Project Babylon - The Babylon Devices

The Babylon Devices

The first of these superguns, "Baby Babylon", was a horizontally-mounted device which was simply a prototype for test purposes. It had a bore of 350 mm (13.8 inches), and a barrel length of 46 metres (151 feet). The horizontally-mounted gun was 45 metres long, and weighed some 102 tonnes. After conducting tests with lead projectiles, this gun was set up on a hillside at a 45 degree angle. Supposedly it was able to achieve a range of 750 km. Although its mass was similar to some WWII German "superguns", it was not designed to be a mobile weapon and therefore it was not considered a security risk by Israel.

The second supergun, "Big Babylon", of which a pair were planned (one to be mounted horizontally, at least for test purposes), was much larger. The barrel was to be 156 metres (512 feet) long, with a bore of 1 metre (3.3 feet). Originally intended to be suspended by cables from a steel framework, it would have been over 100 metres (300 feet) high at the tip. The complete device weighed about 2,100 tonnes (the barrel alone weighed 1,655 tons). It was supposedly a space gun intended to shoot projectiles into orbit, a theme of Bull's work since Project HARP. Neither of these devices could be elevated or trained, making them useless for direct military purposes, unless some form of terminal guidance could be used to direct the fired projectile onto its intended target.

Very large cannons, which would be capable of being elevated and trained, were also planned. The first was to have a bore of 350 mm (13.8 inches) and a barrel length of about 30 metres (100 feet), and it was expected to have a range of up to 1000 kilometers (about 625 miles), making Israel and central Iran well within reach of Iraqi artillery fire; some sources indicate that there was a second cannon planned, with a bore of 600 mm (23.6 inches) and a barrel length of about 60 metres (200 feet).

It is possible that Big Babylon was intended both to launch satellites and to serve as a weapon, but its ability to fire conventional projectiles in the latter role would have been very limited: in addition to the impossibility of aiming it, it would have had a slow rate of fire, and its firing would have produced a very pronounced 'signature' which would have revealed its location. Since it was immobile, it suffered from the same vulnerability as Germany's V-3 cannon, which the RAF readily destroyed in 1944. Also, Iraq already had Scud missiles which would have been far more effective than the dated supergun technology. However, the gun would have offered greater ranges than the Scud variants then used by the Iraqis, and its projectiles would have been more difficult to intercept.