page_title: Railway gun
section_title: Recoil systems
hierarchical_section_title: Railway gun / Design considerations / Recoil systems
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Französisches Eisenbahngeschütz (Kaliber 320 mm) im Ersten Weltkrieg. English: French 320 mm railway gun during World War I.
context_page_description: A railway gun, also called a railroad gun, is a large artillery piece, often surplus naval artillery, mounted on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railway wagon. Many countries have built railway guns, but the best-known are the large Krupp-built pieces used by Germany in World War I and World War II. Smaller guns were often part of an armoured train. Only able to be moved where there were good tracks, which could be destroyed by artillery bombardment or airstrike, railway guns were phased out after World War II.
context_section_description: There are four primary methods to absorb the recoil force for railway guns: cradle recoil, top-carriage recoil, sliding recoil and rolling recoil.
  Cradle recoil means that the gun recoils backward in its cradle, retarded and stopped by hydraulic buffers. It is returned to battery, or the firing position, by either helical springs or by air in a pneumatic recuperator cylinder that is compressed by the force of recoil. This is the most common method used for lighter railroad guns and for virtually all field artillery designed after the French introduced their Canon de 75 modèle 1897.
  Top-carriage recoil is the situation in which the gun is mounted in an upper carriage that moves on wheels on fixed rails mounted on the lower. The gun and upper carriage recoil together, restrained by the usual hydraulic buffers. Return to battery is effected either by gravity, through the use of inclined rails, which the gun and carriage have run up, by springs, or even by rubber bands, on some improvised mounts. It is not well-suited to firing at high elevations because it cannot absorb much of the vertical component of the recoil force.
  Sliding recoil has the car body sitting on a set of wooden crossbeams or "sleepers" placed underneath it which have been jacked down on to a special set of girders incorporated into the track so that about half the weight of the mount has been transferred to them from the trucks. The gun, car body and trucks all recoil together with the friction generated by the crossbeams sliding on the girders absorbing the recoil force after moving only about 1 to 2 metres (3.3 to 6.6 ft) to the rear. The sleepers must be jacked up again to allow the gun to roll forward to its firing position. This was often done by handwheels driving gear trains attached to the wheels, or even by electric motors on more modern mounts. Almost all of these type of mounts were of the non-traversing type and had to be fired from a curved section of track or turntable. The American post–World War I assessment of railway artillery praised its ruggedness, ease of manufacture and convenience in service, but acknowledged its unsuitability for smaller guns, due to excessive time of operation and lack of traverse, and that it was not suitable for the largest howitzers firing at high angles because of the enormous trunnion forces.
  With rolling recoil the entire gun, mount, and carriage rolls backward, typically between 30 to 50 feet (9.1 to 15.2 m), restrained only by the brakes. The mount was winched back into firing position by cables fastened to the track. This system was usually combined with cradle recoil because the springs of the trucks cannot withstand the vertical component of the recoil force alone. This type of mount was usually fitted with car-traverse. It was unsuitable for smaller guns due to the lack of traverse. The great advantage of this method is that it requires minimal preparation and can fire from any suitable section of curved track.
  The methods were often used in combination with each other. Examples include the French 520 mm (20 in) railway howitzer which used cradle-sliding recoil. The Americans' 14"/50 caliber railway gun Mark II used cradle-rolling recoil as did the 14 and 12 inch railway guns from Great Britain. Only the oldest weapons used a combination of top-cradle and sliding recoil. One example being the earliest mounts for the British designed BL 9.2 inch Railway Gun.
caption: This French 320 mm railway gun uses sliding recoil. The jacked-down sleepers are visible at full-size.
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