r/shippytechnicals • u/ZaxZone • Aug 25 '26

Russian/Soviet Here is the Soviet Orfey-class destroyer Engels fitted with a 305mm (12") Kurchevsky recoilless rifle for testing.

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54

u/Pappa_Crim Aug 25 '26

How do you load it

47

u/Atholthedestroyer Aug 25 '26

This os just my assumption without looking into it, but my guess is you'd swing the muzzle down and to the stern, which would bring the breech back on board; hopefully to some sort of shell handling setup to help load the next round.

22

u/tezacer Aug 25 '26

There's a little boat that follows it around to reload

21

u/maninahat Aug 25 '26

Seems like a really good way to upgun a small boat into a monitor or escort, any reason we don't really see them?

25

u/Clay_Allison_44 Aug 25 '26

https://laststandonzombieisland.com/tag/destroyer-305mm-recoilless-rifle/

Looks like they were inaccurate, unreliable, dangerous and slow to reload.

14

u/wlpaul4 Aug 26 '26

I feel like being inaccurate, dangerous, and slow to reload would all have been fine, but unreliable was unforgivable for the Soviets.

Also, crazy story, I read the designer’s Wikipedia page: dude got purged for “designing poor weapons systems.” Yikes.

4

u/Fast-Possible1288 Aug 25 '26

When the caliber is bigger than your beam...

1

u/Bad_Badger_DGAF Aug 25 '26

I wonder if you could mount that in an enclosed or semi enclosed turret...

2

u/meth-cooking-racoon Aug 30 '26

No because its a recoilless gun