Austro-Hungarian 38cm Haubitze M.16

[David]

The 38cm Haubitze M.16 was one of the famous Big Guns of Skoda, which made such an impression during WW1. It started out as a project, initiated in April 1915 by Skoda, designed to give roughly the same firepower as the big 42cm Howitzer, while at the same time retaining the relative mobility of the famous 30.5cm Mörser M.11.
(All this explains a number of similarities between this gun and, on one hand, the 42cm Howitzer, and on the other, the 30.5cm Mörser.) The first test shots were fired already in January 1916, and it was used first in combat in May that year, on the Italian Front. The two first guns ("Gudrun" and "Barbara") were used in support of the Austro-Hungarian Spring Offensive at the hotly contested Isonzo River, already an old battleground. It proved a success, and the Austro-Hungarian High Command soon ordered an additional 14 M.16 Howitzers. They were used on all fronts with telling effect, and at the end of the war, the Austro-Hungarian Army had ten of these monsters in service.

The M.16 weighed some 81.7 tons in firing position. (It was always transported in a disassembled state. It took some 6-8 hours to assemble and deploy the piece, which also required the digging down and siting of the big base box.) It could shoot a 740kg heavy shell some 15.000 meters. The maximum rate of fire was 12 rounds per hour, or one round every 5 minutes. Parts of this gun was also used as a basis for the 24cm Kanone M.16.


Below
you can find photos of the other surviving M.16 in the World, that can be seen in the National Military Museum in Bucharest, Romania: