The U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps (CAC) was an administrative corps responsible for coastal, harbor, and anti-aircraft defense of the United States and its possessions between 1901 and 1950. The CAC also operated heavy and railway artillery during World War I.
Practice loading of a 10-inch gun on a disappearing carriage at Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, NY, a typical Endicott period installation.
Typical Endicott period battery with components labeled.
USAMP Major Samuel Ringgold, built in 1904, which planted practice groups of mines in the Columbia River during the 1920s. (National Archives and Records Administration)
US-manned 155mm GPF gun of Battery F, 55th Coast Artillery, France 1918
Railway gun
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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. Only able to be moved where there were good tracks, which could be destroyed by artillery bombardment or airstrike, railway guns were phased out after World War II.
Non-traversing (top); car traversing mount (middle); top carriage traversing mount (bottom)
British 12-inch howitzers on top-carriage traversing mounts, traversed 90°, Catterick, December 1940
Cradle recoil (top); top carriage recoil (second); sliding recoil (third); rolling recoil (bottom)