Talk:Howitzer

message: Most of the artillery pieces pictured here are Civil War era guns fired at very low angles close to horizontal.  They are not howitzers. Jfgrcar (talk) 23:17, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect Photos 

message: Old spellings like hobbits and hobits can refer to a single specimen of the sort of artillery gun called a howitz or a howitzer.
Someone may wish to incorporate this into this article —jiy (talk) 21:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old spellings 

message: How come the text says that howitzers fire at high angles, but most of the pictures show howitzers firing at low angles? CuriousOliver 15:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the description is wrong. Howitzers can fire both at high angles and in direct fire. I corrected this. 69.69.73.94 06:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And yet it still states they fire at high angles.  By military definition (army field guide) a howitzer is an indirect fire weapon but this does not indicate it must be at a high angle.  Civil War howitzers did mostly fire at a steep angle but modern weapons fire at a much lower and flatter trajectory.  The article also indicates these weapons have “relatively short barrels” and “use comparatively small explosive charges.”  Neither of these are true.  The pictures with the article of the French 155, the German self propelled PzH 2000, and the US M198 all clearly demonstrate the inaccuracy of this statement.  (A 155 mm artillery shell is larger than the projectile from the 5 in. main deck guns on a destroyer and is absolutely NOT a "comparatively small explosive charge".) CharmsDad (talk) 05:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually the typical modern "howitzer" is really a "gun-howitzer" able to effectively fire both low and high angle indirect fire, and fire low angle fire at ranges typical of a true gun.  Advances in recoil mechanisms, tactics, and the availability of a range of charges have allowed modern howitzers to perform the work of both to an acceptable degree.  A mortar is usually, and has always been, THE true "high-angle-only" weapon.  Caisson 06 (talk) 14:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Firing angles? 

message: I haven't been able to find the spelling "hauwitzer" (which was added to the article on 13 January 2004) in any (print) English dictionary. Most Google hits turn out to be versions of this very article found at Wikipedia mirror sites. Seeing that "howitzer" is loanword (from Dutch houwitser < German Haubitze, < Czech houfnice), there are probably a lot of infrequent variant spellings that are not found in any modern English dictionary (including the old spellings mentioned by jiy above), but that doesn't mean they should be listed as permissible variant spellings in the article. Unless someone comes up with a reference to a modern (print) English dictionary that includes the "hauwitzer" spelling, I believe it should be removed from the article. (I have created a Hauwitzer redirect page so as not to "lose" any readers who enter that spelling and hit the "Go" button.) --Bwiki 14:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling "hauwitzer" removed

message: Being Czech, I found the reference to "houfnice" as a "catapult" quite funny. Though in the 15th century, the Hussites already used firearms including houfnice AP cannons - indeed, it was a small wheeled field cannon used against herds of enemies (in Czech "houf" stands for a group or a herd)
Please note that the Hussite army was considering tactics and armaments probably the most advanced military force at that time. Modern words like "pistol" also derive from there as "píšťala" ['pi:shtialah](Czech for the "pipe") was the name for their hand-held firearm.
Martin85.71.171.224 19:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, and where does "houf" come from, if not from the targets, German "Haufen" formations? -- Matthead  DisOuß   04:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  the Czech word "houfnice" and Hussite Wars 

message: "Since the First World War, the word "howitzer" has been increasingly used to describe artillery pieces that, strictly speaking, belong to the category of "gun-howitzer"."
That's a very important point, but I'm not sure what the strict definition of the gun-howitzer is.  Are we talking about (a) absolute barrel length, (b) relative barrel length (in calibers), or a design feature like (c) maximum elevation or (d) the existence of a chamber.  Did guns in the WWI still lack chambers?  I gather that they did in the 1860s, while howitzers had them.  If (b) is the answer, is there a caliber ratio which would qualify a piece as gun, gun-howitzer, etc?  Artillery in mid-20th century is often described in "inch, caliber" format which may allow us to tell at a glance if it is a howitzer.  Boris B (talk) 18:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gun-Howitzer 

message: "The standard German light field howitzer at the start of the war..."
I noticed that a reference to light field howitzers used by the germans linksb instead to Light field, a topic which seems completely out of context. Is there a different page this should be linking to or should the link simply be removed?(Edgeoffaiths (talk) 02:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Light Field 

message: The article says "The onset of trench warfare after the first few months of First World War greatly increased the demand for howitzers that gave a steep angle of descent, which were better suited than guns to the task of striking targets on a horizontal plane (such as trenches), with large amounts of explosive and considerably less barrel wear."
How is a trench in a horizontal plane?
Kinzele (talk) 20:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  trench question 

message: One of the resources listed on this article is another Wikipedia article. I just thought this should be brought to attention. Link5794 (talk) 22:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can a website cite itself? 

message: The lede contains the statement:  "Until fairly recently (about the end of the Second World War) such weapons were characterized by a barrel length 15 to 25 times their caliber."  It is un-sourced and at odds with what I understand of American Civil War usage--not unlike that of contemporary European practice.  For example, 12-pdr Federal field howitzers of the standard 1841 bronze pattern had a bore length (minus powder chamber) of 9.36. (Hazlett et al. Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War, Rev. Ed.)  The diminutive 12-pdr Mountain howitzers model 1835 that were standard until 1870 or so, had ratios of 5.5 by the same measure or 6.7 based on full bore length including chamber (from specs on page 136.)  24-pdr field howitzers of standard 1841 pattern came in at 10.48 calibers full bore length including chamber. (page 184).  Austrian 24-pdr howitzers of the same period purchased by the Confederates were much shorter and lighter, perhaps 8.4 calibers when their slightly larger bore diameter is considered.  The 12-pder Napoleon "gun-howitzer" Model 1857 had a ratio of 13.77 per specs from p. 90. 
With the "gun-howitzer" coming in at a ratio of 14, the lede is clearly mistaken, perhaps referring to a period between WW's?  The ACW period 6-pdr field gun Model 1841 comes in at 15.67 (page 41.)  The unused 12-pdr field gun (too big and bulky, replaced by the Napoleon before hostilities commenced) had a ratio of 16.0 (p. 180.)  I can't remember where I've seen the contemporary caliber lengths discussed, but the above are consistent with what I recall:  guns around 16, Napoleons around 14, and howitzers for field service below 12, typically around 10.
Siege and sea-coast howitzers have similar caliber lengths, the Model 1840 8" siege howitzer is around 5.8 (per Olmstead's, The Big Guns, p. 17) while the 8" sea coast howitzer runs 11.6 total bore length, and the 10" sea coast 10.55. (p. 62)   Red Harvest (talk) 11:21, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical caliber length of howitzers? 

message: 100 foot, 400 foot, a mile, 5 miles??? Doesn't seem to be much info on the range92.23.184.194 (talk) 13:31, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Anywhere from under 0.25 miles to over 25 miles; we're talking about several hundred years difference in technology.  I don't think it's useful to try and make a single statement of range about all howitzers.  Also, info on range before the 19th century is often poorly sourced and contradictory.  I'll look if there's some way to work in some useful and reliable info on range in few places, but I'm not very hopeful.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any idea on how far these fired? 

message: 6 crewmen 2001:D08:1838:F1E5:BAE5:F6B1:BF69:6CBD (talk) 04:03, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crew of a howitzer? 

message: It would to more correct to talk about Bohemian language. Since at that time there didn't exist a clear distinction fe. between Czech and Slovak language or ethnicity. These are more modern attributions and developed step by step in later centuries.--212.95.7.236 (talk) 17:22, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There is nothing like Bohemian language. In Czech Bohemia=Čechy, so Bohemian and Czech language are synonyms. Slovakia at that time was part of Hungarian kingdom, as Czechia and Slovakia shared history only 7.-9. century and then later after WWI. Slovak language at that time was much more different from Czech then now. During Czech National Revival and Slovak National Revival many Slovak elites lived in Czechia and that brough these two cultures together but that was in late 18. and 19. century, not in Hussite era. JanaKometaDušková (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding Etymology 

message: Very little is said comparing the range, accuracy, and damage levels for each generation and/or type, even in a rough sense. 2603:8000:F201:2879:5C2D:77D7:69BA:9650 (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Range? 

message: The first part of the word is from an earlier version of the modern German "häufig" which means often. It meant a weapon that could be loaded and shot quickly (or often, a lot) in succession. The first use of the term comes from Breslau in the year 1427, so has nothing to do with the hussites. Probably a German-Sorbian word combination, typical for mixed language areas in silesia at that time.
Source for this : Schlesische Gesellschaft für vaterländische Cultur: Scriptores rerum Silesiacarum. Band 6. Breslau 1855, S. 55.
Besides that, it's a bit of a strange concept to call this a "czech" word either way when in fact the word the hussites used for those types of weapons was a loan word from German to which a common slavic ending for machinery was added. But that's rather irrelevant anyways considering the first use of this term doesn't originate from the hussites. 178.24.245.223 (talk) 07:09, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Houfnice was used by hussites even before 1427 (like in Battle of Malešov 1424). It's from word houf (crowd), that means crowd. It is Czech word with German origin, but the word houfnice and houfnice's real origin is Czech. The same as pistol, Hussites at that time were leading in development of tactics and weapons. And the term originate with Hussites (Hussite wars started in 1419). JanaKometaDušková (talk) 16:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology is false, both in meaning and origin.