During World War I, on November 11, 1918, the final shot from the U.S. Navy's 14 inch/50 caliber railway gun was fired near the Allied lines on the Western Front in France, timed at 10:57:30?a.m. so that the shells would strike just before the 11?a.m. Armistice took effect. Operated as part of a mobile naval railway battery to target key German railway junctions far behind enemy lines, the firing had no specific tactical target at that exact moment-it was primarily a symbolic salvo to mark the end of hostilities.
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