Was a genius but a total moraless bas###d! As well as working in the West he designed arty for the South Africans, Chinese, Iraqis (their super gun which never got made) and many more dodgy customers. Gerald Bull was a mercenary, who would design amazing arty systems for the highest bidder... until he got assassinated by Mossad (allegedly)

He built us our HARP gun in Arizona. The Superguns are large, they cannot really be moved or rotated to engage multiple distant targets, and thus serve no tactical purpose. They could be conceivably used to shell chokepoints such as the Fulda Gap in Cold-War scenarios...but beyond that, Superguns are just very expensive tubes bored into the ground. Gerald Bull is dead, his artillery stuff forgotten, now that rockets are "wave of the future".

Bull intended his "Superguns" including the Harp, to launch things into space, not as weapons. Based on UNSCOM's findings, Iraq did consider Bulls third and last Supergun project to be a weapon, it was aimed at Israel, but never completed. The first (and only completed), firing HARP gun was on Barbados and based on the US Navy 16-inch naval rifle, the second was at Highwater, on the US-Candian border and also based on the US Navy 16-inch naval rifle. Bull was jailed for supplying the equipment for the South Africans to produce the G5/G6 series of howitzers. His artillery designs have cropped up in China, Israel, Chile, South Africa, whats left of Yugoslavia, and of course, Bulls modified Iraqi 155s outranged everything in the Coalition artillery park except the MRLS. Still say it's strange that nobody in this category has mentioned his name... Bull's Eye - The life of supergun inventor Gerald Bull by James Adams 1992 Times Books. LONG RANGE IS GOOD, CL

The Iraqis G5 artys failed them in the Gulf, usually without good FOs no arty ever gets called, and if the arty crew is a bunch of draftees, their dedication to the job, especially when harrassed by air is dubious. Gerald is a fairly good designer. He died early, unfortunately; so we will never know. Another will arise. And the "space launchers" are dual purpose. Just as rockets can bring up satellites, they can bring nukes, even if this is not their primary purpose. I doubt Gerald Bull ever had any illusions about his technologies...

Morals of a gun designer? Israel sells stuff to China...the US approved of Bull's sales to Iraq. How does the morality of politics possibly come into play when one has decided to design a machine to kill people more effectively?? BTW the G5 has a range of 39km which is amazing. That is almost 2x the US 155mm arty.

I agree, GB knew exactly what delivery opportunities were with his technology. The whole fear trigger of a nation launching a satrellite is because it demonstrates a capcity to deliver a nuke weighted package. The Iraqis certainly weren't going to deliver long range "volkswagon" weighted conventional shells. You'd get a few shots off and then wonder when the Israelis were going to beat the crap out of you. digressing, a navalised G5 would be an interesting opportunity - even if it was just for a brown water solution.

The primary reason that superguns of the type that Bull designed have not been fielded is seismic signature. The emormous recoil of such weapons creates a seismic wave thru the earth that is fairly easy to backtrace. The location of such a weapon would be known immediatly after the first shot. Such weapons are not very portable either. If your location is known on a modern battlefield, and you can't move quickly, you generally don't have long to live. 105 and 155mm weapons put out seismic signatures also, but they are of low order and don't tell you anything that a counter-battery radar set won't. These weapons, at least the SP variety, are also very mobile. A Paladin is usually rolling away from the firing position while it's own shots are still in the air. That's where it got it's name.

Any nations using GC45-derived artillery, or South African G5 types (and their new LEO 105mm) are using Bull-legacy guns. Anyone with cannons who routinely shoot out beyond 30km WITHOUT using RAP is most likely using a weapon that has some influence (be it barrel or ammunition) from Bull's research. If the US Gov't (DoD) hadn't been stupid, the US Army, USN, and USMC would NOW have their towed, SP, and naval guns that would have no difficulty at all shooting standard shells out past 40km, and PGMs past 100 miles. Just our political system and military brass lacked vision (regardless of their opinions of Bull's attitude), that doesn't mean our future adversaries were asleep also. The US better hope we have enough MLRS rockets, because a lot of potentially hostile nations are fielding Bull-legacy guns that outrange all US tube artillery, and even exceed the early model MLRS rockets. The days are coming when, if we can't shoot every projectile greater than 30km (about 18 miles), we might as well not get in the fight (as within that range, counter-battery radars can have a solution and return volley coming at you real fast, and aircraft cannot be counted on, especially in inclememnt weather, to find them all.) Surely many nations would appreciate a mobile, long range, decent rate of fire gun system as an additional deterrent against aggressive neighbors with hostile intentions. Soon, heavy, 30km-ranged guns are getting to the point where they just won't cut it anymore. For lightweight and easily-moveable weapons for close range fire support, sure. But a long range weapon, tube artillery, not just rockets, will always be a very useful military asset. But you don't want to build something that takes up the side of a mountain.