Plunkett was assigned as commanding officer of the U.S. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, who readily accepted them. The Navy then offered the guns to General John J. The Navy’s initial idea was to employ several 14-inch 50-caliber Mark IV naval rifles, with a complete train of equipment for each gun, on railway mountings behind British lines in France, but changing military conditions prevented British authorities from stating definitively at which port these batteries were to be debarked. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, the Navy was already developing long-range artillery chiefly to counter the German army’s heavy guns capable of bombarding the English Channel ports used by the Allies. Navy deployed five purpose-built railway guns in France during the final stages of the war, firing nearly 800 rounds in support of advancing American and Allied forces.
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British and German forces fielded railway guns in 19, respectively, increasing the range and firepower of their artillery. Constructed by the French army in late 1914, the first railway guns of the war were makeshift designs created by mounting older coastal defense guns and naval warship guns onto commercial railway wagons. As the fighting on the Western Front solidified in the fall of 1914, military leaders realized the importance of mobile, long-range, heavy artillery for striking targets deep behind enemy lines.
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At the outbreak of the war, however, none of the armies possessed railway guns, the idea for which was relatively new. Advances in artillery technology and design in the later 19th century had created a new generation of guns and howitzers with enhanced range and accuracy. Artillery dominated the battlefields of Europe throughout World War I.