howitzer - Types, Examples

An artillery piece in which the shell is projected at a high angle of trajectory, typically at low muzzle velocity, to fall on to its target as plunging fire.

In addition to this, the barrel of a howitzer is commonly below 30 calibers (the length of the barrel is less than 30 times as long as the diameter of the bore), whereas other cannon and field guns tend to fire at no more than 45° and have a caliber of 30 or over.

Types

The "pack" howitzer (such as the 25 Pounder Short Mark 1) has existed since before the First World War.

The Big Bertha was a large, 42 centimeter howitzer used in the German push of 1914. The gun was based on a similar 42 centimeter gun manufactured for a short while by Krupp for the German military.

That similar, older 42 centimeter gun was based almost completely on a gun designed by Louis Gathmann in the late 1800s.

Modern self-propelled howitzers such as the South African G6 fire 155 mm diameter shells in standard configuration up to 30 km at a maximum rate of about 10 per minute and special ammunition at ranges exceeding 70 km.

The Dutch, German, Italian and Greek armies have been using or will be using shortly the PzH 2000 howitzer (155 mm, self-propelled).

In November 1990 British customs officers seized parts of a 1000 mm howitzer destined for the Iraq Project Babylon "supergun", which, had it been built, would have been the largest gun ever constructed.

Examples

6 inch 26cwt howitzer - British First World War howitzer QF 25 pounder – British gun-howitzer of WW2 L118 Light Gun Modern British 105 mm towed gun-howitzer M198 howitzer Modern US 155 mm towed gun-howitzer M109 howitzer Modern 155 mm self-propelled howitzer SSPH Primus Modern 155 mm self-propelled gun-howitzer PzH 2000 Modern 155 mm self-propelled gun-howitzer M110 howitzer Post-WW2 8 inch self-propelled howitzer