As a veteran of the South African army in the 1980's I can tell you from first hand experience that the G5 cannon with the ERFB shell was a game-changer in the Angolan bush war. I can still remember one dark night watching these shells being fired from about 5km behind our lines. They looked like giant tracer rounds arcing from the horizon to above the cloud line.
Do you know if the base bleed charge has a delay on it? Otherwise this seems like a bit of a design flaw for counterbattery spotting if it lights up as soon as it leaves the barrel.
I have gone and looked at the remnants of the HARP project in Barbados, including one of the 16 inch barrels. My brother in law, a Barbados resident tells me that when a HARP firing was due, the locals were pre-warned so that they could open their windows to stop the pressure wave breaking the glass.
Forgotten Artillery!... wait artilleries are weapon... except for Babylon and HAARP... well i guess they can use it as such but they really shouldn't... anyways yeah
My late father worked with an engineer who was Gerald Bull's assistant in Brussels. Unfortunately I never met him, but was told that on hearing the news he went directly to the airport and left the country, hoping to fade into obscurity. He said that he was utterly terrified for a long time.
@@AddieHilton TBH, that's considered super global power, only two countries in the world capable of do that, what a small country have such superpower?
Shortly before the invasion of Iraq when someone was talking about the Iraqi nuclear programme an Englishman went and sat under a tree to cut his wrists. It was said to be nothing to do with anything else.
i met Bull in the late 70s, definitely an interesting person, all he wanted to do was study artillery. The site at North Troy Vermont was littered with gun barrels. In Barbados, i was told the chickens would not lay eggs and the cows wouldn't give milk. He bought LST 854renamed NORTH POINT for the Barbados government for a Caribcon Project and it caused a change of government in Barbados. Bull liked big guns, SRC archives should have a paper called THE GUN LAUNCHED ORBITER, where he describes how a gun launched satellite could be done with guns up to 3 feet in diameter and bigger. The last I talked to him was about three weeks before he died.
Woow.. isn't it amazing how politicians vs engineering egotism clash.. Examples 1. Christie with the tank Design 2. Howard Hughes 3. Elon Musk Never heard of Bull but an good example
Yeah, 3 weeks before he was assassinated. It is also amazing how many engineers who came up with working clean hydrogen burning engines that basically used water have been murdered or died "mysteriously" just before they could bring their inventions to market. They never seem to take into account all the people in government and industry who WILL even commit mass murder to protect their profits and power.
@@Calum_S Exactly, if you like this channel, Fort Nelson will be paradise. Don't miss the tunnels. It's free to visit, just need to pay for car parking
I used to play in that fort as a child & have visited it numerous times since its become a museum, there's always something new & interesting to be discovered its a marvellous experience & free entry except when specific events are being staged. Well worth a visit or visits.
The base bleed shell is exactly that. It bleeds gas that displaces turbulent air behind the shell, which significantly reduces drag. The shell has a small block of magnesium in the base of the shell, hence "base bleed". The magnesium ignites when the shell is fired as a result of the temperature in the barrel. That is why it will look like a tracer at night. There is no "assistance" for the shell, but merely a much reduced drag from the gas produced by the magnesium. The barrels are not anything "special", it's the shells that maketh the artillery, along with the targeting system that measures, and account for, atmospheric temperature and wind speed. When these guns were introduced, they could fire a base bleed shell to 40km, and hit a target as small as 5x5 meters, within 3 shots. When I was doing my post graduate studies in mechanical engineering, we had an absent collegue. This was at the Potchefstroom University, now NWU, which is right next to South Africa's North West Command and Artillery Training School. We would here these guns firing from our classrooms through spring. So, our missing student studied mettalurgy, and received funding from the SA military to remove a disadvantage of these shells, and those were the drive bands. Each of these shells has two drive bands, that seals the shell into the barrel's rifling, which results in friction, and reduced muzzle velocity. So his project was to develop a more malleable allow that would reduce barrel friction (which will obviously also reduce wear), while surviving the the stresses from the charge. At our last quilloquim, he had permission from the SA military to share his study results. With the reduced friction from the alloy he developed, the range was extended from 40 km to 67 km. And with tweaks he got a firing range of 76 km. Thats about as far as a HIMARS rocket's reach, at a fraction of the cost, higher sustained firing rate, and much more ammunition on hand. There is no other artillery gun in the world that even comes close. Something interesting to note, these shells fired, at maximum range, can hit a commercial airliner flying at 39,000 feet. So, the most important part of what I shared with you is this: Avoid commercial airlines that fly over Potch!
A base bleed unit isn't a "small block of magnesium". It is a GAS GENERATOR, burning magnesium has a SOLID product (magnesium oxide), useless for this application. Base bleed pyrotechnic mixtures are more similar to composite rocket propellants and MAY include some finely powdered metal fuels to increase heat of reaction & output gasses but are mostly oxidizer (usually ammonium perchlorate these days), gas generating fuels/binders and/or explosive ingredients chosen from the usual group of propellant chemicals. Mechanical engineer, huh?
My cousin worked for Sheffield Forgemasters at that time and he always wondered what the things were that he was working on due to the precise specifications. They turned out to be super gun barrel sections.
If I'm not mistaken the Iraqis contracted them under the guise of manufacturing sewage pipes, so given my manufacturing background I can imagine the strange looks that were had when they were told how tight the tolerances were for alleged sewage pipes.
I am Artillery crew working at Weapon Production Centre, my base literary have a wall art depicting worker making 155mm ERFB-BB, BT. We're producing 155 shell and tank shell as well as mortar shell. We use tow GHN-45 and ATMOS system with Soltam help to create ATMG.
Gerald Bull had an oversized influence on my life through my father. During Bul’sl time at McGill, he partnered with a professor I believe of astrophysics called Charles Murphy. Chuck Murphy had been the best man at my father‘s wedding and they lived about a short block away from where we did when I was a kid, Gerald Bull was constantly talked about and came to both our house and for dinner frequently at the Murphy’s where we were invited. My father was also an engineer in the aerospace sector. he came from Manitoba as did Murphy, and both had circuitously found their way to Montreal via London, and I think he saw Gerald Bull as a kind of aspirational figure. My dad was a very good engineer as I’ve come to understand, and I think his admiration for Bull really stemmed from the understanding that one very good engineer has another very very good engineers work. I think this was a misplaced emotion. But of course history plays out after you experience the events in the judgments of people later. Because of when he encountered Chuck Murphy, the main thing we first knew about him was about the big gun down in Bermuda, and that just seemed magical to a young kid growing up with the dawn of the space race.
I’m a Canadian who became fascinated by the story of Gerald Bull quite some time ago. Upon having the good fortune to be posted to Brussels, I took the opportunity to find his apartment building and walked over to it one day. Looking at the door handles that both he and the Mossad used that day was a little surreal.
@@Halal_Dan "No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.” --Isaiah 54:17
@@Halal_Dan They were engaged in conflict with ancient Egipt, with Persia, with Seleucid empire, with Roman empire, etcetera, ad nauseam. Where are all those mighty enemies now?
A few parts of the barrel of Bull's supergun were seized by Customs in the port of Antwerpen, Belgium. They were still there in the early 1990's, quietly forgotten in a corner of a warehouse of abandoned cargo. I have personally seen them in that warehouse.
From watching some shotgun RUclips channels that shoot viewer made bullets, I was inspired to design a similar looking round to the on in this video. It is nice that someone had some parallel ideas to mind, and actually got a chance to make them.
One of my all-time favorite teachers was one of the G2 guys who did the original evaluation on the one-five-five field piece. Bless you Mr. Smith, some of us still remember.
An excellent video, and, of course, well done for having 100K subscribers. Knowledge and talent can still garner significant success on RUclips, and this is the content that I love to watch.
Yes - the real concern was the other work he was doing for Iraq on Scuds and EFBR shells, rather than on Project Babylon. The bit about a supergun etc was just for public consumption - just one part of the BS they were already putting around about "Saddam's WMD" and which was eventually turned up to 11 to justify a war built on false pretenses.
Dr Gerald Bull has been one my obsessions for over 30 years as well. Having read his autobiography “arms and the man” over a dozen times. I would definitely be interested in watching more material on this guy and his contributions to long range artillery.
Among other work at CARDE, my late father worked on the sabot for flight testing Velvet Glove. Trenton's RCAF museum has an example he donated complete with its model missile. Another of his contributions was the high-low chamber pressure device for the bored-out 5.5 howitzer barrel used to propel the models. This allowed the propellant to burn efficiently at high pressure, while accelerating the model and sabot gradually enough that they were not destroyed.
Thanks for the video. Prior to this I had only read bits and pieces of information about Gerald Bull and always assumed the mechanism he used to extend the range of artillery shells involved providing those shells some sort of additional propulsive force, and that he had invented the technology behind it. Turns out both of these assumptions were wrong. Thanks again. Very interesting info.
A fascinating video. I had no knowledge that I can recall on Dr. Gerald Vincent Bull. Your excellent abridged version shows his genius and ability to think outside the box. Thanks for your videos.
@@20chocsaday yes, similar to the gun Germany built to delivery artillery shells to London. Also makes service access to the barrel much easier and adds options for higher speed
So, about 5% of this long story was about the 155 ERFB, the rest about the history of John Bull, which you said you were not going to try to cover. As an officer who served 12 years in artillery units, thought you were not going to waste my time on Bull, but you did.
What a great video! First, great content and fascinating story. Second, every content creator today speaks so fast or indistinctly, I can’t understand them. You speak rapidly, but I understood you perfectly! This means a lot since I am older and hard of hearing. Thank you, I will subscribe and I hope to see a lot more content from you.
in my youth I was fascinated by this sort of subject and was under the impression that Dr Bull had used the German fixed ‘Super Guns” that they had started installing to fire at the British Isles from Europe. If my old memory serves still, I recall that those devices didn’t merely use an explosive propellant at the the breach but were also assisted by a series of gas-powered percussions along the barrel as the projectile progressed up the barrel. Or did I dream that?
You didn't dream that. It is described in a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia contributors. (2024, September 4). V-3 cannon. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:39, September 9, 2024, from en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=V-3_cannon&oldid=1243930773
Firing things into space is still an avenue being investigated, for shooting something like a Starlink satellite into space, or eventually parts for moon mining vehicles etc makes a lot of sense, waaay cheaper than firing them up on rockets, Very unfortunate that a talent like Mr Bull couldn't have been harnessed to civilian applications of his ballistics expertise, and sort of bonkers that someone thought he was dangerous enough to warrant actually having him murdered in the centre of Europe. Great video as ever, this channel rarely disappoints.
Yeah. Satellites, nah. We have too many of them up there. But shooting fuel, and parts to assemble interplanetary craft, that's where the immense advantages of a Space Gun are. 🤔🧐🤓
@@Superchunk-k2hWho did kill him, I don't believe the assassin/s were ever formally identified? If it was the Israelis, seems very heavy handed for a non threat, I would imagine they would want to avoid annoying Europeans by doing hits in flipping Brussels! That's a bit close to home!!
@@paulelephant9521 It's the sort of brazen, arrogant stuff they do (and are doing somewhere now) because their people control the monetary/tax system in every western country. What are you going to do about it? Complain? Lmao.
In the late 90s I moved to a small town on the Vermont / Canadian border and was intrigued by "Space Research Road" I came across one day. I knew of Bull but had no idea he had a testing area in vermont. Went down that road once, but nothing remained but a couple burned out cinder block buildings.
Truly a fascinating video in every way; thank you. Also I absolutely love the explanation of that gas booster; I never would have imagined something like that- very interesting.
It's too bad that the larger supergun models were never built (I'm looking at you Mossad) the technology is really interesting and could allow us to put satellites in orbit MUCH more cheaply. Bull just wanted to see his dream realized and didn't really think about the repercussions of working for Iraq.
Idk man, in the end most if his work was on scuds, not cannons. He wasnt the pained visionary von braun was, he was an engineer for hire with a pet Project
The numbers given in the video are not realistic. Any space gun needs a kickstage to reach orbit, and since Big Babylon would have been a single stage gun, it would need quite a sizeable one. 200kg to LEO is far more realistic than the 1000kg stated in the video. Given the need for 9 tonnes of specialised propellant and the 2 ton guided kickstage (and the amortization cost of the gun), it's hard to believe it would be much cheaper than modern small satellite launchers (Rocket Lab's Electron has a payload of 300kg to LEO, weighs 12.5 tonnes and costs 7.5 million dollars per launch). Working together with dictatorships is also inexcusable. In that regard, the comparison with Werner von Braun is probably more accurate than one would think. The production of the V-2 missiles killed more people in forced labor camps than at their impact sites. Both of these men had grand visions, but they both stopped at nothing to reach them.
@@lukasdimmler2622 there were a number of designs including additional offset chambers with more propellant in each and firing rockets that would ignite at their apogee. The designs mentioned in the video certainly wouldn't have but some of the others or some combination of them may well have. It's unfortunate that all we got to see was the infancy of the technology
There's an interesting "alternate history " (well, lite alternate, historical events were barely affected) novel by Forsythe named "Fist of God" as to the real reason the gun was planned.
I live in Northern Vermont where his research center was(kids party up in its remains now) . As a local contractor I came across and kept one of his 105 mm artillery shells and a sales pamphlet for the 105 artillery piece in a basement. I have them in my man cave.
Reminds me of nearly 50 years ago learning about trajectory calculations in math and physics classes. I was always happier thinking we were calculating athletes doing a shot put.
I have just watched an excellent documentary on Gagarin on another channel, where you were cited as the author: or at least, someone with the same name. You are versatile, and an accomplished writer and communicator.
If you are in England go to the Armouries Museum at Fort Nelson (its free!). Among many excellent exhibits is a section of the Supergun which was found still in the UK Customs store, it is huge. I have never forgotten Bull's assassination - the week before i had bought shares in Astra who had a joint venture with Bull. They lost 90% of their value, i should have paid more attention to the risks.
Thank you for this video! Like you, I am fascinated by Gerald Bull. He was a remarkable engineer. One item that may merit discussion is that, although Iraq knew how to strap several Soviet Scuds together, they did not have the technology for the re-entry vehicles. Bull provided this knowledge, and this is ultimately what signed his death warrant. The Super Gun was almost trivial in this saga (though not for Bull). But the ability for Iraq to have an effective long-range ballistic missile system was very worrying for Israel. Thus, his assassination was sealed. Gerald Bull was a genius whose time unfortunately came to an early end. But he was betrayed by the Americans and the British.
Alternatively you could look at him as an arms seller without morals who got what was coming to him. Dude sold arms to SA, Iraq and communist china for crying out loud!
@@thekinginyellow1744 I would not characterize him as an idiot savant. I was no idiot. Savant? Genius, for sure. Still, the Americans did betray him. The Canadians, too. His knowledge was very specific and perhaps a bit too niche. Artillery is still a viable weapon, But the Supergun was really a folly. It was the knowledge of re-entry vehicles that was the final straw. Yes, he ignored warnings. Yes, he made some bone-headed decisions. Still, Gerald Bull was a genius of nearly unique abilities. As is too often the case, when his genius was no longer useful, he was discarded by the Americans. And so chose to ply his trade with the South Africans and then the Iraqis. Not terribly clever, perhaps. But the SA G5 and the G6 were brilliant designs. He should not have died at the hands of the Mossad. But good intentions can (and sometimes do) have unintended and unfortunate consequences. Still Gerald Bull is a hero to me.
@@chemwrite Not using the medical definition, but rather the cultural one. If you want a more strict medical definition, I would go with monotropism to at least some degree. So focused on his own goals that he totally ignored the bigger picture. Do I think he should have been murdered? No. Do I think he should have known that he would be murdered if he continued on his current course? Yes, Absolutely.
@@thekinginyellow1744 Gerald Bull was a complex man. Likely, I would not have liked him, had I met him. However, I do admire him as the greatest genius of artillery in the modern era. I am writing this time, not to talk about Gerald Bull, but to question you. Your moniker and your sigil are somewhat disturbing. The tale of the yellow king is...well, while I am aware of it, it is not something that I would be drawn to. And your sigil, while maybe reminiscent of the Isle of Mann, does bear an all too similarity to that which has been adopted by members of what are euphemistically known as the alt-right. On that topic, I can only remind all of us that The United States fought the Civil War and the Second World War and defeated those who would espouse those repudiated philosophies. If that is your predilection, I'd kindly advise you to reconsider your stance. Being on the losing side of history is a poor place to raise a flag.
You want to go deeper with Dr. Bull, look into his designs for the Iowa class guns with submunitions. He had a design of the standard 16" round that would hit out to 39 miles, but that wasn't his only mod for the Iowa guns. He also had a 11" submunition and an 8" submunition with the 8" submunition being able to reach 100 miles.
Hey, the youtube links to the mainpage of youtube for some reason, thanks; tried on multiple browsers and on a VM, might be country blocked or a broken link :)
@@marqsee7948 No, he is judging Sheffield Forgemasters who made the super gun sections, without knowing the conversation between them and the intelligence community, because that is Secret. As if they wouldn't do as they are told on national security matters. They now belong to the UK Ministry of Defense because they have sovereign capabilities.
I highly recommend visiting Beautiful Barbados! 🇧🇧 Not only for the HARP Gun 😉 I have walked to the site two years ago, it is massive, and people there remembering it shook the whole Island! Sadly the Concorde Experience at BGI is closed now, had visited that couple of years earlier.
I'm pretty sure Barbados has officially crossed to line to being a high-income country now; the quality of governance and public services is supposed to be pretty good.
I pray i never have to experience artillery shelling, ive read alot of war memoirs and all say its the most terrifying thing. You have to fight every urge to jump and run, like lightening striking all around you and the ground becoming not solid with every explosion, tossing your entire body up and down left and right.. alot of guys cracked, jumped out of their hole and got ripped apart by blast, shrapnel or enemy fire. Terrifying..
I'm also terrified of hundreds of flying 2"-6" long pieces of razor sharp jagged steel from exploding artillery shells. A 4" inch piece of a supersonic flying steel would tear through a human shoulder or cut a limb 10 times faster than a cleaver hacking a beef steak. I told a doctor once, I'm not allergic to penicillin but I'm allergic to exploding things and flying sharp metal 😆😁
I'm sure there will be someone to comment about artillery barrages from the receiving end, thank heaven I'm not one of them. I did see, from 20km distance through field glasses what the impact area looks like when a six-gun battery fires a three-round (per gun) time-on-target mission. Each gun fires three rounds in quick succession, at a different elevation for each round, timed to that all the shells impact at approximately the same time, in this case it was eighteen shells exploding at about 20 meters (if I remember correctly) above ground within one second. The intent is to maximize the destructive capability of a single artillery battery and give the enemy no time to react and get under cover. It was just an exercise, but seeing the chaos that ensued, from over 10 miles away, was sobering, to say the least.
I remember my dad mentioning the Sheffield forgemaster thing as he was an engineer, and quite worried about the implications I believe they were fined or whatever. And as you can see they just look like pipes.
Another great video. I remember seeing a story about Bull on 60 minutes, back when I was a teenager. Foreground was a little out of focus lol. By the way - what was the very large insect crawling around on the floor (right above the back of the shell)? It is just a small speck when the video starts and then slowly gets closer and closer LOL
@@rjmun580 Yes, that is what I thought - but I didn't think they had cockroaches that big in Canada. I've lived in northern Maine near the border and we never saw a cockroach, let a lone one that big. We now are in southern US and they are here.
Whenever a new technology comes along, their are some engineers who will fixate on forwarding the existing solutions as far as possible, partly because it's what they know, partly because they know the mill monkeys can build it. The all-wood comstruction of the DeHavilland Mosquito is one example. In a day when cruise and ballistic missiles were becoming dominate for long-range fires, Bull proved the gun was still viable. And he achieved some damn impressive performance. BTW, there were 2 more HARP guns made--one at Yuma Proving Grounds and one at Highwater Ridge. Everyone focuses on the Barbados gun because it has pictures.
Those have photos as well. I prefer the one in the Yuma Proving Grounds because it is the only one of the bunch that was maintained in working order to this day...
I had friends living in Northern Vermont. They heard explosions of some of the early testing. And then did some looking into the source. Finding the SRC/Bull story.
According to the US Army website, they are getting inquiries from private satellite companies about using the HARP gun at Yuma as a launch platform. The gun has been restored to museum state and would take only a little effort to restore to full operation. It's probably too small to launch an unassisted projectile into orbit, but since assisted projectiles are a thing, it is a real possibility. The question is then more about hardening instruments against the enormous G-load, about what orbits it can reach, and whether the economics make sense compared to a rideshare on a conventional launch platform.
Add two letters at the end - BB - for Base Bleed. A slow burning wad embedded in the bottom creates a hot plume that alleviates the drag behind the boattail.
In the 80s Voest-Alpine produced the Bull designed GHN-45 howitzers in license. Austria is neutral and we have laws prohibiting arms exports to countries who are at war. These were broken when we exported the GHN-45 to _both Iraq and Iran_ during the Iran-Iraq war. This became known as the "Noricum Scandal". Former interior minister Karl Blecha and Noricum managers were sentenced for this.
I too am obsessed with Dr. Bull. I'm waiting for those idiots who are trying to build a trebuchet to launch satellites into space to realize Bull was RIGHT. A really big gun laid on the side of a mountain should actually work. 🙄😂
No it wouldn’t lol. You think you know better than those teams of engineers who have studied this their entire lives? The sensors and other equipment that makes satellites worth launching can’t be hardened against those titanic g-loads like an artillery shell can. Physically impossible.
45 caliber - interesting. Though the final class of US battleships, the Iowas, used 50 caliber guns, a superheavy projectile was developed for the 50 caliber gun, so as to mimic the ballistic characteristics of the 45 caliber guns used on the North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships. The 45 caliber gun was found to have better high angle penetration, useful against armored decks of enemy ships. Interesting.
Depends on the quality of the EW and the operating conditions. It can be quite surgical. Given an excellent platform, robust targeting, and a proper guided shell. If there is not significant EW, you can really do something special with that. Or the BONUS rounds and whatnot. They're absolutely surgical.
As a veteran of the South African army in the 1980's I can tell you from first hand experience that the G5 cannon with the ERFB shell was a game-changer in the Angolan bush war. I can still remember one dark night watching these shells being fired from about 5km behind our lines. They looked like giant tracer rounds arcing from the horizon to above the cloud line.
So the base bleed acted as a pseudo-tracer? Interesting.
@@FirstDagger It's functionally just a weak rocket engine. The aerodynamics of why it works are different, but in practice it's a rocket.
Do you know if the base bleed charge has a delay on it? Otherwise this seems like a bit of a design flaw for counterbattery spotting if it lights up as soon as it leaves the barrel.
@@murica7096 uh, if you can spot an arillery piece firing 40-50km away from you, thats quite an achievement
@@N4CRdude no
Were both of them lied about
Yes
But they told on themselves far more often
I have gone and looked at the remnants of the HARP project in Barbados, including one of the 16 inch barrels. My brother in law, a Barbados resident tells me that when a HARP firing was due, the locals were pre-warned so that they could open their windows to stop the pressure wave breaking the glass.
Now *this* is a forgotten weapon!
I got wht u did thr.
Ian would be fascinated, for sure.
He hasn't got an example, though....@@Gunners_Mate_Guns
Forgotten Artillery!... wait artilleries are weapon... except for Babylon and HAARP... well i guess they can use it as such but they really shouldn't... anyways yeah
Is that Ian’s forgotten brother? They speak very very similar.
My late father worked with an engineer who was Gerald Bull's assistant in Brussels. Unfortunately I never met him, but was told that on hearing the news he went directly to the airport and left the country, hoping to fade into obscurity. He said that he was utterly terrified for a long time.
Understandble, Mossad can act with impunity almost anywhere in the World.
@@AddieHilton TBH, that's considered super global power, only two countries in the world capable of do that, what a small country have such superpower?
Shortly before the invasion of Iraq when someone was talking about the Iraqi nuclear programme an Englishman went and sat under a tree to cut his wrists.
It was said to be nothing to do with anything else.
i met Bull in the late 70s, definitely an interesting person, all he wanted to do was study artillery. The site at North Troy Vermont was littered with gun barrels. In Barbados, i was told the chickens would not lay eggs and the cows wouldn't give milk. He bought LST 854renamed NORTH POINT for the Barbados government for a Caribcon Project and it caused a change of government in Barbados. Bull liked big guns, SRC archives should have a paper called THE GUN LAUNCHED ORBITER, where he describes how a gun launched satellite could be done with guns up to 3 feet in diameter and bigger. The last I talked to him was about three weeks before he died.
Thank you for your service
You mean killed.
@@sd906238 that is still death, aka "died" it's his fond memory, let him word it how he pleases.
Woow.. isn't it amazing how politicians vs engineering egotism clash..
Examples
1. Christie with the tank Design
2. Howard Hughes
3. Elon Musk
Never heard of Bull but an good example
Yeah, 3 weeks before he was assassinated. It is also amazing how many engineers who came up with working clean hydrogen burning engines that basically used water have been murdered or died "mysteriously" just before they could bring their inventions to market. They never seem to take into account all the people in government and industry who WILL even commit mass murder to protect their profits and power.
I’m a simple man, When I see artillery and Gerald Bull I click.
A man and his dream. Mr. Artillery. He loved his craft.
I'm a standard man, When I see artillery and Gerald Bull I click.😆
@@budgiefriend my great-uncle Frank was a navy man. He only drove Oldsmobiles, too. Lol. Smoked cigars and was a shot and a beer guy.
You fully articulated "Cliff's Notes". I'm impressed.
Gilles ain't no hack 😀
If anyone wishes to view the sections of the 'Supergun' they can be found in the Royal Armouries artillery museum at Fort Nelson nr Portsmouth.
A great day out, especially when they have reenactments going on.
Used to be at the Woolwich Musuem before that closed.
@@Calum_S Exactly, if you like this channel, Fort Nelson will be paradise. Don't miss the tunnels. It's free to visit, just need to pay for car parking
There was one section at the Duxford Imperial War Museum en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergun_affair#/media/File:IraqiSupergunIWMDuxford2005.JPG
I used to play in that fort as a child & have visited it numerous times since its become a museum, there's always something new & interesting to be discovered its a marvellous experience & free entry except when specific events are being staged.
Well worth a visit or visits.
The RUclips algorithm quit putting Our Own Devices in front of Me. I’m glad you showed up again. Thank you for the piece on Dr. Bull.
The base bleed shell is exactly that. It bleeds gas that displaces turbulent air behind the shell, which significantly reduces drag. The shell has a small block of magnesium in the base of the shell, hence "base bleed". The magnesium ignites when the shell is fired as a result of the temperature in the barrel. That is why it will look like a tracer at night. There is no "assistance" for the shell, but merely a much reduced drag from the gas produced by the magnesium. The barrels are not anything "special", it's the shells that maketh the artillery, along with the targeting system that measures, and account for, atmospheric temperature and wind speed. When these guns were introduced, they could fire a base bleed shell to 40km, and hit a target as small as 5x5 meters, within 3 shots. When I was doing my post graduate studies in mechanical engineering, we had an absent collegue. This was at the Potchefstroom University, now NWU, which is right next to South Africa's North West Command and Artillery Training School. We would here these guns firing from our classrooms through spring. So, our missing student studied mettalurgy, and received funding from the SA military to remove a disadvantage of these shells, and those were the drive bands. Each of these shells has two drive bands, that seals the shell into the barrel's rifling, which results in friction, and reduced muzzle velocity. So his project was to develop a more malleable allow that would reduce barrel friction (which will obviously also reduce wear), while surviving the the stresses from the charge. At our last quilloquim, he had permission from the SA military to share his study results. With the reduced friction from the alloy he developed, the range was extended from 40 km to 67 km. And with tweaks he got a firing range of 76 km. Thats about as far as a HIMARS rocket's reach, at a fraction of the cost, higher sustained firing rate, and much more ammunition on hand. There is no other artillery gun in the world that even comes close. Something interesting to note, these shells fired, at maximum range, can hit a commercial airliner flying at 39,000 feet. So, the most important part of what I shared with you is this: Avoid commercial airlines that fly over Potch!
😀...ja Potch is 'n ander plek! Dankie vir die 'hands-on' informasie.
@@vlermuis2416 n Paar van my dosente was ex-krygkor navorsers wat gewerk het aan die Cheetah en Rooivalk. Baie interessante goed geleer.
Thanks for sharing this!
A base bleed unit isn't a "small block of magnesium". It is a GAS GENERATOR, burning magnesium has a SOLID product (magnesium oxide), useless for this application.
Base bleed pyrotechnic mixtures are more similar to composite rocket propellants and MAY include some finely powdered metal fuels to increase heat of reaction & output gasses but are mostly oxidizer (usually ammonium perchlorate these days), gas generating fuels/binders and/or explosive ingredients chosen from the usual group of propellant chemicals. Mechanical engineer, huh?
@@BertRowe-b3lIs that similar to the inclusion of Aluminium powder with Nitrogen fertiliser for a bigger bang ?
My cousin worked for Sheffield Forgemasters at that time and he always wondered what the things were that he was working on due to the precise specifications. They turned out to be super gun barrel sections.
If I'm not mistaken the Iraqis contracted them under the guise of manufacturing sewage pipes, so given my manufacturing background I can imagine the strange looks that were had when they were told how tight the tolerances were for alleged sewage pipes.
@@richardmillhousenixon iirc it was declared to customs as petrochemical equipement
Now I'm going to have to go and rewatch the episode of Citation Needed where they talked about it again.
Very high performance pipe line...
@@zapfanzapfan such pressure, such wow
You have just crossed 100K.
There is a reason for this - your channel is fascinating.
I am Artillery crew working at Weapon Production Centre, my base literary have a wall art depicting worker making 155mm ERFB-BB, BT.
We're producing 155 shell and tank shell as well as mortar shell. We use tow GHN-45 and ATMOS system with Soltam help to create ATMG.
Gerald Bull had an oversized influence on my life through my father. During Bul’sl time at McGill, he partnered with a professor I believe of astrophysics called Charles Murphy. Chuck Murphy had been the best man at my father‘s wedding and they lived about a short block away from where we did when I was a kid, Gerald Bull was constantly talked about and came to both our house and for dinner frequently at the Murphy’s where we were invited. My father was also an engineer in the aerospace sector. he came from Manitoba as did Murphy, and both had circuitously found their way to Montreal via London, and I think he saw Gerald Bull as a kind of aspirational figure. My dad was a very good engineer as I’ve come to understand, and I think his admiration for Bull really stemmed from the understanding that one very good engineer has another very very good engineers work. I think this was a misplaced emotion. But of course history plays out after you experience the events in the judgments of people later. Because of when he encountered Chuck Murphy, the main thing we first knew about him was about the big gun down in Bermuda, and that just seemed magical to a young kid growing up with the dawn of the space race.
So fascinated by this man, you wrote a play about him. What a fascinating person you are! Thank you for your excellent videos.
I’m a Canadian who became fascinated by the story of Gerald Bull quite some time ago. Upon having the good fortune to be posted to Brussels, I took the opportunity to find his apartment building and walked over to it one day. Looking at the door handles that both he and the Mossad used that day was a little surreal.
Interesting how we all know the crimes of this country but no one is allowed to speak against them.
It's crazy how Israel just got away with murdering him like that
@@Halal_Dan
"No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.” --Isaiah 54:17
@@ЛишняяХромосома-э8ч So why are they currently being engaged in conflict in their area?
@@Halal_Dan They were engaged in conflict with ancient Egipt, with Persia, with Seleucid empire, with Roman empire, etcetera, ad nauseam. Where are all those mighty enemies now?
A few parts of the barrel of Bull's supergun were seized by Customs in the port of Antwerpen, Belgium. They were still there in the early 1990's, quietly forgotten in a corner of a warehouse of abandoned cargo. I have personally seen them in that warehouse.
Wow
From watching some shotgun RUclips channels that shoot viewer made bullets, I was inspired to design a similar looking round to the on in this video.
It is nice that someone had some parallel ideas to mind, and actually got a chance to make them.
TAOFLEDERMAUS, by any chance?
@@somercet1
Yes. Maybe we could get the ballistic machinist to make up some rounds.
@@myperspective5091 and send it to them
One of my all-time favorite teachers was one of the G2 guys who did the original evaluation on the one-five-five field piece. Bless you Mr. Smith, some of us still remember.
An excellent video, and, of course, well done for having 100K subscribers. Knowledge and talent can still garner significant success on RUclips, and this is the content that I love to watch.
Good point about the gun not being the real concern for those who had Bull eliminated.
Yes - the real concern was the other work he was doing for Iraq on Scuds and EFBR shells, rather than on Project Babylon. The bit about a supergun etc was just for public consumption - just one part of the BS they were already putting around about "Saddam's WMD" and which was eventually turned up to 11 to justify a war built on false pretenses.
You're not the only one obsessed. I'm enjoying this!
Sir, you are a man of multiple talents. I am in awe.
Dr Gerald Bull has been one my obsessions for over 30 years as well. Having read his autobiography “arms and the man” over a dozen times. I would definitely be interested in watching more material on this guy and his contributions to long range artillery.
Among other work at CARDE, my late father worked on the sabot for flight testing Velvet Glove. Trenton's RCAF museum has an example he donated complete with its model missile.
Another of his contributions was the high-low chamber pressure device for the bored-out 5.5 howitzer barrel used to propel the models. This allowed the propellant to burn efficiently at high pressure, while accelerating the model and sabot gradually enough that they were not destroyed.
Great video! You definitely cleared up some questions I had about Dr. Bull. I use to tell my soldiers about him.
Thanks for the video. Prior to this I had only read bits and pieces of information about Gerald Bull and always assumed the mechanism he used to extend the range of artillery shells involved providing those shells some sort of additional propulsive force, and that he had invented the technology behind it. Turns out both of these assumptions were wrong. Thanks again. Very interesting info.
Writing a play about Gerald Bull is the kind of thing that gets you put on a watch list.
We got Ian the Gun Jesus, now we got Artillery Rabbi as well 😂😂😂
😂
A fascinating video. I had no knowledge that I can recall on Dr. Gerald Vincent Bull. Your excellent abridged version shows his genius and ability to think outside the box. Thanks for your videos.
Thank you for this informative video filling in a lot of the gaps in the story of Bull I hadn’t known.
156m long barrel is crazy...... i wish such a thing was made just for the coolness of it.
Just managing to keep such a barrel straight in the face of temperature changes is an engineering feat in its own right.
@@RCAvhstape Could it be buried underground to be in a stable environment?
@@20chocsaday yes, similar to the gun Germany built to delivery artillery shells to London.
Also makes service access to the barrel much easier and adds options for higher speed
@@RCAvhstape well if the goal is "get it into space" then super accuracy isn't really a requierment
best video I've seen on RUclips in a very long time. thank you
I love this channel
Here is a Polaroid camera!
Here is an artillery shell!
So, about 5% of this long story was about the 155 ERFB, the rest about the history of John Bull, which you said you were not going to try to cover. As an officer who served 12 years in artillery units, thought you were not going to waste my time on Bull, but you did.
What a great video! First, great content and fascinating story. Second, every content creator today speaks so fast or indistinctly, I can’t understand them. You speak rapidly, but I understood you perfectly! This means a lot since I am older and hard of hearing. Thank you, I will subscribe and I hope to see a lot more content from you.
in my youth I was fascinated by this sort of subject and was under the impression that Dr Bull had used the German fixed ‘Super Guns” that they had started installing to fire at the British Isles from Europe. If my old memory serves still, I recall that those devices didn’t merely use an explosive propellant at the the breach but were also assisted by a series of gas-powered percussions along the barrel as the projectile progressed up the barrel.
Or did I dream that?
You didn't dream that. It is described in a Wikipedia article.
Wikipedia contributors. (2024, September 4). V-3 cannon. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:39, September 9, 2024, from en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=V-3_cannon&oldid=1243930773
I wonder what the original sources are.
you've earned a sub, sir. this was fantastic!
Firing things into space is still an avenue being investigated, for shooting something like a Starlink satellite into space, or eventually parts for moon mining vehicles etc makes a lot of sense, waaay cheaper than firing them up on rockets,
Very unfortunate that a talent like Mr Bull couldn't have been harnessed to civilian applications of his ballistics expertise, and sort of bonkers that someone thought he was dangerous enough to warrant actually having him murdered in the centre of Europe.
Great video as ever, this channel rarely disappoints.
Yeah. Satellites, nah. We have too many of them up there. But shooting fuel, and parts to assemble interplanetary craft, that's where the immense advantages of a Space Gun are. 🤔🧐🤓
He wasn't a credible threat, they killed him as a show of force.
@@Superchunk-k2hWho did kill him, I don't believe the assassin/s were ever formally identified?
If it was the Israelis, seems very heavy handed for a non threat, I would imagine they would want to avoid annoying Europeans by doing hits in flipping Brussels! That's a bit close to home!!
@@paulelephant9521 It's the sort of brazen, arrogant stuff they do (and are doing somewhere now) because their people control the monetary/tax system in every western country. What are you going to do about it? Complain? Lmao.
Those people know no bounds in their villainy
In the late 90s I moved to a small town on the Vermont / Canadian border and was intrigued by "Space Research Road" I came across one day. I knew of Bull but had no idea he had a testing area in vermont. Went down that road once, but nothing remained but a couple burned out cinder block buildings.
Tremendous work Gilles, thank you.
I was at this museum!! My daughter was the Food Logistics officer there. A must see!! Thank you for this!!!
Truly a fascinating video in every way; thank you. Also I absolutely love the explanation of that gas booster; I never would have imagined something like that- very interesting.
Can't find this one on Ebay either, thanks a lot! LOL. Great video again!
Link to the RUclips Bull documentary does not work. Can you fix that please.
It works for me. I'm in the U.S.
Wonderful! Another fine episode!
Man the forgotten weapons vibes are strong. Even their Candace is similar
As an artillery nerd... I love this!
It's too bad that the larger supergun models were never built (I'm looking at you Mossad) the technology is really interesting and could allow us to put satellites in orbit MUCH more cheaply. Bull just wanted to see his dream realized and didn't really think about the repercussions of working for Iraq.
Idk man, in the end most if his work was on scuds, not cannons. He wasnt the pained visionary von braun was, he was an engineer for hire with a pet Project
We have reusable rockets now, and honestly, anything that needs to go into orbit is probably too sensitive to survive being fired out of a space gun.
The numbers given in the video are not realistic. Any space gun needs a kickstage to reach orbit, and since Big Babylon would have been a single stage gun, it would need quite a sizeable one. 200kg to LEO is far more realistic than the 1000kg stated in the video. Given the need for 9 tonnes of specialised propellant and the 2 ton guided kickstage (and the amortization cost of the gun), it's hard to believe it would be much cheaper than modern small satellite launchers (Rocket Lab's Electron has a payload of 300kg to LEO, weighs 12.5 tonnes and costs 7.5 million dollars per launch).
Working together with dictatorships is also inexcusable. In that regard, the comparison with Werner von Braun is probably more accurate than one would think. The production of the V-2 missiles killed more people in forced labor camps than at their impact sites.
Both of these men had grand visions, but they both stopped at nothing to reach them.
@@lukasdimmler2622 there were a number of designs including additional offset chambers with more propellant in each and firing rockets that would ignite at their apogee. The designs mentioned in the video certainly wouldn't have but some of the others or some combination of them may well have. It's unfortunate that all we got to see was the infancy of the technology
There's an interesting "alternate history " (well, lite alternate, historical events were barely affected) novel by Forsythe named "Fist of God" as to the real reason the gun was planned.
Excellent content and well presented! 🎉
Thank you so much for doing what you do. It'll be super awesome to shake your hand one day
Lovely on a Sunday morning, thank you.
Oh come one, Bull, forgotten? That man was and is, a legend
I live in Northern Vermont where his research center was(kids party up in its remains now) . As a local contractor I came across and kept one of his 105 mm artillery shells and a sales pamphlet for the 105 artillery piece in a basement. I have them in my man cave.
Very intriguing. Artillery's cool.
Excellent presentation!!
Reminds me of nearly 50 years ago learning about trajectory calculations in math and physics classes.
I was always happier thinking we were calculating athletes doing a shot put.
‘ Guns Lies & Spies’ - also worth a read. 👍
I have just watched an excellent documentary on Gagarin on another channel, where you were cited as the author: or at least, someone with the same name. You are versatile, and an accomplished writer and communicator.
If you are in England go to the Armouries Museum at Fort Nelson (its free!). Among many excellent exhibits is a section of the Supergun which was found still in the UK Customs store, it is huge. I have never forgotten Bull's assassination - the week before i had bought shares in Astra who had a joint venture with Bull. They lost 90% of their value, i should have paid more attention to the risks.
Thank you for this video! Like you, I am fascinated by Gerald Bull. He was a remarkable engineer. One item that may merit discussion is that, although Iraq knew how to strap several Soviet Scuds together, they did not have the technology for the re-entry vehicles. Bull provided this knowledge, and this is ultimately what signed his death warrant. The Super Gun was almost trivial in this saga (though not for Bull). But the ability for Iraq to have an effective long-range ballistic missile system was very worrying for Israel. Thus, his assassination was sealed. Gerald Bull was a genius whose time unfortunately came to an early end. But he was betrayed by the Americans and the British.
Alternatively you could look at him as an arms seller without morals who got what was coming to him.
Dude sold arms to SA, Iraq and communist china for crying out loud!
He wasn't betrayed, he was an idiot savant. He deliberately ignored all the warning signs and thus his death was inevitable.
@@thekinginyellow1744 I would not characterize him as an idiot savant. I was no idiot. Savant? Genius, for sure. Still, the Americans did betray him. The Canadians, too. His knowledge was very specific and perhaps a bit too niche. Artillery is still a viable weapon, But the Supergun was really a folly. It was the knowledge of re-entry vehicles that was the final straw. Yes, he ignored warnings. Yes, he made some bone-headed decisions. Still, Gerald Bull was a genius of nearly unique abilities. As is too often the case, when his genius was no longer useful, he was discarded by the Americans. And so chose to ply his trade with the South Africans and then the Iraqis. Not terribly clever, perhaps. But the SA G5 and the G6 were brilliant designs. He should not have died at the hands of the Mossad. But good intentions can (and sometimes do) have unintended and unfortunate consequences. Still Gerald Bull is a hero to me.
@@chemwrite Not using the medical definition, but rather the cultural one. If you want a more strict medical definition, I would go with monotropism to at least some degree. So focused on his own goals that he totally ignored the bigger picture. Do I think he should have been murdered? No. Do I think he should have known that he would be murdered if he continued on his current course? Yes, Absolutely.
@@thekinginyellow1744 Gerald Bull was a complex man. Likely, I would not have liked him, had I met him. However, I do admire him as the greatest genius of artillery in the modern era. I am writing this time, not to talk about Gerald Bull, but to question you. Your moniker and your sigil are somewhat disturbing. The tale of the yellow king is...well, while I am aware of it, it is not something that I would be drawn to. And your sigil, while maybe reminiscent of the Isle of Mann, does bear an all too similarity to that which has been adopted by members of what are euphemistically known as the alt-right. On that topic, I can only remind all of us that The United States fought the Civil War and the Second World War and defeated those who would espouse those repudiated philosophies. If that is your predilection, I'd kindly advise you to reconsider your stance. Being on the losing side of history is a poor place to raise a flag.
Great video, Gilles...👍
You want to go deeper with Dr. Bull, look into his designs for the Iowa class guns with submunitions. He had a design of the standard 16" round that would hit out to 39 miles, but that wasn't his only mod for the Iowa guns. He also had a 11" submunition and an 8" submunition with the 8" submunition being able to reach 100 miles.
Ryan czymanski, or however the curator of New Jersey spells his name found the nuclear keys.
Hey, the youtube links to the mainpage of youtube for some reason, thanks; tried on multiple browsers and on a VM, might be country blocked or a broken link :)
It doesn’t do anything for me (iphone app, USA)
No probs on my phone in Australia.
Ive noticed a lot of sites i used to access have become inaccessible over the last 24hrs, here in usa.
@@kasahadragon9499 not working for me in Oz
Are we being sealed off from something for some reason ?
One barrel segment of the Babylon Gun can be seen at Duxford Air Museum just outside Cambridge England.
Yes, they accepted the order, accepted payment, then refused to ship instead of just declining the order like a moral person.
@@harryniedecken5321 Duxford Air Museum? What did they refuse to ship, and where?
@@marqsee7948 The pipe / tube supplier in England that made the barrel sections for the gun for Sadam.
Then mossad assassinated the guy.
@@harryniedecken5321 the Duxford Air Museum supplies pipes/tubes?
@@marqsee7948 No, he is judging Sheffield Forgemasters who made the super gun sections, without knowing the conversation between them and the intelligence community, because that is Secret. As if they wouldn't do as they are told on national security matters. They now belong to the UK Ministry of Defense because they have sovereign capabilities.
I highly recommend visiting Beautiful Barbados! 🇧🇧
Not only for the HARP Gun 😉
I have walked to the site two years ago, it is massive, and people there remembering it shook the whole Island!
Sadly the Concorde Experience at BGI is closed now, had visited that couple of years earlier.
I'm pretty sure Barbados has officially crossed to line to being a high-income country now; the quality of governance and public services is supposed to be pretty good.
@@augusthoglund6053tru dat! 😉
The Royal Artillery Museum at Woolwich had for many years a couple of sections of pipe outside. Seized parts of Bull's 'Supergun'.
The tan GC-45 looks like the one at Fort Sill Oklahoma. That gun was marked as a GHN-45. That was alst very close to my Unit while I was there.
I pray i never have to experience artillery shelling, ive read alot of war memoirs and all say its the most terrifying thing. You have to fight every urge to jump and run, like lightening striking all around you and the ground becoming not solid with every explosion, tossing your entire body up and down left and right.. alot of guys cracked, jumped out of their hole and got ripped apart by blast, shrapnel or enemy fire. Terrifying..
I'm also terrified of hundreds of flying 2"-6" long pieces of razor sharp jagged steel from exploding artillery shells. A 4" inch piece of a supersonic flying steel would tear through a human shoulder or cut a limb 10 times faster than a cleaver hacking a beef steak.
I told a doctor once, I'm not allergic to penicillin but I'm allergic to exploding things and flying sharp metal 😆😁
I'm sure there will be someone to comment about artillery barrages from the receiving end, thank heaven I'm not one of them. I did see, from 20km distance through field glasses what the impact area looks like when a six-gun battery fires a three-round (per gun) time-on-target mission. Each gun fires three rounds in quick succession, at a different elevation for each round, timed to that all the shells impact at approximately the same time, in this case it was eighteen shells exploding at about 20 meters (if I remember correctly) above ground within one second. The intent is to maximize the destructive capability of a single artillery battery and give the enemy no time to react and get under cover.
It was just an exercise, but seeing the chaos that ensued, from over 10 miles away, was sobering, to say the least.
I've always found Gerald Bull very fascinating.
Not forgotten, CBC did excellent coverage on the news at the time, an i believe the Fifth Estate.
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Fascinating! Thanks for posting.
I remember my dad mentioning the Sheffield forgemaster thing as he was an engineer, and quite worried about the implications
I believe they were fined or whatever. And as you can see they just look like pipes.
Another great video. I remember seeing a story about Bull on 60 minutes, back when I was a teenager.
Foreground was a little out of focus lol.
By the way - what was the very large insect crawling around on the floor (right above the back of the shell)? It is just a small speck when the video starts and then slowly gets closer and closer LOL
At 4:08 I'd say that it was a cockroach.
@@rjmun580
Yes, that is what I thought - but I didn't think they had cockroaches that big in Canada.
I've lived in northern Maine near the border and we never saw a cockroach, let a lone one that big.
We now are in southern US and they are here.
I had no idea there was a movie about Gerald Bull. I wonder if it's any good. Just spotted "A Load Of Bull" in the thumbnail and I'm dying. :)
Strange, when I click the link for the documentary it takes me to youtube's front page, not a specific video.
TY-So much facinating facts on Mr. Bull , and he was killed for it, wow! His story is epic.
You get to see all the kool stuff. Good job.
What an amazing story. That it ends with the building of some crazy SUPER GUN... wild. I will be looking more into him.
Great show
Wow! This really was a huge load of Bull...
I vaguely remember hearing about this gun and guy during the first Gulf War, there were a bit worried the thing would be used.
It’s very often forgotten but the US Army was one of the leading military branches in the space race along with the navy!
Whenever a new technology comes along, their are some engineers who will fixate on forwarding the existing solutions as far as possible, partly because it's what they know, partly because they know the mill monkeys can build it. The all-wood comstruction of the DeHavilland Mosquito is one example.
In a day when cruise and ballistic missiles were becoming dominate for long-range fires, Bull proved the gun was still viable. And he achieved some damn impressive performance.
BTW, there were 2 more HARP guns made--one at Yuma Proving Grounds and one at Highwater Ridge. Everyone focuses on the Barbados gun because it has pictures.
Those have photos as well. I prefer the one in the Yuma Proving Grounds because it is the only one of the bunch that was maintained in working order to this day...
I had friends living in Northern Vermont. They heard explosions of some of the early testing. And then did some looking into the source. Finding the SRC/Bull story.
According to the US Army website, they are getting inquiries from private satellite companies about using the HARP gun at Yuma as a launch platform. The gun has been restored to museum state and would take only a little effort to restore to full operation. It's probably too small to launch an unassisted projectile into orbit, but since assisted projectiles are a thing, it is a real possibility. The question is then more about hardening instruments against the enormous G-load, about what orbits it can reach, and whether the economics make sense compared to a rideshare on a conventional launch platform.
There is an excellent movie about this incident called The Doomsday Gun. The intro clip is from this movie..
Add two letters at the end - BB - for Base Bleed. A slow burning wad embedded in the bottom creates a hot plume that alleviates the drag behind the boattail.
highly interesting, thanks gilles
Great show!
Its a lovely documentary, watched it right after it came out l
Used to live by Shilo, Grandfather lived there for years. Neat base.
The big gun barrel sections were rendered unusable after Sadam lost if I remember reading correctly.
The link for the play doesn't work???? Is there an updated link?
In the 80s Voest-Alpine produced the Bull designed GHN-45 howitzers in license. Austria is neutral and we have laws prohibiting arms exports to countries who are at war. These were broken when we exported the GHN-45 to _both Iraq and Iran_ during the Iran-Iraq war. This became known as the "Noricum Scandal". Former interior minister Karl Blecha and Noricum managers were sentenced for this.
I too am obsessed with Dr. Bull. I'm waiting for those idiots who are trying to build a trebuchet to launch satellites into space to realize Bull was RIGHT. A really big gun laid on the side of a mountain should actually work. 🙄😂
does it? When was that? This one wasn't ever fired.
@@marqsee7948 True. Edited original post. 😉
No it wouldn’t lol. You think you know better than those teams of engineers who have studied this their entire lives? The sensors and other equipment that makes satellites worth launching can’t be hardened against those titanic g-loads like an artillery shell can. Physically impossible.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 🤔. You're probably right. 🫡
first time on your channel, first video of yours that i watched and i hear that Danse Macabre! 😈
45 caliber - interesting. Though the final class of US battleships, the Iowas, used 50 caliber guns, a superheavy projectile was developed for the 50 caliber gun, so as to mimic the ballistic characteristics of the 45 caliber guns used on the North Carolina and South Dakota class battleships. The 45 caliber gun was found to have better high angle penetration, useful against armored decks of enemy ships.
Interesting.
155mm is the king munition on the modern day battlefield. Quantity, quality and firepower for all purposes except surgical
Depends on the quality of the EW and the operating conditions. It can be quite surgical. Given an excellent platform, robust targeting, and a proper guided shell. If there is not significant EW, you can really do something special with that. Or the BONUS rounds and whatnot. They're absolutely surgical.