"Who bombed the Belgian Forts?" Topic
6 Posts
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|
 McLaddie  | 19 Feb 2019 10:23 p.m. PST |
This may be a stupid question, but I just watched William Atwater on a 'TANKS!' episode say this: "When the Austrians destroyed the Belgian Forts at the beginning of the war [WWI], the Germans decided they needed big guns." This struck me as so weird, I was wondering if there is any possible truth to this statement. Were Austrian guns used…maybe? I thought the Germans always loved big guns… |
| Glengarry5 | 19 Feb 2019 11:52 p.m. PST |
The Germans borrowed 4 batterys (eight guns) of Austro-Hungarian 30.5 Skoda howitzers to supplement their own 10 batteries (18 guns) of heavy artillery. |
| Glengarry5 | 20 Feb 2019 12:05 a.m. PST |
The crews of the Skoda batteries I believe would've been Austro-Hungarians. |
| Glengarry5 | 20 Feb 2019 12:06 a.m. PST |
Some of the German artillery, the 42cm "Big Berthas" were heavier than the Skodas! |
GildasFacit  | 20 Feb 2019 6:29 a.m. PST |
There were 2 of the 420mm howitzers ready for service at the start of the war but they would not have been enough to destroy all the forts needed. The German 305mm wasn't powerful enough to deal with some of the forts and the Austrian version was, it was also a good deal easier to move and assemble. The Germans had been developing heavy siege guns for many years but they couldn't keep up with the re-building of the French & Belgian forts. Power was a problem but range a bigger one – they needed to outrange the fortress artillery to be effective. |
| McLaddie | 20 Feb 2019 12:25 p.m. PST |
Hey, thank you all for that information. I was loath to credit Mr. Atwater with misinformation, but the comment was so brief and unexpected, I wasn't sure. |
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