I'm sure it's been asked before, but why is there a massive Anti-Aircraft Artillery at the Dam. The most confusing bit, is the billboard that shows the AAA. That would mean it's pre-war, right? Were they worried about the Chinese bombers? Or is it some antique piece, put there for asthetics?

Yeah, I think it's because of The Great War.

Is it a AAA Battery? I could have sworn it was an Artillery Cannon for ground based assault.. Though... there are AAC Batteries so I guess it makes sense. :shrug:


My guess is because the Hoover Dam IS a High Value Target so it would make sense to have defences for Land, Air, and Sea.

Well, it doesn't appear to be a perfect match to any real-life artillery piece I've ever seen, but it appears to have borrowed a lot of its appearance from the US 155mm Long Tom howitzer, which was intended for lobbing shells long distances at land targets, not for AAA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/155_mm_Long_Tom

It kinda looks like a design cross between the Long Tom, and a german railroad gun from the WWII era- example: http://floydworx.deviantart.com/art/Dora-railway-artillery-50786415

A bit bigger in size than the Long Tom, and much smaller in size then the Dora, but with a lot of design elements from both. And definitely not an AAA gun.

(Although it may be purposed that way in the game, who knows... but the thought of an advanced military in the year 2077 still using slow-firing huge-bore artillery shells for AAA purposes, just cracks me completely the hell up- we stopped doing that over 40 years ago. Jets and missiles made them utterly obsolete.)

Based on that, I'd say it's safe to assume America's Red Scare was that the big gun was there to show people 'Hey! Look, see, we're doing our job and protecting you....and stuff.' But it was likely placed there as a deterent of Chinese fighter craft.

"Bear Force One" still cracks me up to this day lol.

Yeah, thats why I was wondering what the heck the OP was talking about at first. :rofl:

I assumed it was AAA becuase you can program it to fire at the president's vertibird. Granted we don't use AAA cannons anymore (like you said we use missiles) but this is the Fallou universe. I've yet to see any evidence of surface to air missiles. this is most likely due to the fact that they never created micro-chips, a must have for guided missiles.

You're right it does look like a pretty big weapon for shooting down bombers, but that may not have been its original design. It may have been designed to shoot down blimps or zeplins, or who the hell knows what. We don't know much about air combat during the Great War. It might have even been designed to shoot down ICBMs.

Lastly, if it was an artillery piece I'd think even the dumbest general would use it to turn The Fort into a pile of rubble. I'd think asking the Gun Runners to manufacture the shells would be worth the price if they could lob shells right at Caesar.

Where in the lore exactly does it say they never created microchips? What do all the Robco computers use, little squirrels who're really good at counting fast? We haven't seen any evidence of a whole lot of things, not just surface to air missiles. Just because they didn't set them all over around Vegas, doesn't mean they didn't exist in places where they would actually be useful. Frankly, there is no evidence of any kind of AA weapon I've seen yet, in Fallout. And if that big stupid cannon is the best thing they could think of to shoot at jets with, in 2077, then the idiots truly deserved to go extinct.

Shoot down blimps? Zeppelins? ICBM's?? Where's my bottle...

If they could scrounge up the right shells for it at some military base, maybe they could. But I don't think the Gunrunners, or NCR industry of any kind, is up to milling artillery shells yet. Still just reproducing and repairing old vintage hand weapons. If they could make their own shells, then they would have already had workable artillery on the front lines.

Actually, I think it's both.

It's an anti-aircraft gun, seriously just go to the dam and click on the control panel, it tells you right there.

Well then that's just weird. Why the hell does it blow up at the Second Battle? Some random Khan was like "meh, I think I'll blow this up?"

Heh no idea? Perhaps it is capable of attacking land targets also?
However it is definitely primarily designed for anti-aircraft.
Ignoring the console that tells you what it is lol just look at its orientation, doesn't look anything like a howitzer.
I've played a lot of old-skool command and conquer, thats why I recognised what it was straight away.
It looks like a carbon-copy of the russian's Flak Cannon in that game.