British Railway Gun Series 9.2 Inch Gun Mk1 (1916) by RGL - DModels - 1/35 - RESIN

[RGL]

I got this off a Facebook Buy/Swap/Sell for about half of retail. It a very big 3d print. Missing was a traversing arm and bracket and some deck fittings which the owner of the rights to the kit was good enough to send the Stl’s which I got printed locally. It fits perfectly on an old base for a tribal class destroyer and I got a set of railway tracks to sit it on. 

[RGL]

Easy enough to throw togeather. Bit of sanding at the join of the deck and re riveting which I still need to work on as I’m not quite happy but I’ve obtained some resin paste which is UV light sealed 

[RGL]

All together, the railing are a complete one piece print which are a paint and would have been better off as individual stanchions 

[RGL]

The track! 

[RGL]

Railway track base coat down, weathering then add it to the base. Once I’m happy with that back to fixing some errors on the build 

[RGL]

Weathering the railroad track with pigments, then some splatters of oil. I’m happy with how this looks so far. Tomorrow I’ll add it to the base then put ballast around it 

[realworkingsailor]

There is a passage in a book by Ian V. Hogg, Barrage: The Guns In Action, (Ballantyne Books, 1970), where he relates an interesting anecdote from the summer of 1940 (summarized):

 

An acquaintance, who in the previous war, had been trained on railway guns, had been dispatched to the coast of England to reconnoiter feasible sites to deploy any of the few remaining railway guns the British army had. Examining a map, he discovered a little valley, adjacent to a main railway line. He set out with a companion to further study the ground. They were surprised when they almost tripped over some rusty old railway spur that led through their chosen valley. Following the disused line, they found it terminated in two old weatherbeaten sheds. Looking between the cracks in the boards, they could just make out some form of machinery. Having decided that this was a prime location to deploy a railway gun, they decided to investigate the machinery in the sheds further. After breaking the lock they found themselves staring at a still gleaming 9.2” railway gun, another was found in the second shed. Alerted to their presence by a suspicious shepherd, the police showed up, along with an elderly pensioner, who happened to be the caretaker of the two railway guns. He had been tending them since they where parked there in 1918, and they were fully serviceable. He had been paid, via the local post office to keep them cleaned and greased and “Bless me, sir, d’you tell me as you didn’t know they was there?”

 

Andy

 

 

[RGL]

Great story and what a find! Bet they were scrapped for metal 

[RGL]

That’s the base done 

[realworkingsailor]

15 minutes ago, RGL said:

Great story and what a find! Bet they were scrapped for metal 

Probably not until after the war. Apparently the Mk XIII version of the 9.2” gun was kept in service for home defence, in the south and east of Britain, until 1945.

 

Andy

[RGL]

This one’s base would be terrible as a gun platform thus the Mk1

[RGL]

Base coat down. 

[RGL]

That should do it 

[Dr PR]

[GrandpaPhil]

Excellent work!  That looks amazing!

[wefalck]

How were these guns trained? I know larger one were put onto curved tracks, but in SE England coastal valley, there doesn’t seem to be much space. Or were they rotated? But then one would need some lateral supports on the rail-carriage to take up the recoil forces.

 

Nice paint job, btw.

 

[amateur]

Quick scan on wiki: theMk1 truck allowed for a 10 degree left-right traverse and a 28 degree elevation. Therefore: limited range and limited possibilities for proper aiming….

(And my guess is that the railway didn.t take the recoil very well, especially when the gun wasnt parallel to the track)

 

Jan

[Egilman]

8 hours ago, wefalck said:

How were these guns trained? I know larger one were put onto curved tracks, but in SE England coastal valley, there doesn’t seem to be much space. Or were they rotated? But then one would need some lateral supports on the rail-carriage to take up the recoil forces.

 

Nice paint job, btw.

 

 

7 hours ago, amateur said:

Quick scan on wiki: theMk1 truck allowed for a 10 degree left-right traverse and a 28 degree elevation. Therefore: limited range and limited possibilities for proper aiming….

(And my guess is that the railway didn.t take the recoil very well, especially when the gun wasnt parallel to the track)

 

Jan

 

Hi guys...

 

This was coast defense railroad artillery.... And the D-Model designation is Mk I which is the designation of the carriage not the gun itself... The Gun itself is a Mk III to a Mk VI  adapted to the Mk I deep well railroad carriage... 

 

Here is a picture of one in operation in France....

from "THE FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL". VOLUME VII NUMBER 2. April-June 1917. THE UNITED STATES FIELD ARTILLERY ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, D. C. Downloaded from http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/1917/APR_JUN_1917/APR_JUN_1917_FULL_EDITION.pdf This photograph Q 4280 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

Photograph of British BL 9.2 inch gun, Mk III* or Mk VI HMS Iron Duke, mounted on Mk I railway truck, in action at Maricourt, France, during the Battle of the Somme Sep. 1916.

 

There were no  Mk I guns produced in 1896 as they were deemed deficient.... Most of these guns were reclamations from the Royal Navy as they replaced them on their capital ships...

 

The Guns had a 10 deg traverse left to right on the mounting any further traverse was accomplished by moving the gun on it's curved track to change it's bearing on target... It's elevation was 28 degrees which was improved to 35 degrees sometime in 1916...

 

All of these guns were scrapped after WWI... The only ones that were saved were the Mk XIII model and those are the ones that served into WWII... They were mounted on a straight back carriage.....

 

Interesting gun....

 

Beautiful model Brother....

 

 

[RGL]

Yep, all the research I’ve done (I bought the book) shows this is the most basic of all the carriages. The recoil would be amazing.