(English: Heavy Gustav) was a German 80-centimetre (31.5 in) railway gun. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rügenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons), and could fire shells weighing 7 t (7.7 short tons) to a range of 47 km (29 mi)
The kit is from Soar Art in 1/144 scale and extensive modifications were made to improve accuracy, including:
- Shortened barrel from kit’s 222 mm to a more correct 158 mm
- Removed wood slats at the rear of rail trucks and detailed front of trucks
- Removed incorrect surface details between the six hydraulic jacks on lower center structure, and improved jack feet to lower them closer to rails per photo references
- Improved ladders’ handrails using copper wire
- Corrected T beams on sides of main support structure using plastic card
- Corrected rear elevator support beams to be detached from back of rail trucks
- Improved lifting hooks and pulley system
- Corrected and detailed the charge and she’ll loading mechanism and platform
- Detailed the interior of the cannon support structures
- Improved tensioning supports for the rear elevators beams using copper wire
- Replaced railway base and rails with n-scale model railroading Kato Unitrack
- Added aftermarket decals from Peddinghouse
German High Command examining the gun during initial testing
Work in progress
