Skoda Heavy Artillery -Plate 4

This is the fourth plate in the series, depicting the M16 30,5 cm Mortar, a simplification of the M11 mortar firing the same shell, of which the only surviving example is preserved in the courtyard of the Military Museum of Bucharest.

As you can see from the drawing, this piece bears almost no resemblance to the earlier model and instead it's designed for ease of production and maintenance as well as reliability in the field.
The hinged platform was replaced with a solid box, the fiddly loading tray with a simple cradle with rollers and the piece has now 360 degrees of transverse as opposed to only 120 of the M11.

Also shown is the ammunition used by both this and the M1911: the shells are usually left unpainted and the markings are left to a bare minimum, with the white band showing the centre of gravity of each shell (needed for loading/unloading via crane) while the black band (available on some of the shells only) denotes Amatol filling - a more powerful but less stable explosive than the standard powdered Trotil.
Another possible marking is "B.P.", showing a base mounted fuse and "mV"or "oV" for timed fuses or impact fuses, respectively.

The propelling powder was stored in bags with four different fillings which in turn were placed in a brass cartridge for firing, giving a total of 8 combinations (7 for the heavy shell) for range adjustments.

Other plates in the series:

The cover

Plate I

Plate II


Plate IV

Plate V

Plate VI

Plate VII

Plate VIII