Reply With QuoteI remember once reading about that thing, luckily Saddam never got that thing fully operational.
Interesting...The high-ranking Iraqi defector Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majeed said Iraq was working on a space weapon launched from the supergun.
Project Babylon-Saddam's Supergun
Early in the war with Iran, the Iraqi government engaged world- renowned artillery expert Gerald V. Bull, whose lifetime obsession was the construction of a "Supergun," a huge howitzer able to fire satellites into space or launch artillery shells thousands of miles into enemy territory. While he did not accomplish that dream, Bull did manage to design some of the most effective artillery pieces in the world.
A Canadian-born astro-physicist, Bull had earlier research contracts with with the United States Army, the Canadian Department of Defense and McGill University. While working on the Canadian Velvet Glove missile project, he realized that scientific instruments could also be fired from a gun and survive if put in a proper casing. In 1962 Bull obtained US military support for the joint U.S./Canadian High Altitude Research Program [HARP]. Initially working from a facility on the island of Barbados, a small 5-inch gun was used to fire projectiles to an altitude of over 70 km, and a 7-inch guns fired projectiles to nearly 100 km. Subsequently, in Arizona a larger HARP gun was fabricated by welding together a pair of 16-inch battleship guns, forming a barrel some 30 meters long. The gun was used to fire light-weight sub-caliber discarding-sabot projectiles called Martletts. On 19 November 1966 the gun fired a 185-lb Martlet to an altitude of 180 km. The 16 inch HARP gun was intended to launch a small three stage rocket carrying a 10 kg payload into space. However, the Canadian and US governments terminated HARP funding in 1967.
Bull severed his association with the Pentagon in the 1970's and set up companies and agreements to sell improved versions of technology he developed to a number of foreign governments, including Iran, Chile, Taiwan and China. Working through his own Quebec firm, Space Research Corporation, and a Belgium subsidiary, European Poudreries Reunies de Belgique, Bull was able to produce his most formidable battlefield artillery piece, the GC-45 gun, known to fire a shell 25 miles with a throw weight twice that of guns used by Western armies. He was sentenced and jailed for one year in 1980 for illegally selling weapons to South Africa, despite the US arms embargo.
Shortly after the Iran-Iraq War began, the Iraqi government dispatched a private aircraft to Geneva to take Bull to Baghdad. So began a long association between Bull and the government of Iraq, and its then-defense minister, Saddam Hussein. Bull dealt with Iraq for almost 10 years. Iraq was one of many states with guns developed by Bull. His clients are known to include his native Canada, the United States, South Africa, Iran, Chile, Taiwan, China, and Libya.
Most worrisome in Iraq's arsenal of guns developed by Gerald Bull from mid-1981 until he was assassinated on 22 March 1990, were its 300 155 millimeter howitzers, all versions of the GC-45 gun that Bull developed in the 1970's. Two hundred of these guns, termed GH-N-45 and manufactured in Austria, were shipped to Iraq via Jordan in 1985 for use in the Iran-Iraq war. The remaining 100 were manufactured in South Africa, where they are marketed under the name G-5. The G-5 can deliver a tactical nuclear warhead, chemical shells or any NATO standard 155mm shell.
Bull also designed two advanced self-propelled artillery systems for the Iraqis: the 210-millimeter Al Fao and the 155 millimeter Majnoon. The Al Fao, which weighs 48 tons, can fire four 109 kilogram rounds a minute for 35 miles from its 11-meter barrel. The Iraqis claim that the Al Fao and Majnoon can attain a top speed of 72-88 kilometers an hour on the road.
Also worrisome were Bull-modified missile warheads, which increased the range of Iraq's Scud missiles.
Under Project Babylon, Bull extended his HARP gun design to build the barrel in segments, with a total length of 512 feet. The gun would be able to fire 600 kg projectile to a range of 1,000 kilometers, or a 2,000 kg rocket-assisted projectile into orbit.
As a component of Project Babylon, Bull built a smaller gun, nick-named Baby Babylon, as a prototype for the larger gun. This 40 meter long gun was first constructed for horizontal testing in the summer of 1989, and installed at Jabal Hamrayn, ninety miles north of Baghdad, in central Iraq. The gun was positioned along a mountainside at an agle of about 45 degrees.
In documents filed with the UN Special Commission 18 July 1991, Iraq admitted possessing a gun with a barrel 350 millimeters wide and 45 meters long and that it was building a second one. The commission noted that the gun would have been inaccurate for conventional armaments, and that it was trying to determine if the weapon was intended for chemical, biological, or nuclear use. The superguns were potentially capable of firing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to a range of up to 1,000 km.
The high-ranking Iraqi defector Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majeed said Iraq was working on a space weapon launched from the supergun.
"It was meant for long-range attack and also to blind spy satellites. Our scientists were seriously working on that. It was designed to explode a shell in space that would have sprayed a sticky material on the satellite and blinded it."
He also said the supergun could have delivered a nuclear device.
Following the Gulf War UN teams destroyed one 350 mm. supergun, components of a 1000 mm. supergun, and supergun propellant.
Iraq used the petrochemical complex two (PC-2) project as a front to purchase components for Gerald Bull's super gun. Matrix Churchill was a long established Midlands based machine tool manufacturer which was purchased in 1987 by an Iraqi controlled company, TMG Engineering Ltd, which was in turn controlled by another Iraqi controlled company, Technology and Development Group Ltd (TDG). The military uses of Matrix-Churchill machines are the prime reason Iraq was interested in purchasing the company. Acquiring Matrix-Churchill gave Iraq access, not only to the machine tools, but also the computer programming, tooling, and other components needed to make a wide variety of munitions as well as other applications in aerospace and nuclear industries. The Iraqi NASSR Establishment for Mechanical Industries contracted with the company for the supply of machine tools for a project, code named "ABA", to manufacture parts for multi launcher rocket systems. In addition, supergun components were fabricated in separate parts by factories in England, Spain, Holland and Switzerland. Acting on an anonymous tip, British Customs seized the final eight sections of the Super Gun in November 1990. The work skirted the law but remained legal, as illustrated by Britain's unsuccessful prosecution of the case, following the joint British-American sting operation that uncovered key supergun equipment transfers.
I remember once reading about that thing, luckily Saddam never got that thing fully operational.
Interesting...The high-ranking Iraqi defector Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majeed said Iraq was working on a space weapon launched from the supergun.
Wasnt there a movie made about this? I remeber being real drunk and watching some show about this.....
Yes, I believe I watched a documentary once on this...
There are rumors about his assassination. Some say it was the Israeli Mussad, others say it was Iraqi secret police (they didn't want him talking and were mostly done with him).
What Gerald Bull really wanted was funding so he could make space travel for the ordinary citizen possible. Basically, he wanted to put a little capsule in the gun with some people in it, then shoot it into space. Now THAT would be awesome.
But, like many brilliant scientists before him, his judgement was clouded by his dreams and he got his funding from a less-than-wholesome source.
Mossad admitted to doing it.
oh really??Originally Posted by Minjin
I am not saying that they didn’t do it (I don’t know who did it, I like all of you have my theories) but when did they ever admit to doing it??
BTW, there are a lot of other agencies and others in the world that had motives of their own as well!!
Shalom
There is a great novel about this -
"The Fist of God", by Frederick Forsyth.
It is set during the 1991 Gulf War, and tells a tale of (among other things) an SAS man who goes into Iraq to take care of such a weapon that might be used against Israel.
It is a good read.
I remember that story...
In fact, Gerald Bull was assassinated here in Brussels (with a Beretta .22LR silenced pistol, the Mossad's weapon of choice)...
James: I have read it too...
Damn you wre first...
Um..
Uh..
Argh!
Wasn't there a team of SAS guys sent in?
I think it was a team. It's been several years since I read this.
listen I have seen a movie on this (cant remember its name) and have seen various documentaries and yes they point a finger at the mossad (and perhaps I believe that too) But there is no proof what so ever that the mossad did it...there were other agencies and other people in the world that wanted him dead as well.I remember that story...
In fact, Gerard Bull was assassinated here in Brussels (with a Beretta .22LR silenced pistol, the Mossad's weapon of choice)...
James: I have read it too...
secondly. Saying that he was killed with a Beretta .22LR silenced pistol which has been the publics knowledge of the mossads "favourite" gun now for years.........all I can say to that is that its not hard for other people to kill him with that gun and conveniently have everyone point the finger at the mossad.
That framing is nothing new in that line of work.
All I am saying is that there is no proof, as you guys seem to think there is.
Shalom
Indeed there is no rock solid proof. It could really have been any number of agencies/people that killed him. It is and most likely will forever remain a mystery.
Ultimately, though, it is insignificant which party killed him, as in the end the point is still that he was a scientist who let his dreams become manipulated into nightmares.
was weapon recovered? if not, how do "they" know it was a beretta?
"A visionary in the field of rocket science, Bull's dealings with Iraq ultimately led to his death. On 22 March 1990, his body was found in a pool of blood at his apartment door. He had been shot in the head five times, point blank. There were no witnesses, and very little evidence. Rumours quickly circulated about the assailant's identity with agents from the CIA, Iranian and Iraqi intelligence suspected. Eventually, a senior member of the Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency) admitted in a Frontline documentary that, "Yes, we did it...whoever volunteers to destroy us...[he] should know that we will be after him wherever he goes."oh really??
I am not saying that they didn’t do it (I don’t know who did it, I like all of you have my theories) but when did they ever admit to doing it??
BTW, there are a lot of other agencies and others in the world that had motives of their own as well!!
Shalom
From "Canada, Iraq and the Super Gun" by Bruce Poulin; Esprit de Corps Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 11 Ottawa, Canada; October 2003. Page 5.
I am not saying I am right or wrong, I am just giving you the little info I have. Heh.
Have a good 'un!!
good work Mr. holms"A visionary in the field of rocket science, Bull's dealings with Iraq ultimately led to his death. On 22 March 1990, his body was found in a pool of blood at his apartment door. He had been shot in the head five times, point blank. There were no witnesses, and very little evidence. Rumours quickly circulated about the assailant's identity with agents from the CIA, Iranian and Iraqi intelligence suspected. Eventually, a senior member of the Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency) admitted in a Frontline documentary that, "Yes, we did it...whoever volunteers to destroy us...[he] should know that we will be after him wherever he goes."oh really??
I am not saying that they didn’t do it (I don’t know who did it, I like all of you have my theories) but when did they ever admit to doing it??
BTW, there are a lot of other agencies and others in the world that had motives of their own as well!!
Shalom
From "Canada, Iraq and the Super Gun" by Bruce Poulin; Esprit de Corps Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 11 Ottawa, Canada; October 2003. Page 5.
I am not saying I am right or wrong, I am just giving you the little info I have. Heh.
Have a good 'un!!
Hey remember I have said that I might also believe that the Mossad did it, just I didn’t see any proof.
Now what you brought down is quite interesting indeed.
However…
First can you provide a link to that frontline documentary (so I can read their transcrips), for I am quite curious my self.
I must say that I am still a bit sceptical for I have simply never heard the mossad admit to it and to be frank, it is very uncharacteristic of them doing so. I am very sceptical that they got a real Mossad agent that was “in the know” to admit something.
Usually spy agencies don’t admit to anything in public on camera.
But hey if it’s a real agent that was involved and he did in fact admit this in public, then there is something there indeed.
Shalom
Posting Permissions
