Talk:Little David

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Military history: Technology / Weaponry / North America / United States / World War II

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Untitled

Is this a joke? It looks reduculous if find it hard to belive that even the Americans would build this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.7.176.27 (talk) 12:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hardly. Besides, America has built a variety of super-large guns in the past. 99.246.218.119 05:52, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MILHIST Assessment

Needs expansion. Also, is this a single particular mortar launcher, or a class/make of them? I'm sure that's obvious to any WWII history buff, but I'm afraid not to me (and therefore to the average reader). LordAmeth 00:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction

How can the article claim that "Little David is still the artillery piece with the largest caliber in history" although it mentions two other artillery pieces with the same calibre, which are older and one of which was actually used in combat? Burschik 12:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it should be changed to Little David is still one of the artillery pieces with the largest caliber in history? This will render it correct and keep the article pretty much the same. I will change it right away. MythSearcher^talk 12:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, caliber of Paixhans' "monster mortar" was 24.5 inches, see [1], [2]. Bukvoed (talk) 14:16, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Still in existence?

Does this weapon still exist? Or was it melted down/destroyed? A little information on Little David's ultimate fate would be nice. Canine virtuoso (talk) 00:11, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Still on display at the Abeerdeen Proving Grounds I think--Sus scrofa (talk) 00:40, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Which raises the question how many shells still exist (^.^) PizzaMan (♨♨) 21:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is no longer on display at APG. While most of the restored items were transferred to Fort Lee, it appears that Little David (because it wasn't restored) did not make the move. I looked at the aerial on Google Maps and it is no longer in its old location on the base. I cannot find it anywhere. I'm not ready to say it was scrapped but it is no longer at the old ordnance museum, nor is it at Fort Lee. I updated the article and put two references in there to its fate. Very happy to be proven wrong.--Tempejim (talk) 23:42, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It appears the Little David was moved to the new museum site and is undergoing restoration:

https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/the-father-son-team-keeping-alive-the-memory-of-wwiis-little-david-the-worlds-largest-gun/#:~:text=The%20war%20ended%20before%20Little,Adams%20(formerly%20Fort%20Lee). 2603:6080:3A00:5C:5844:ECDF:79F6:9AC (talk) 15:52, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison to Schwerer Gustav

The article is incredibly sensationalist. The constant comparison of Little David with Schwerer Gustav is absolutely uninformative (and also childish - sounds a lot like "who has the longest..."). The two weapons were totally different: Schwerer Gustav was a railway gun, giving it the ability to fire shells in an arc more than 40 km. Little David was a mortar prototype with a projected maximum range of 10 km. If you don't understand what I mean: one could make the same comparison between an M2 4.2 inch mortar and an 8.8 cm gun, and the mortar would "win" on the same grounds. Sansmalrst (talk) 09:23, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

overall effectiveness

2601:646:8380:E6E0:3D5C:C077:2E14:E95E (talk) 01:13, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

would have been questionable because of its limited range and accuracy.

What is this analysis premised on? It had better range that just about any of the German siege mortars used in WW2 and comparable if not better accuracy.

"Test-firing aerial bombs"

The introduction says that it was used to test-fire aerial bombs, but there's no mention of this in the text. Google returns a lot of hits for "little david test fire aerial bombs", but they're all paraphrasing this article. The two main sources, GlobalSecurity and MilitaryFactory, don't mention it. And the idea doesn't make sense if you think about it in detail. It's rifled. The calibre is too big for a blockbuster bomb, too small for Tallboy or Grand Slam, and it doesn't have enough power to loft a penetrator bomb high enough. Is there any evidence that it was ever used to test aerial bombs? It reads as if the detail about the original proposal to use a huge plastic explosive aerial bomb has become munged somewhere. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 17:56, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]