GERMANY'S "BIG BERTHAS."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11595, 13 January 1916, Page 5

GERMANY'S "BIG BERTHAS."

Although the 42-centimeter gun used by the Germans in battering down the fort'ficatkms at liege and Namur attracted world-wide attention during the early stages of the war, tho secret of its dimensions and other features have been so jealously guarded that practically nothing has been made public in regard to this monster mortar beyond the terrible destruction wrought by it. At a recent meeting of artillery engineers at Dussoldorf, Germany, an engineer of the Krupp works delivered a lecture on the making of heavy artillery, and particularly on the making of the 42-centimothr guns, or the "Big Berthas," as the Germans call them, and an apparently reliable report of this lecture has been transmitted to this country. According to this.report, the big gnu weighs about ninety-seven and a half tons, while the base on •which" it stands when in firing position weighs i'brty-one and a quarter tons. The barrel is sixteen -feet long, and the shell fired from it is about fifty inches long and weighs- 8801b. The gun is far too big to be transported on any kind of gun carriage It is made up of considerably more than 100 pieces, and must be taken apart and loaded on motor trucks, of which twelve ore said to he required when it is to be moved. No one not connected with the German artillery is ever permitted near the .12-centimeter gun when it is in firing position. It is said that no photographs have ever been made of it, the pictures purporting to represent this gun, widely published at the beginning of the war, being, in fact, photographs of tiie 30,0-centiiueter Krupp and Skoda mortal's. —" Popular Science Monthly."