intended to be mounted in battleship turrets, the guns were produced in left and right-handed pairs. these pairs were split for individual mounting in the coastal defence role. the gun's barrel was approximately long (sources state between ). in a coastal defence emplacement the gun could be elevated to 52 degrees, giving it a range of with the special long range shell called the adolf-shell. it used the standard german naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag. in terms of construction the guns were identical to the 38 cm sk c/34 - only the calibre of the barrel was different. the rate of fire for the weapon was around 2 rounds per minute as coastal artillery.