38 cm Siegfried K (E)

The 38 cm Siegfried K (E) (K - Kanone (cannon), E - in Eisenbahnlafette (on railroad mounting)) was a railway gun developed by Germany during World War II. Originally designed as the main armament of the s, some surplus guns were transferred to the Army for use on coast-defense duties.

Design
The gun had no ability to traverse on its mount; it relied entirely on moving along a curving section of track or on a Vögele turntable to aim. The turntable (Drehscheibe) consisted of a circular track with a pivot mount in the center for a platform on which the railroad gun itself was secured. A ramp was used to raise the railway gun to the level of the platform. The platform had rollers at each end which rested on the circular rail for 360° traverse. It had a capacity of 300 t, enough for most of the railroad guns in the German inventory. The gun could only be loaded at 0° elevation and so had to be re-aimed for each shot.

Ammunition
It used the standard German naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag which was rammed first. Four types of shells were used by the 38 cm Siegfried K (E) including the Siegfried shell (Siegfried-Granate) which was a special long-range shell developed by the army. It could be fired with a reduced charge at 920 m/s to 40 km.