Great German steel...
Krupp’s stahl (sp?)
“...note how loud it must have been to be inside the thing”
The ring of the Ruhr!
I’d hate to have been inside that bell when it was rung.
For another Civil War comparison, crews of USN “Monitors” only lasted at most a few months before being relieved with mental and physical problems. (This was without being struck, just from normal operations and outgoing fire.)
There was little understanding of carbon monoxide or noise damage in the 1860s. Cotton balls stuffed in their ears were of little use. The decibels inside a Monitor firing its guns were excruciating. The Monitor sailors were totally wrecked humans after only short weeks or months of duty. Wrecked humans.