Skoda 305 mm Model 1911 video and info

[WWTanksAndGuns]

The weapon was transported in 3 sections by a 100-horsepower 15 ton Austro-Daimler road tractor M. 12. It broke down into barrel, carriage and firing platform loads, each of which had its own trailer. It could be assembled and readied to fire in around 50 minutes.
The mortar could fire two types of shell, a heavy armour piercing shell with a delayed action fuse weighing 384 kg, and a lighter 287 kg shell fitted with an impact fuze. The light shell was capable of creating a crater 8 meters wide and 8 meters deep, as well as killing exposed infantry up to 400 m (440 yd) away.
The weapon required a crew of 15 - 17, and could fire 10 to 12 rounds an hour. After firing it automatically returned to the horizontal loading position.
In 1916, the M. 11 design was upgraded and the new M. 11/16 was produced, the difference was mainly that the firing platform had been modified to allow for a traverse of 360 degrees. Also in the same year the new model was released, the M. 16. It had longer barrel (L/12) and longer range 12,300 metres (13,500 yd) .

More info here

Video here

[CharlesBronson]

Nice post , thanks, I have seen several footage of this weapons firing in the initial stage of "barbarossa" in the central sector (brest-Livosk) and then in Leningrad. You might want to do a review of the "wochenschaus" of july-august 1941.

[davebender]

IMO the 30.5cm M1911 was the finest siege howitzer of WWI. An optimum balance of firepower and mobility. Skoda hit a home run when they designed this weapon.

Austria-Hungary had 24 M1911 siege howitzers at the start of WWI. If Germany had 24 similiar weapons they might have defeated France outright by crunching through the French fortress system during August 1914.