Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 February 11

= February 11 =

One-ton gun
Is there a conventional meaning for "one-ton gun"? I had thought it meant something like a naval gun that fires a one-ton shell, but the article says one was smuggled into Iran in order to assassinate a specific dude. So that suggests that the gun itself weighed 1 ton (= mobile artillery piece I guess). Does that sound accurate? It seems like a weird thing to have done, even ignoring the political and moral aspects of such a hit. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 03:31, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I searched for "one-ton gun" on google, and all I could find was that article, so it seems like a bunch of journalists copying one another. However, according to a comment on a Reddit post by u/LimfjordOysters, it is "a gun mounted on a pick-up, with a heavy bomb attached meant for self-destruction." still kinda confusing. It's also not very smart to trust random Redditors, but this was the best I could find. 777burger user talk contribs  04:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)


 * According to the original news item all the others came from: Including the explosives, the bespoke device weighed one ton, and was smuggled into Iran in small pieces over several months. So it simply means a device that includes a gun (and a bomb to destruct the device after the killing), weighing one ton, and not any specific type of gun. --Lambiam 11:30, 11 February 2021 (UTC)


 * This BBC report says that the only description of the weapon comes from General Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards: 'Analyst Tom Withington, who specialises in electronic warfare, said the reports should be treated with "a healthy pinch of salt", and added that Iran's description appeared to be little more than a collection of "cool buzzwords" designed to suggest that only a supremely mighty force could possibly have succeeded in this mission'.
 * BTW, 150 years ago, the total mass of a weapon (if suitably impressive) was sometimes used as a description, notably Armstrong Whitworth's 100-ton gun. Alansplodge (talk) 11:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The BBC report predates the Jewish Chronicle article by two months; now we have a description provided by the other side, not involving the use of artificial intelligence. --Lambiam 11:53, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Quite right. Thanks. Alansplodge (talk) 11:53, 12 February 2021 (UTC)