Who invented howitzer

Other innovations introduced with the French 75 included a rapid-acting, screw-type breech mechanism; a fixed round of ammunition projectile, propellant charge, and fuze all in one prepackaged unit that could be loaded in a single movement; an optical line-of-sight, gun-laying system; and steel shields to protect the gun crews from enemy small arms fire.

With World War I, machine gun fire forced all artillery to move back off the front lines. The French 75, like all light artillery, lacked the higher trajectory necessary for indirect fire, especially in rougher terrain.

Introduced in , Big Bertha weighed 93, pounds in action. It was transported in five pieces and assembled on site using a crane carried by a prime-mover tractor. It was capable of firing a mm round weighing 1, pounds out to a range of 9, meters with a high degree of accuracy. Its projectile had a hardened conical nose with the fuze at the base of the round, making it particularly effective for penetrating reinforced ferro-concrete fortifications.

Contrary to popular belief, they were not the guns that shelled Paris from a distance of 75 miles in Its maximum range of , meters far exceeded that of any gun built before. Or since. Very few conventional artillery pieces fired in war have been able to achieve even half their range. The Paris Gun was constructed by inserting a mm liner tube into a bored-out mm naval gun barrel. A foot smoothbore extension was then added to the front of the extended liner, giving the composite barrel a length of feet.

The entire composite barrel required an external truss system to keep it straight. Virtually all artillery pieces achieve their maximum range when the barrel is elevated to an angle of 45 degrees. Anything over 45 degrees is classified as high-angle fire, and as the elevation increases the range decreases. The Paris Gun, however, appeared to defy the normal laws of ballistics by achieving its maximum range at an elevation of 50 degrees. The reason was that at 50 degrees the round from the Paris Gun went significantly higher into the stratosphere than at a degree elevation.

The reduced air density at the higher altitudes caused far less drag on the body of the projectile, which resulted in the greater horizontal range. Capable of firing only at high angles and relatively short ranges, the mortar had always been a heavy and immobile weapon, ill suited for maneuver warfare. During the First and Second Balkan Wars of and —, however, German military observers realized that the mortar was still tactically useful in static situations and in compartmentalized terrain.

The Germans, therefore, started World War I with far more mortars than any other army. With the advent of trench warfare, the mortar proved to be the ideal close-support weapon. Firing at high angles, it did not need a recoil system because the impact of firing was directed straight into the ground. Since it was compact, it could be emplaced in forward trenches. It fired a gravity-fed shell that had a primer in its base and a propellant charge packed in bags around its rear stabilizing fins.

The round had a range of meters, a bursting radius of five to 10 meters, and an impressive maximum rate of fire of 25 rounds per minute. The Birch gun was a standard British pounder It had an open firing platform and a seven-man crew. All modern self-propelled artillery is descended directly from the Birch gun. The most famous gun of World War II, the German 88mm manufactured by Krupp, was actually a family of devastatingly effective guns that included an antiaircraft gun, a tank gun, an antitank gun, and in a pinch a field artillery piece.

Mounted on a wide variety of towed and self-propelled carriages, the 88 required different ammunition and different fire-control equipment for its various missions. It was upgraded throughout the war as the Flak 36, Flak 37, and Flak A true gun rather than a howitzer, the 88 had the flat trajectory and very high muzzle velocity that made it an effective and much feared antiaircraft and antitank gun.

In service with more than 50 different armies, they were the most widely used field artillery pieces in history. Everyone who ever served on it fell in love with it. It was simple to operate, easy to maintain, and almost indestructible. In it was upgraded slightly and redesignated the MA1.

While the last MA1 was withdrawn from American service in the s, it still remains in service in many other parts of the world, and American arsenals continue to manufacture repair parts for foreign sale.

After the first atomic bomb was detonated in , development work started almost immediately on nuclear artillery projectiles and guns capable of firing them. In it entered service, redesigned specifically to fire the pound T projectile with a W-9 nuclear warhead. Nicknamed Atomic Annie, the M also could fire a conventional pound high-explosive round out to a range of 28, meters.

Transported by two specially designed tractors, the gun weighed 93, pounds in battery and fired from a box-trail carriage. Fired to a range of 10, meters and detonated meters above the ground, the exploded round produced a yield of 15 kilotons.

The M remained in service only a little more than 10 years, but it proved the technical feasibility—although not necessarily the basic common sense—of tactical nuclear weapons. First in service in as the M-1 towed howitzer, it fired a pound high-explosive projectile to a maximum range of 16, meters. Its extremely small circular probable error made it an ideal weapon for destructive fire against hardened targets.

It was also capable of firing a chemical projectile that carried Sarin nerve gas and a nuclear projectile with a W warhead and a yield of 40 kilotons. In the gun and its carriage were mounted on a tracked chassis and designated the M self-propelled howitzer. In the s the 8-inch was upgraded with a longer barrel and redesignated the MA1; it was further modernized a few years later as the MA2. Their answer to this problem was to shorten the tube barrel and shape the breech like a funnel. The two models made during the s were short lived but the third time was a charm with the final product: The Model Mountain Howitzer.

Getting the Carriage Just Right All the Mountain Howitzers used the same bronze tube, but it took some experimentation to get the carriage just right. Nicknames for Everyone. You Might Also Like. Loading results Tags: fort larned. Related Articles Go! The Big Bertha was a German mm howitzer, named for a family member of the Krupp Arms manufacturer. A German Click image for more information. Soldiers loading a mm Howitzer near Meuse, France, Austrian soldiers closing a