5 Star's 1/72
German 28cm Railway Gun "Kurze Bruno"
 

On the Real Thing

When WW1 started Germany had no Railway Artillery, but the need for heavy, even super-heavy artillery with long range became obvious as soon as the trench war set in. And the obvious source for this super-heavy, long-range artillery was the Navy, that in its inventory had many guns suitable for this use. The problem was how to move them, as they often were extremely big and unwieldy.

The first ones were quite simply disassembled, and then reassembled in one single place, and remained there for the duration. During 1915 a number of 21, 24, 35.5 and 38cm naval guns were put to use in this way (the were designated B-geschütze or Bettungsgeschütze, i.e. embedded guns). The drawback was of course that the flexibility of these guns was extremely low: if the front moved, they often came out of range - or stood the threat of being captured. And moving one of these behemoths could take weeks of hard work. A better solution was of course to put these very heavy weapons on railway lavettes - a technique already tested in France.

The first E-guns (E standing for Eisenbahngeschütze, i.e. Railway Gun) reached the fronts in 1916. The first E-guns had the calibre of 24cm L/30 (the "Theodor Otto", shooting 18.7km) and 24cm L/40 (the "Theodor Karl", shooting 25.5km). They were soon much appreciated by the commanders, a they could be used as a potent and very mobile resource, not least when it came to counter sudden enemy attacks. Otherwise, the primary targets for these guns were among other things enemy long-range guns, railway yards, depots, road and supply junctions, airfields and big troop concentrations.

There were problems, however. The traverse was nil, requiring the gun to be placed either on a part of railway track - almost invariably curved - pointing in the correct direction, or building special extra railway curves for their use. In 1917 a new technique was introduced: the guns were placed on special turn-tables, that could be built fairly quickly, allowing the gun a 360° traverse. The guns were modified to take advantage of this new technique, which gave them a status between Railway guns and embedded ones, which is shown in their new designation: EB-guns (= Eisenbahn-Bettungsgeschütze).

One of these new EB-guns, introduced in the summer of 1917, was the 28cm L/40 "Bruno". (A variant with a somewhat altered barrel was called "Kurfürst", and in 1918 six of these were in service.) It was another naval gun, weighing a hefty 156tons in action. The guns were originally fitted aboard Crusiers of the old "Deutschland" class, but after the Battle of Jutland it was decided that they were obsolete, and that their excellent 28cm C/1901 guns could be put to better use elsewhere.  It had an elevation of -0 to +45°, had a traverse of 8° if not using the 360° turntable, and could hurl a 302kg shell some ten-twelve times an hour with a muzzle velocity of 740m/sec up to a maximum range of 31km. As with all heavy guns, the barrel had a pretty short life of firing (some 850 shells) before it had to be relined: All in all 20 guns of this type were put in action. Most remained under the control of the German Navy, however, mainly as guns used in the anti-ship role along the Belgian coast.

The Army only got two, used by two one-gun batteries: no 746 and no 1005. The gun of Battery 1005 was captured near Harbonniers by the Australian 31st Battalion during the famous push on the 8th of August 1918. (The barrel of this gun is now preserved in the Australian War Museum in Canberra - see the photos below.) Throughout that summer, the gun had been shelling Amiens (an important communication hub) from a distance of 20km. 

After the war Belgium took possession of at least one of these guns, as a part of the war reparations. Not all of these guns were destroyed by the Victors after the War. The Germans managed to hide a number of gun barrels, some from old Coastal batteries, and they also hid some entire railway carriages in a disassembled state - camouflaged as "commercial materiel" And when Germany started rearming in the mid-30-ies, under the so called "Sofort" programme, these guns were reassembled by Krupp. One of these guns was the "Kurze Bruno". (As the name suggested, it had a pretty short barrel, L/35, and a range of less than thirty kilometers. In the war it was used in Gris-Nez Cape, against Britain, and also later against Leningrad.) Already in the 30-ies these 28cm guns underwent radical redesigns, and the Great War-ish "Kurze Bruno" was thus soon supplanted by the "Lange Bruno", the "Schwere Bruno" and then the "Neue Bruno", and finally the 28cm K5(E), the ultimate German railway gun.

For more info on these WW2-guns, click here! And if you are at all interested in German Railway Guns, you must get this book!

The Amiens Gun in Canberra

As mentioned above, the barrel and the roof of the railway gun that was captured by Australians on the 8th of August 1918 can be seen in the Australian War Museum in Canberra. The photos comes courtesy of Mark Hansen!

A note on the camouflage. The manner it has been painted is NOT speculative. The Museum have done a very ambitious job in reconstructiong the original camouflage on this, one of their most prized possessions, stripping the gun of layers of post-WW1-paint, to get down to the real thing. And they have got the exotic pattern exactly right. The exact hues can be debated, however. The basic colours are without doubt correct, and they match exactly with what we know about German WW1 Arty Camouflage (often using combinations of sand, dark brown, light brown and feldgrau, with black borders). I hold it as a possibility though, that the years under the hot Australian sun first faded the Feldgrau into something appearing Mint Green, and the Light Brown into something appearing Pink.
 

The kit comes packed in a sturdy cardboard box, illustrated with a photo of the finished model. The parts are either bubble-wrapped or in zip-locked bags. All parts are made in resin, of a relatively hard light-yellow kind. The moulding is close to perfect, with no air bubbles and just some small amounts of moulding flash here and there. The only problem is that almost all parts comes with a pretty big moulding plug, making the cutting free and cleaning up of the parts a pretty tiresome effort - it will probably be the part of the entire building process that will require most time.

As you can see on the photos to the left, this not only a BIG kit, by 1/72 standards, but also a very AMBITIOUS kit, coming with loads and loads of parts. (No, I haven't counted them.) It looks more scary than it is, though, and is not more complicated than necessary, as most of these parts are in some way connected with the wheels and under-carriage. The kit also comes with a length of track, necessary for the display of the built model. The kit comes with a very good set of plans - though without any historical notes or instructions  for painting and marking it.

As I see it, this is a very accurate kit. I can find no faults. And judging from other 5 Star kits it should go together well, if you just can muster the time and patience it will require.

You can buy this kit from Jadar Models.
 

How to Backdate this into a WW1 Gun

The kit shows the WW2 version of this gun. If you want it in your WW1-collection, you will have to backdate it. Now, I am still looking for info on the WW1 "Bruno", so my findings are only preliminary, but as far as I can see now, there are two major visible differences between the WW1 "Bruno" and the WW2 "Kurze Bruno:

• The barrel should be a bit longer. The WW2 version used a L/35 barrel, the WW1 version a L/40.

• The big square structure on top of the barrel - a counter-weight - was somewhat different: use the AWM Model above as guide!

Verdict

This is an another truly excellent kit from 5 Star. 5 Star once again proves that they are one of the top resin companies today. Highly recommended!!!