The Original Plan
Folks,
About six months ago I fell into a rabbit hole examining a project known as the High Altitude Research Project (HARP), that was originally led by Dr. Richard Bull. Bull was, for all intents and purposes, a traitor by the time he died in the 1990s. Nevertheless, sometimes the most intelligent people in the world are not the most aligned in the sense of honor, duty, integrity, or justice. History tells us that. But I digress. The intent was to examine just how far Bull had gotten in his research, and to compile a large and in depth history piggy-backing on his own historical recounts. This quickly led to the inclusion of several other ancestral weapon systems (the Krupp K5 and the Paris Kanonen).
The focus was then centered on the 7-inch, 12-inch, and 15-inch HARP guns and their respective rounds, plus the Navy models, and the limited Krupp models. The Paris Kanonen was used for this reason as the genesis system.
Then the V-3 got included in that, after Bull's commentary included just as many references to that weapon system as the Krupp K5.
Then Things Got Complicated
The original set of research priorities included the K5, and that was never an issue. The issue arose after several HARP design schema's came back with similar attachments to the weapons in what I have now come to call "the Annie family." The Annie Family does indeed trace back to the K5 (Anzio Annie - the grandfather - if you will), but the inclusion of any of those weapons systems opened a whole new closet worth of research priorities. The first came from the 240 mm Gun, T1. Naturally this led to examination of the M65, but that research then turned up two more members of the family - including one that has few, if any, documents pertaining to it.
The first of these, the T145 - a 175 mm Gun - was directly associated with both the Annie family and HARP. Not only that, but it was also related to the new limber applied to M115 howitzers (203 mm / 8-inch (which also had HARP connections)) and it's subsequent replacements. Right there, that added five additional weapons systems to the research list. The second gun has no nomenclature, instead described as a "mobile gun" at a whopping 350 mm. That gun has a post on the site here and was the first system I commented on due to the nature of the system. The same document that describes the 350 mm design also eludes to a 420 mm design and also implies at least some components were produced for the sake of testing.
Volatile Research Environment
There are two obstacles in the research process for this entire project. In no particular order, they are:
- Lack of definitive documentation widely available on some weapon systems.
- Newly discovered documentation in narrow channels of information.
- Newly developing weapon system designs that meet spec and criteria of legacy weapon systems.
I've put feelers out in multiple locations to attempt to gather as much information as I can on these weapon systems I previously mentioned, plus a few more. The problem is that there is some documentation there that exists, but is in a very narrow window of discovery. That is to say, you won't find it if you aren't looking for it. Likewise, the amount of information that is currently existing is either sparse or has a shaky factual foundation. Several elements of Atomic Annie I'm currently reviewing, and a few others for the T145. This results in a very precarious situation to quality control the content without a usual sounding board.
Most importantly, however, is the U.S. military's recent decision to begin examination of long-range, high-altitude artillery weapon systems once again. This could pose a potential roadblock as time passes on due to the nature of information. I have absolutely no intention of pushing on security protocols for the sake of unofficial research like this project is. (You sneaky Russian's can put your damn checkbooks away.)
At any rate. There is a lot of information that I'm trying to compile and untangle. So much so that a new history category may be warranted in the coming weeks. We'll see.
Until then, stay tuned for more information on these developments. What better way to take your mind off Death-Virus 2020 than looking at guns that make a big boom?
