Skoda Heavy Artillery- Plate 1

As promised, this is the first of the eight plates published in the book "Built at Skoda Werke -Siege artillery in the collection of the Bucharest Military Museum" and it shows the 30.5cm mortar, model 1911.

It was the mainstay of the Austro-Hungarian siege batteries, and as such it saw action on pretty much every front during the first world war, from blasting the Fortresses of Liege to pummelling the Italian positions in the Dolomites.

It had a rather peculiar system for loading - the shell was far too heavy to be lifted by a single man, so instead it was wheeled around on a special trolley which climbed a set of curved rails to the back of the piece, where it was pushed onto a special tray. Four people then raised this tray up to the breech while a fifth pushed the projectile into the chamber. Needles to say, loading could only be undertaken with the barrel parallel to the ground, so the piece had to be re-aimed after each shot.

This rather graceful and really intricate piece of machinery was truly a marvel of technology, state-of-the art for its time, and it's a pity its main purpose was the wholesale slaughter of fellow humans some eleven kilometres away...

Preserved examples include one on display in Rovereto, Italy, another in the Belgrade Army museum (both shown in semi-disassembled configuration along with some of the transport trailers) and the third in the courtyard of the Military Museum of Bucharest.

The cover

Plate I

Plate II


Plate IV

Plate V

Plate VI

Plate VII

Plate VIII