At Verdun, both sides deployed railroad guns for rear-area bombardments and to destroy both fortifications and deep tunnel and bunker complexes. France’s gigantic 400mm Schneider railroad guns were used to support the retaking of Fort Douaumont. At Third Ypres, two British fourteen-inch railway guns named Boche-Buster and Scene-Shifter carried out similar long-range interdiction bombardments.

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Five American fourteen-inch guns—developed for U.S. Navy superdreadnoughts and featuring fully enclosed, armored mounts built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works—were fielded with navy crews under gunnery expert Capt. C. P. Plunkett. The only American-designed heavy artillery used by the American Expeditionary Force, Plunkett guns had a maximum range of twenty-four miles. Beginning in September 1918, they were used to preempt German troop movements and bomb logistics facilities.

By the end of World War I, railroads were regarded as the preeminent method for fielding super-heavy artillery. By Armistice Day, the U.S. Coast Artillery had deployed seventy-one railroad guns in ten regiments in Europe. They ranged in size from fourteen-inch weapons to the 190mm. Almost all were made in France.

The pinnacle of railroad artillery’s long-range role was the Pariskanone, or Paris gun. Misidentified as “Big Bertha” by Parisians, it was officially named the Wilhelmgeschütz in the kaiser’s honor. Actually a series of replaceable gun tubes, the Paris guns were developed by Rausen­berger’s team in cooperation with the Ger­man navy. With a 280mm naval gun as a base, each barrel was sleeved down to 210mm or, later, using reconditioned barrels, to 240mm. The modified tubes were then extended and heavily braced. Each tube could fire only twenty to fifty shells before its rifling and accuracy deteriorated substantially.

As a terror weapon, however, the Paris­kanone is best viewed as a progenitor of the V-weapons of World War II. Originally placed in the Forest of St. Gobain in March 1918, the Paris guns fired relatively light projectiles some sixty-eight miles into the City of Light. Its most infamous achieve­ment was on March 29, 1918—Good Friday—when a single shell struck the Church of St. Gervais and killed eighty-eight people. Impressive though they were, however, the Paris guns achieved little of military significance. As strict attention to barrel wear was not maintained, one of the Paris guns’ tubes burst, and the Allied counteroffensives of August 1918 forced the Germans to abandon their last gun. Despite firing some 350 shells, the Paris guns’ bombardments caused only 876 casualties and 256 deaths, largely to civilians.

Major powers continued to maintain super-heavy railroad guns in the interwar period in spite of the threats posed by early bomber aircraft. The Americans largely viewed railroad guns as a supplement to fixed coast defense artillery. Likewise, the British looked to such weapons to fill gaps along the Channel coast, particularly once they were faced with the threat of Operation Sealion (the planned invasion of Britain by the Nazis). The Soviets used railroad guns against the Finns, and later, the Germans. Although the Treaty of Versailles prohibited German offensive weaponry and heavy artillery, the Reichswehr explored the capabilities of railroad guns in secret. When Hitler renounced the treaty’s limitations, Krupp resumed construction of such artillery for the Wehrmacht.

During World War II, Germany was the premier builder and user of super-heavy railroad guns. Allied intelligence identified some twelve different types of German-made railway artillery, ranging from 150mm to 800mm, by 1945. Captured Czech and French pieces were also widely used. Germans based 280mm guns on Cap Griz Nez, on the northern coast of France, in 1940 to batter the English coast and provide cover for the abortive Operation Sealion. Because such weapons were impossible to camouflage well, the Nazis’ Organisation Todt built gigantic, igloo-shaped bunkers to protect the guns, which still stand. In spite of the Red Army’s advance into Poland, the Germans continued to deploy railroad guns and Karl-series caterpillar-tracked mortars to pummel Warsaw during the Uprising of late summer 1944.

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