# Is there any one NON-battleship(s) that have guns as large as (or larger than) any one battleship **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640 "2018-09-20T17:15:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Steven\_Estes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Steven\_Estes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Estes)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640/1 "2018-09-20T17:15:56Z")
Is there any one (or more) NON-battleship(s) that have guns as large as (or larger than) any one battleship)? ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640/2 "2018-09-20T17:26:26Z")
Monitors count. These are smaller, much less armored ships, with very large guns. Used for shore bombardment. See, e.g, HMS _Abercrombie_. [HMS Abercrombie (F109) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Abercrombie_(F109)) ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640/3 "2018-09-20T17:26:50Z")
> **[Schwerer Gustav](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav)** > > Schwerer Gustav (English: Heavy Gustav) was a German 80-centimetre (31.5 in) railway gun. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rügenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes (1,490 short tons), and could fire shells weighing 7 t (7.7 short tons) to a range of 47 km (29 mi). > The gun was designed in preparation for the... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640/4 "2018-09-20T17:29:00Z")
Well, yes, some battle cruisers had battleship sized guns, esp during WW1. > **[Lion-class battlecruiser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-class_battlecruiser)** > > The Lion class were a pair of battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy before World War I. Nicknamed the "Splendid Cats", the ships were a significant improvement over their predecessors of the Indefatigable class in speed, armament and armour. These improvements were in response to the German battlecruisers of the Moltke class, which were in turn larger and more powerful than the first British battlecruisers of the Invincible class. > Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecrui... The HMS Furious had 18" guns, which proved impractical, but were bigger than the battleship guns of the day. Then there are monitors, not the Civil war ones, but later, like the [HMS General Wolfe (1915) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_General_Wolfe_(1915)) with a 18" gun, and others: > **[List of monitors of the Royal Navy | Lord Clive-class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monitors_of_the_Royal_Navy#Lord_Clive-class)** > > The Lord Clive-class monitors, sometimes referred to as the General Wolfe-class, were built to meet the need for more shore bombardment ships, using twin 12-inch (305 mm) gun turrets taken from decommissioned Majestic-class pre-dreadnought battleships. Three of the ships, HMS General Wolfe, Lord Clive and Prince Eugene, were converted to take the BL 18 inch Mk I naval gun that had originally been allocated to HMS Furious. the US navy had some also: > **[Arkansas-class monitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas-class_monitor)** > > The Arkansas-class monitors were the last class of four monitors ordered for the U.S. Navy. > Single turreted monitors, these ships mounted the most modern heavy guns in the US Navy at the time they were built, 12-inch (305 mm)/40 caliber guns. The Arkansas-class monitors did not see any combat during World War I and instead served as submarine tenders. Alexander C. Brown, writing in the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Historical Transactions noted in a penetrating comment that:... Several other navies had coast defense ships with 12’ guns. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2018, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640/5 "2018-09-20T17:34:57Z")
The _Lord Clive_-class monitors in WW1 were particularly heavily armed, with an 18 inch gun firing a shell larger than those later used by the IJN _Yamato_-class battleships, at over a ton and a half shell weight. [BL 18-inch Mk I naval gun - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_18_inch_Mk_I_naval_gun) [EDIT, as mentioned by **DrDeth** , just above.] The wiki for the Lord Clives notes (albeit with “citation needed”) that their use at the end of WW1 against a railway bridge is the longest range that a British warship has ever fired on a wartime target with a gun., at 36,000 yards. [Lord Clive-class monitor - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Clive-class_monitor) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-one-non-battleship-s-that-have-guns-as-large-as-or-larger-than-any-one-battleship/821640/6 "2018-09-21T17:25:42Z")
Although the guns in question were NOT bigger than battleship guns, the French submarine _[Surcouf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Surcouf)_ sported atypically large guns.