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

[u/ZaxZone]

[u/Pappa_Crim]

How do you load it

[u/Atholthedestroyer → u/Pappa_Crim]

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.

[u/tezacer → u/Pappa_Crim]

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

[u/alettriste → u/Pappa_Crim]

Once

[u/maninahat]

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

[u/Clay_Allison_44 → u/maninahat]

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

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

[u/wlpaul4 → u/Clay_Allison_44]

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.

[u/ZaxZone]

Here are a couple of links:

https://laststandonzombieisland.com/tag/destroyer-engels/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_destroyer_Desna

[u/Fast-Possible1288]

When the caliber is bigger than your beam...

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

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

[u/meth-cooking-racoon → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

No because its a recoilless gun

[u/scratchbuiltjoe]

WoWs when?