlag, ISBN 3-87943-811-0
• Axel Turra: Dicke Berta – Ein 42-cm-Steilfeuergeschütz wird zur Legende, Podzun-Pallas Verlag, ISBN 3-79090-753-7
• Rudolf Lusar: Riesengeschütze und schwere Brummer einst und jetzt, J.F. Lehmanns Verlag München, ISBN 3-469-00363-7
• Konrad F. Schreier, Jr.: The World War I "Brummer" in 'Museum Ordnance: The Magazine for the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum', November 1992
• G.V. Bull and C.H. Murphy: Paris Kanonen - the Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschütze) and Project HARP, Verlag E.S. Mittler & Sohn Gmbh, ISBN 3-8132-0304-2
• Herbert Jäger: German Artillery of World War One, The Crowood Press, ISBN 1-86126-403-8
• Michal Prasil: Skoda Heavy Guns, Schiffer Military History, ISBN 0-7643-0288-4
• Joachim Engelmann: German Heavy Mortars, Schiffer Military History Vol.39, ISBN 0-88740-322-0
• Raimund Lorenz: Die "Dicke Berta" aus Vluynbusch, Museumverein Neukirchen-Vluyn

External links

• Big Bertha - landships.freeservers.com
• Big Bertha - spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
• Big Bertha How She Earned Her Wicked Reputation - worldwar1.com
• Big Bertha - firstworldwar.com
• Panzer-Archiv.de
• WaffenHQ.de
• Battlefield 1918
• The 42-cm. Mortar: Fact and Fancy