WW2 light field howitzer, your choice

[Shortround6]

It is very hard to come up with firm limits on some of these categories. Some armies, at times, assigned some rather strange weapons and blurred the generally accepted "limits" of "Field artillery".

The original limits were rather loose to begin with as "horse"----"Field"------and "Siege" artillery were ALL horse (or oxen) drawn. It was up to different armies to determine how many horses and what speed of travel divided the guns into each class.

"Horse" artillery generally could advance (or retreat) at the gallop with ALL crewmen either riding horses, caissons or wagons. "Feild" artillery had to keep up with a marching army and some of the gun crew walked alongside the guns/caissons/wagons. "siege" artillery, even with up to 20 animals per towing team, could NOT keep up with marching men on a day by day basis. Armies might vary on how many horses were in the Horse or field artillery towing teams.

Some later classifications, like divisional guns, show some rather wide variations as not only do the different types of divisions use different guns (Cavalry divisions using horse artillery, mountain or alpine divisions using mountain guns, etc) but some armies, even before WW I mixed guns in a regular infantry division. The French being one of the few major armies to use all one type of gun in most of their infantry divisions. During WW I most armies began the shift away from 75-76mm guns to 100-105mm howitzers as divisional artillery. The US and German armies beefed up their divisions by WW II by including a 12 tube 150-155 battalion to accompany the 3 battalions of 105mm tubes. So in WW II you could be dealing with anywhere from a 75mm gun to a 155mm howitzer as "divisional" artillery.

If you want to compare "field" howitzers kick out all the mountain guns/jungle guns/airborne guns/infantry guns as they should be competing in a category of their own, or even more than one category.

Then kick out some of the antiques and leftovers. Lets face it, they were substitute standards (issued to second line/training units) for good reason. They didn't do the job as well as the newer weapons, despite how they might compare on a simple list. many of the WW I weapons were used in WW II because the owning countries didn't have the money for anything better (or the money went to different weapons like airplanes or tanks).
The difference between a horse drawn 1.6 ton weapon and a horse drawn 1.8 ton weapon getting bogged down in mud is going to pretty small. And maybe the 1.8 ton weapon has bigger diameter wheels (or wider?)

You should wind up with a short list with not more than 2 weapons from any one country.

 

[Vincenzo]

For pratical purpose there were only 4 and half modern howitzer: leFH18, M2, 25 pdr, 122 M1938, the half is the Type 91 that was built in much small scale. All other modern pieces had very low production number the most produced is the GebH40 with 420 pieces, yes i know this was a mountain howitzer but there is no reason (price excluding) that would not have been a good piece of field artillery (is the howitzer with the longest range in the list). The old WW1 era pieces were cheap, or better free (they were already in the stocks) had not the capability of modern pieces but are better of nothing (and also better of the very short ranged pieces still around) and all are in low band as weight (i'm no a expert but is possible that a 1.4 ton horse towed howitzer is more easy to put out to mud that a 2 ton horse towed howitzer)

 

[Shortround6]

All other modern pieces had very low production number the most produced is the GebH40 with 420 pieces, yes i know this was a mountain howitzer but there is no reason (price excluding) that would not have been a good piece of field artillery (is the howitzer with the longest range in the list).

This why there were different guns for different uses, it is not just the cost. The Mountain howitzer has small wheels and a narrow axle, it keeps the weight down but means the equipment is a bit top heavy and more likely to over turn while being towed over rough terrain. Or try dragging the equipment on a 1000km road march (rough roads) and see if it takes itself apart. Equipment that is designed to come apart in 4-8 major sections just may take-itself apart on long road trips. "Can be towed"doesn't mean it is good at being towed. Or there may be speed restrictions when being towed by motor traction. Small wheels don't handle bumps/holes in roads as well as large wheels (they figured this out back with muzzle loading guns).

And again, standard divisional weapons were designed for long life, both firing and towing. More than one attempt to 'lighten' existing equipment stopped when the new light carriage/mount broke or bent after prolonged firing.

The Artillery was really a somewhat scientific branch of service and had been since muzzle loading days. Books or booklets on carriage design going back to the 1700s, logistics (ammo supply) and how much barrel you really needed being topics of discussion and experimentation. Once you started getting into targets that were out of line sight trigonometry and surveying came into play. As ranges increased weather and/or atmospheric conditions had to be taken into account. Senior artillery officers still may have made mistakes but it was a lot harder to get to be a senior artillery officer without formal engineering training than in either the infantry or cavalry.

and all are in low band as weight (i'm no a expert but is possible that a 1.4 ton horse towed howitzer is more easy to put out to mud that a 2 ton horse towed howitzer)

this may be true but the practical difference of only .2 of ton may not be enough to offset any other differences.

And sometimes you just had to make the equipment soldier proof

 

[Vincenzo]

Following your suggestion do not considering specialized howitzer, also if i consider necessary check one to one the lack of capability to be used as standard field howitzer, the list of 26* howitzer go down to 21*
they can be clustered in:
the old WW1 models and their limited upgraded versions group (9 howitzer: leFH 16, Skoda vz.1414/19, the Ansaldo, the soviet and finish upgrade of 122 model 19091910 and the 120 Schneider 1909**), they have limited weight 1,4-1,5 tons, limited traverse 4-6°, max elevation within 40-48°, range all under 10 km (the better is the Skoda 14/19 with 9,9), also if originally they were horse towed many were modified for motorized towing
"modern" pieces with limited traverse group (2 howitzer Skoda model 19281930 (the 30 is the czech army version and thw 28 is the export version (Yugoslavia the alone customer afaik), weight 1,8 tons, traverse 8°, elevation 80°, range around 10,5 km, built for towing motorized
all the other modern pieces group (10 howitzers: M2, leFH18, Bofors model 1924&H/40, Skoda H2, Schneider mle 1934, mle 1935 B, Type 91, 25 pdr, 122 Model 938), large variability in weight from 1,5 to 2,5 tons, traverse from 40 to 58°, excluding the 25 pdr and the Bofors m1924 they had only 8° but with platform can 360°, elevation from 42 to 70° (that with 2nd arc are the 1935 B (50°), 122 m1938 (63°), M2 (66°), H2 (70°)), range from 10,3 to 12,3 km (only the 25 pdr, the leFH 18M and 18/40 and the Skoda H2 over 12 km ) all built for motorized towing (for the leFH18 were built also horse towed carriages; edited the most common Type 91 variant was horse towed)




* to check for error and omission
** to check for actual use

 

[Shortround6]

As you stated in the beginning, choice depends on the country.

The British and Americans were never going to pick a horse drawn gun at this point in time. They simply didn't have any horses left (except for ceremonial purposes) and had no breeding program or veterinary service to provide for large numbers of horses.

The Russians, French, Germans, Italians and to some extent the Japanese were caught in-between. They wanted motorized troops and motorized artillery but didn't have the money/resources to fully equip their armies with the needed number of vehicles.

The other countries may have looked at motorized guns and 'wished' but had no money or infrastructure (drivers, mechanics, garages, fuel distribution) to make the change over possible except in very small specialized units (this last may apply to the Italians and Japanese).

Best howitzer for Bulgaria was NOT the best howitzer for the US. The reverse was also true.

There are also differences in motor towing. Solid rubber tires may not allow tow speeds of 30-45mph although they allow higher speeds than wooden wheels and steel tires/rims.

Now as Parsifal points out, the best gun/s is/are the one/s you actually have in position to give you fire support. However it it is not just the guns but the ammo supply. A modern company quotes 72 Kg for two Russian 122mm howitzer rounds in the wooden packing crate/box and 55Kg for two 105 rounds in the wooden packing crate/box. 200 rounds of 122mm ammo could weigh 7200kg and the 105mm ammo goes 5500kg for 200 rounds. Even 100 rounds packed/cased exceeds the weight of the guns. While the difference of a few hundred kilograms from one model of gun to another makes a bit of difference to the men trying to man handle them the weight of a battery of guns (radios, field phones, repair/fitter, etc) and ammo can totally overwhelm the gun weights.
The Ammo weight was another reason the mountain/airborne troops stuck with 75/76mm weapons longer than the regular field troops did. 75/76mm support fire beats no support fire. Same company mentioned above quotes 39KG for a three round case of 76mm ammo for the Post-war Yugoslavian (and Romanian?) mountain howitzer.

Breaking open the cased ammo and trying to have the men lug it in one or two rounds at a time can suck up hundreds of infantry men.

Some countries had short supply lines. Using WW I left overs in small numbers only a few hundred miles from the arsenals/factories is a different problem than using odd ball guns at the end of 3000-8000 mile supply chains.
Best gun in the world doesn't do much good if you don't have ammo for it. Australian 'baby' 25pdr may have been a compromise in an attempt to use standard ammo as much as they could.

 

[Vincenzo]

taking out the parts i've agree with you (the most)
i just want add that 2 122mm round weight more of 2 105mm round but also are more powerfull, and generally a 122 weapon fire slower that a 105 weapon, so do not need the same number of rounds for the same work.

i'll try to check tires type maybe this is not so easy

 

[Shortround6]

taking out the parts i've agree with you (the most)
i just want add that 2 122mm round weight more of 2 105mm round but also are more powerfull, and generally a 122 weapon fire slower that a 105 weapon, so do not need the same number of rounds for the same work.

depends on the work, some of the work was harassing or interdicting fire fire. So many rounds per hour into a given area to keep the enemy from moving around in it/though it. Not expecting to demolish fortifications (if any were hit it was a bonus). You need enough rounds per hour (or unit of time) to keep anyone from trying to dash between the shots. Bigger bangs further apart don't work as well.
Troops (or trucks/transport) caught in the open need high rates of fire for a brief time before the target troops get to cover/move out of impact zone.

Even at sustained rates of fire( not burst fire) it wasn't hard for most of these howitzers to go through 100 rounds an hour. In WW I some of the 75-84mm field guns went through over 500 rounds a day in the prolonged bombardments and could fire 15-25 rounds per minute for brief periods of time, ammo supply was always a consideration.
The Luftwaffe gets a lot of credit for the Blitzkrieg in Poland, what doesn't get a lot of credit is that a 'standard' German infantry division (non-Panzer) not only had more (although not a lot more) and bigger guns in the division ( Germans used a lot more 105mm howitzers while the Poles still had a lot of 75mm guns) but the German Division had 2-3 times (or tons) worth of ammunition in the division supply train. The advantage of trucks over horses. And trucks (assuming good weather/terrain) could bring up more ammo from the supply dumps/rail heads much faster than horse drawn wagons. As the German army added divisions faster than truck production could keep up (and as the older trucks wore out faster than they could be replaced) this advantage disappeared.

 

[Vincenzo]

i've already try to reply yesterday but the site had trouble

imho the ammos need for harassing works is small comperate to that need for attck/defence works

on the tires, the 25 pdr and M2 had tube tires, is possible tat the motorized variant of Type 91 had also tube tires
the others would be had solid rubber tires; some pieces had the old wooden tires but was possible use trail for motorized towing or load the howitzer on the truck.
EDIT: also the belgian leFH 16 had tube tires
(30/45 mph for towing artillery i don't think was realistic, also for tube tires, in WW2 time have you infos on this?)

 

[Vincenzo]

i try to put some choice
horse towed: 105 mm Type 91, had the low weight like the WW1 era pieces but has relatively good traverse (40°) and range (10,7). IDK if the improvements over the ww1 era pieces are enough for a actual choice. the italian army valutating the skoda 100 model 1914/19 versus the 100 model 1914 already in use rate the 14/19 not enough better of their 14 for the cost, yes the Type 91 is superior to 14/19 but idk if enough for a actual choice (the italian army want a 105 mm howitzer of 1,6 ton and 11 km range (idk the other data of the requiremnt but both concurring design had "modern" traverse capability) and failed to have it).
motor towed: 122 mm Model 1938 (Skoda H2 if must be a 105)
high speed motor towed: M2 and 25 pdr are too near for a choice, both have some advantage on the other

 

[Vincenzo]

i try to put some choice
horse towed: 105 mm Type 91, had the low weight like the WW1 era pieces but has relatively good traverse (40°) and range (10,7). IDK if the improvements over the ww1 era pieces are enough for a actual choice. the italian army valutating the skoda 100 model 1914/19 versus the 100 model 1914 already in use rate the 14/19 not enough better of their 14 for the cost, yes the Type 91 is superior to 14/19 but idk if enough for a actual choice (the italian army want a 105 mm howitzer of 1,6 ton and 11 km range (idk the other data of the requiremnt but both concurring design had "modern" traverse capability) and failed to have it).
motor towed: 122 mm Model 1938 (Skoda H2 if must be a 105)
high speed motor towed: M2 and 25 pdr are too near for a choice, both have some advantage on the other

 

[Shortround6]

A part of how important the traverse is how interconnected your artillery batteries are. The British were probably the best at this by the end of the war as within just a few minutes any artillery observer had the capability of calling the fire from any/all guns in range on a single target (if given permission by higher command) regardless of parent organization (forward observer could 'borrow' neighboring divisions/corp batteries for some missions). This required a very large number of radios and field phone networks. The British 25pdr on it's turntable was capable of large changes in arc quite rapidly.
The WW I guns were usually in armies with much more rudimentary communications networks. It doesn't matter so much if you lack wide traverse as the guns were linked to only a limited number of forward observers and even brigade/division headquarters were not well linked laterally. Pre-planned fire is one thing, responding to sudden needs/threats is another and the wider traversing guns, assuming a communications network that allowed it, were much better at responding out of arc.
You also had the firing 'patterns' for lack of a better word. A gun with 8 degrees of traverse could cover about 1300 yds of frontage at at a range of 10,000yds, or 650yds at 5000yds. Penetration into enemy territory is at the expense of covering your own front. How many yds/meters of line was a division supposed to hold? A howitzer with 5-7 times the covered arc could both reach in to the enemy territory and cover a a decent amount of frontage.

Time taken getting into action and back out of action is also important, sometimes weight was kept down by using trail spikes instead of spades (this may not translate well).

The Japanese howitzer (and some others) required stakes/spikes to be hammered down into the ground before firing (most of the time) and then pried back up before moving/swinging the gun.
The American howitzer would dig it's spades in under recoil but took less work to unseat and move the gun (and in a hurry a few rounds of ammo were enough to set the spades again).

 

[Vincenzo]

all italian 30s pieces had spikes/stakes afaik because the army want this, they considerd the best choice for the foresee grounds

the threat was on pieces not on the armies

 

[Lucky13]

Bofors Howitzer M/40
Weight: 1,970 kg
Length: 5.310 m
Crew: 7 + 3 reserve
Shell: High explosive
Caliber: 105 mm
Breech: Horizontal sliding-wedge breech or interrupted screw breech
Carriage: Split trail with spades
Elevation: -5 to +45 degrees
Traverse: 50 degrees
Rate of fire: Mk40 rounds per hour
Maximum firing range : 10,900 m

 

[Vincenzo]

Hi Lucky13 have you same info also for the model 1924?
I had 47° for traverse but this not change by much

 

[Shortround6]

the threat was on pieces not on the armies

If you mean 'thread" (and I mistype more than most), yes, it is on the artillery pieces but some armies would find older weapons less 'limiting' because they not only were using 'old' traction (animals instead of motor vehicles) but because their 'command and control' could not take full advantage of the capabilities of the newer weapons. Taking longer to emplace the battery is not a big deal if you have few or poor radios and need to lay down a field-phone network before the battery can be used to good effect.
A more modern gun can used to the same effect (but perhaps not much better) as an older gun by an otherwise poorly equipped army. A well equipped army would find the old model gun the limiting factor in it's artillery's effectiveness.

When trying to pick a "best" artillery piece in a category there is more than just the gun/tube/mount to consider. Is the weapon the limiting factor in the 'system' effectiveness or or is the 'system' limiting the gun?
And to open a whole new can of worms. Someone once said the shell is the weapon, the gun or howitzer is just the delivery system

 

[Lucky13]

All I can find, is it seems the m/24 was mountain gun, with only four made, being mentioned as m/10-24, either way, she's an elusive piece of equipment....

What I've seen is;
10,5cm Berghaubits m/10-24
Caliber: 105 mm
Barrel lenght: Probably 14 cal
Projectile Weight: 14,6 kg
Muzzle Velocity: 293 m/s
Max elevation: 43°
Range: 8 000 m
Traverse: 5,5°
Trail: Box
Gun weight in action: 1 100 kg
Rate of Fire: N/A
Prolonged Rate of Fire: N/A
Ammunition: 10,5cm m/10
Design: Bofors
Wheels: Spoked wood
Shield: Yes
Year of delivery: 1926-27
Quantity: 4

 

[Vincenzo]

Shortround6: yes i mean thread, now your poin is clear

Lucky13, is not the same m1924 that i was talking, is a howitzer bought in 14 pieces from the KNIL, is a 105/22
this one
10.5 cm howitzer Model 1924 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DEF / Nederlandse leger in Nederlands-Indië - forum.fok.nl around half page there is a pic

 

[Lucky13]

This pic..?

 

[Vincenzo]

no that are AA gun
try here the first pic The Overvalwagen Forum: knil howitzer battalion
some small pics also here (not the first) Canadian Chevrolet Maple Leaf 4x4 artillery tractors? - Page 4 - MLU FORUM

 

[Lucky13]

Aaah....found it now!

Must be some info about the m/24 Haubits, somewhere!