What 400 year old German company was the premier weapons manufacturer for railway guns in World War 1 & 2?
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Railway gun 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.
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Krupp The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their production of steel, artillery, ammunition, and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. It was important to weapons development and production in both world wars. One of the most powerful dynasties in European history, for 400 years Krupp flourished as the premier weapons manufacturer for Germany. From the Thirty Years' War until the end of the Second World War, they produced everything from battleships, U-boats, tanks, howitzers, guns, utilities, and hundreds of other commodities.
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Sturmgeschütz IV The Sturmgeschütz IV (StuG IV) (Sd.Kfz. 167), was a German assault gun variant of the Panzer IV used in the latter part of the Second World War. Identical in role and concept to the highly successful StuG III assault gun variant of the Panzer III, both StuG models were given an exclusively tank destroyer role in German formations and tactical planning in the last two years of the war, greatly augmenting the capability of the dwindling tank force available to the German army on the Eastern and Western fronts.
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Bergmann MG 15nA machine gun The Bergmann MG 15 was the World War I production version of 1915 (MG 15 n.A.) light machine gun developed by Germany. It used 100/200 round belts and utilized a bipod, which allowed the weapon to mount on a surface for more accurate firing.
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Royal Westphalian Railway Company The Royal Westphalian Railway (German: "Königlich-Westfälische Eisenbahn" , KWE), was a German rail company established in 1848 with funding from the Prussian government, which later became part of the Prussian State Railways. The network eventually extended about 315 km from Rheine via Hamm to Warburg and from Welver (near Hamm) to Oberhausen.
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10 cm schwere Kanone 18 The 10.5 cm schwere Kanone 18 (10.5 cm sK 18) was a field gun used by Germany in World War II. The German army wanted a new 10.5 cm gun as well as 15 cm howitzer which were to share the same carriage. Guns are heavier than howitzers due to the longer barrel. This also led to the 15 cm sFH 18. As such both weapons had a similar weight and could be carried by a similar carriage. By 1926 Krupp and Rheinmetall had specimen designs, and prototypes were ready by 1930, but was not fielded until 1933–34. Both Krupp and Rheinmetall competed for the development contract, but the Wehrmacht compromised and selected Krupp's carriage to be mated with Rheinmetall's gun.
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Menck Menck & Hambrock was a German manufacturer of earth moving and ramming equipment and once one of the world's leading companies. They were based right in the middle of Altona-Ottensen, a part of Hamburg
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Bofors 40 mm gun The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun, is an anti-aircraft/multi-purpose autocannon designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. It was one of the most popular medium-weight anti-aircraft systems during World War II, used by most of the western Allies as well as by the Axis powers. A small number of these weapons remain in service to this day, and saw action as late as the Gulf War.
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Main-Neckar Railway The Main-Neckar Railway (German: "Main-Neckar–Eisenbahn" , MNE) is a main line railway west of the Odenwald in the Upper Rhine Plain of Germany that connects Frankfurt am Main to Heidelberg via Darmstadt, Bensheim and Weinheim. It was opened in 1846 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.
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Mannlicher M1895 The Mannlicher M1895 (German: "Infanterie Repetier-Gewehr M.95" , Hungarian: "Gyalogsági Ismétlő Puska M95" ; "Infantry Repeating-Rifle M95") is a bolt-action rifle, designed by Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher that used a refined version of his revolutionary straight-pull action bolt, much like the Mannlicher M1890 carbine. It was nicknamed the "Ruck-Zu(rü)ck" (German slang for "back and forth") by Austrian troops and "Ta-Pum" by Italian troops who even wrote a song about it during World War I.
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15 cm SK L/40 naval gun The 15 cm SK L/40 was a German naval gun that was used as secondary armament on pre-dreadnought battleships, protected cruisers and armored cruisers of the Imperial German Navy in World War I. It was also used as a coast-defence gun during World War II.
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Spreewerk Metallwarenfabrik Spreewerk GmbH was a German weapons manufacturing company. Spreewerk produced a number of important weapons and components before and during World War II including 280,880 of the Walther P.38 pistol which was the standard service pistol of the German "Heer", and the famous 8.8 cm Flak anti-aircraft gun.
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Hanomag Hanomag (Hannoversche Maschinenbau AG) was a German producer of steam locomotives, tractors, trucks and military vehicles in Hanover. Hanomag first achieved international fame by delivering a large number of steam locomotives to Finland, Romania and Bulgaria before World War I. In 1925 they added automobiles to their line, additionally moving in 1931 into the production of construction machinery. Since 1989, the company has been part of the Komatsu company.
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Flakpanzer I The 2 cm "Flak 38 auf Panzer" I "Ausführung" A, commonly known as the "Flakpanzer" I, was a rare self-propelled anti-aircraft gun conversion of the Panzer I in use by the military of Nazi Germany during World War II.
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Amiens Gun The Amiens Gun is a German 28 cm railway gun (originally mounted in the battleship SMS Hessen) that was captured by the Australian Imperial Force during World War I and returned to Australia as a war trophy. The 28 cm SK L/40 "Bruno" (SK – "Schnelladekanone" (quick-loading cannon) L – "Länge" (with a 40-calibre barrel)) gun was placed on public display on 26 March 1920 adjacent to the Central railway station, Sydney. While the gun's carriage was scrapped during the 1960s, the gun barrel remains on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
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Volkssturmgewehr The Volkssturmgewehr ("People's Assault Rifle") is the name of several rifle designs developed by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. They share the common characteristic of being greatly simplified as an attempt to cope with severe lack of resources and industrial capacity in Germany during the final period of the war.
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Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe The Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe ('Karlsruhe Engineering Works') was a locomotive and railway wagon manufacturer in the early days of the German railways. It was based at Karlsruhe in what is now the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany.
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Heckler &amp; Koch MG4 The MG4 is a belt-fed 5.56 mm light machine gun designed and developed by the German company Heckler & Koch. The weapon was developed in the late 1990s and was first seen publicly in September 2001. It has been selected to replace the 7.62 mm MG3 general-purpose machine gun in the Bundeswehr at the squad support level; it will complement the MG3 in other roles. The MG4 will also be the secondary armament of the new Puma infantry fighting vehicle. Overall, it is designed to be light, provide maximum safety to the user and function reliably under adverse conditions using a wide range of ammunition from different manufacturers, without the need to adjust the gas system. The machine gun was initially known as the MG43 prior to its adoption by the Bundeswehr.
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MP 40 The MP 40 ("Maschinenpistole 40") was a submachine gun chambered for the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge. It was developed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by the Axis powers during the Second World War.
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Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG (] ) was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. It is one of the predecessor companies of today's Airbus.
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Paris Gun The Paris Gun (German: "Paris-Geschütz / Pariser Kanone" ) was the name given to a type of German long-range siege gun, several of which were used to bombard Paris during World War I. They were in service from March to August 1918. When the guns were first employed, Parisians believed they had been bombed by a high-altitude Zeppelin, as the sound of neither an aeroplane nor a gun could be heard. They were the largest pieces of artillery used during the war by barrel length, and are considered to be superguns.
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Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893/96 gun The Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893/96 was a heavy naval gun used as the main armament of a number of French pre-dreadnoughts during World War I. It equipped the "Charlemagne", "République" and "Liberté"-class battleships as well as the unique battleships "Iéna" and "Suffren". It was also used as railway artillery in that war.