Big Guns Quiz | Thematic Fun

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The song "Sink the Bismarck" says: "The Germans had the biggest ship, that had the biggest guns. The Bismarck was the fastest ship that ever sailed the seas. On her deck were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees". Pretty intimidating. But just how big were the Bismarck's guns?

Answer: 38 cm (15 inch)

The Bismarck had eight 38 cm (15 inch) guns arranged in four two-gun turrets. Fifteen inches refers to the inside diameter of the gun. They could elevate up to 30 degrees, which gave them the ability to throw an 1,800 pound projectile over 22 miles.

2. In 1988 the Iraq government paid Canadian artillery expert Gerald Bull $25 million to build what would have been the world's biggest gun - a 512 foot long gun capable of launching satellites into orbit. Why was the project never finished?

Answer: Gerald Bull was assassinated

On March 22, 1990, Gerald Bull was assassinated outside his Brussels apartment. Three shots in the back, and two in the head. Somebody wanted to make sure he was dead. At the time he was carrying a briefcase containing $22,000 in cash which was not taken, so obviously robbery was not a motive for the killing.

The list of suspects is pretty long, but it's clear that someone did not want this project to go through to completion.

3. The famous Big Bertha is a German siege gun used in World War I. Just how big was the diameter of the barrel on Big Bertha?

Answer: 17 inch (42 dm)

"M-Great" (nicknamed Big Bertha) was truly big. It was 32 feet long, 15ft 5in wide and 14ft 9in tall. It weighed just under 47 tons. The barrel was 16ft 6in long. It could fire up to 8 shells per hour and had a maximum firing range of 30,500 feet - nearly 6 miles.

The improvement in forts using reinforced concrete over those built in the 19th century made it necessary to develop a more powerful siege gun and Big Bertha was certainly that.

4. The song "Sink the Bismarck" said that it had the biggest guns. But that was at the start of World War II. By the end of the war, which country had launched a battleship with the biggest guns?

Answer: Japan

The prize goes to Japan. The Yamato and her sister ship, Musashi, had nine 18.1-inch guns mounted in three triple turrets. But no matter how big the guns on a battleship were, they didn't do much good against airpower, which spelled the end of the battleship as the deciding factor in naval warfare.

5. Where would you go to see the biggest caliber cannon ever made before the 20th century? If you're going to go, dress warmly.

Answer: The Kremlin in Moscow, Russia

The Tsar Cannon, located in the Kremlin in Moscow, is generally acknowledged to be the largest cannon ever cast. It has a barrel diameter of 890 mm (35 inches). Surprisingly, it was cast over 400 years ago, in 1586. With all the decoration on it, it is an artistic sight to behold, as is the decorative mount that it currently sits on.

6. Perhaps the biggest cannon most people will ever see is the one in the circus that propels the "human cannonball" up to 200 feet into a net or gas bag. Besides a spring, what method is commonly used to launch this daredevil performer?

Answer: Compressed air

The human cannonball stunt dates back to 1877 in London, where a girl was launched using a spring-type of launcher. Gunpowder is sometimes used to make the launching more dramatic, but is not the force that propels the performer. The main reason for the use of the cannon is to hide the mechanism used and increase the mystery and excitement of the event. If you're ever near Baraboo, Wisconsin, you can visit the Circus World Museum and see a cannon that was actually used in the circus act.

7. What's the difference between the operation of a cannon and a mortar?

Answer: A mortar fires at a higher angle over a shorter range

The mortar is much shorter than a cannon and is designed to fire at a higher angle (over 45 degrees) so the shell will travel over a shorter range before it comes down. It is especially useful when you can't see the enemy. It will fire an explosive shell at a high trajectory over all obstacles and land right in the middle of an enemy camp before it explodes.

At least the gun crew hopes it will.

8. What is the purpose of rifling the internal surface of a cannon barrel?

Answer: To increase accuracy

Rifling, or cutting grooves into the internal surface of the barrel of a cannon, causes the shell that is fired to rotate upon exiting the cannon. This rotating motion has been found to increase accuracy and the distance that the round is fired. Most firearms have the same kind of rifling for the same reason.

9. The first battle between ironclad ships happened during the US Civil War on March 9, 1862 near Hampton Roads, Virginia, when the Union's "Monitor" with two 11-inch cannons, met the Confederate CSS Virginia ("Merrimac") with its ten cannons. Who won?

Answer: It was a draw - neither ship could disable the other

Shortly after 8 AM the Merrimack set out to attack the wooden ships of the Union blockade, but that's when the Monitor arrived on the scene. For roughly four hours the ships fired on each other, but neither could significantly damage the other. The Monitor ran into shallow waters, but the Merrimack was running low on ammunition and had sprung a leak, so both ships retired from the fight.

NOTE: The Confederate ship was originally called the "Merrimack", but after it was rebuilt as an ironclad it was renamed "CSS Virginia".

10. One of the secret weapons the Nazis worked on in WW II was a vortex cannon that was intended to be used to destroy enemy aircraft. What would the cannon use to impact and actually destroy the aircraft?

Answer: Air

The idea behind this weapon was to launch a projectile filled with some sort of powder and a weak charge in the middle of it. The charge would ignite and cause a vortex of air turbulence that would destroy the wings of the aircraft.

Although this weapon never got much beyond the prototype stage, the vortex idea is being used today in a toy air cannon called an "Airzooka". A plastic damper attached to a rubber band is pulled back and released, shooting a slug of air that can be felt up to 20 feet away.

Source: Author OldManJack

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
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Big Guns Trivia Quiz

This quiz is about big guns. Not that little pea shooter that Clint Eastwood used in "Magnum Force". We're talking about BIG GUNS - the kind of gun you can stick your head into. See how big a bang you can make with this quiz.

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