This firepower is designed by the French industrial group Nexter, in a cannon in the center of the city of Bourges (Cher). “It takes about a year to make a full tube”indicates Thomas, an employee of the site, with the TF1 team exceptionally authorized to penetrate it. “This tube is about 8 meters, 8 meters and 50 meters and weighs three tons”, He adds. Currently, there are around 40 guns in various stages of production. Each steel tube passes from machine to machine to be shaped, planed and equipped.
The result is then inspected from every angle Olivier, specialist in “large caliber assembly”: “Here, we are at 2.9, flawless”. Firing system adjusted to the tenth of a millimeter, well sealed barrel breech … there is obviously no room for approximation in the production chain. “There are people behind, lives are at stake. So we don’t have the right for the artillery to break. We try to behave as if we were behind, on the launch pad.”insists Olivier.
–
