12-inch gun in position

Thus, the 9th Separate Artillery Division with 3 rail-way 305-mm guns in September 1940 took up combat duty. The transporters of the division were armed with cannons from the battleship Empress Maria, which sank in the bay of Sevastopol, presumably as a result of sabotage in 1916. In 1918, 12 305 mm guns, together with turrets, were raised from the bottom of the sea, later repaired at the Barrikada plant (gun's liners were replaced) and used for installation on TM-3-12 railway transporters, a project of the OKB-3 design bureau at the Leningrad Metal Plant under the leadership of A.G. Dukelsky.