BL 9 . 2 - inch howitzer The Ordnance BL 9 . 2 - inch howitzer was the principal counter - battery equipment of British forces in France in World War I . It equipped a substantial number of siege batteries of the Royal Garrison Artillery . It remained in service until about the middle of World War II . History . The origins of a British heavy " siege " howitzer lie in advances in technology and the 21 cm howitzers used by the German field army . UK had purchased Skoda 9 . 45 - inch howitzer from Austria in 1900 for service in South Africa . A practice camp in the 1900s showed this howitzer ' s high minimum elevation was a major problem . In due course Britain decided to develop its own heavy weapon , but retained the Skoda transport technique of moving it in three loads on wheeled trailers ( either horse or traction towed ) . A trial gun was received in 1913 and fired at Woolwich and Shoeburyness during the winter . In July 1914 it was sent to the tactical firing range at Rhyader with a siege company . The assessment was " This equipment is a vast improvement on any other in use in the siege artillery , and is worth taking with an army . " Major General Von Donop , Master - General of the Ordance , immediately ordered 16 guns and a further 16 were ordered in October 1914 . The prototype gun , " Mother " , was in action in France on October 31 , 1914 and production guns entered service in 1915 . The gun was transported in three loads - body and cradle , bed , barrel - towed either by heavy horses or a Holt tractor . The equipment comprised a segment shaped ground platform assembled from steel section and bolted to a holdfast sunk flush with the ground . An earth box fitted above ground to the front of the holdfast , with ( Mk 1 ) or ( Mk 2 ) of earth prevented it " bucking " . On soft ground , extra beams were used under the holdfast . The carriage was mounted on the platform , it was pivoted at the front and traversed up to 30 degrees left and right by a spur gear engaging a curved toothed rack at the breech end of the platform , with the weight of the carriage on rollers . The tubular cradle pivoted by the trunnions supported the barrel – a wire bound " A tube " – and connected it to the hydro - pneumatic recoil system with a floating piston ( the first British use of this ) and hydraulic buffer . However , the initial design suffered from excessive recoil and was modified in 1916 . In 1917 the recoil was further improved by addition of a recoil indicator and cut - off gear . Full recoil ( 40 - inch Mk I , 44 - inch Mk II ) was allowed at lower elevation , hence absorbing most of the horizontal ( i . e . backward ) force . A shorter recoil ( 23 - inch Mk I , 20 - inch Mk II ) was allowed at high elevation where the ground itself could absorb much of the vertical ( i . e . downward ) recoil force . This prevented the breech from hitting the platform . The barrel had to be depressed 3° for loading , as can be seen in the photograph , shown below , of a howitzer of the Australian 55th Siege Battery . The Mk I ' s range was relatively limited and in June 1916 the senior Artillery commander in France , Major General Birch , requested among other artillery improvements an increase in range to " " even if an increase of the weight of the equipment is entailed " " . This resulted in the Mark II gun in December 1916 , with a heavier maximum propellant charge , a longer barrel and an increased range of . However , combat experience showed the higher - velocity Mk II barrel had a reduced life , estimated at 3 , 500 rounds . The average barrel life of a Mk I gun was estimated from combat experience to be 6000 rounds . Combat use . One disadvantage of the dismantling system was an inability to fire directly from the travelling carriage the way the BL 8 inch Howitzer could . In addition , the time required to bring the weapon into action was increased . However , the stability of the siege mounting made it " the most accurate of heavy howitzers " . In World War I British service , the gun served only on the Western Front with 36 British , one Australian and two Canadian batteries . Batteries increased in size from four guns to six during 1916 – 17 . Initially , batteries were in Heavy Artillery Groups – usually a single battery of 9 . 2 - inch with the other four batteries being differently equipped . Mid - war Groups were renamed Brigades RGA , and there were different types but the pattern of a single 9 . 2 - inch battery in a brigade was retained . During World War II , some guns went to France with the British Expeditionary Force , but their main deployment was in the United Kingdom as anti - invasion defences . According to the post - war memoirs of comedian Spike Milligan , who served in the Royal Artillery ' s 56th Heavy Regiment , 9 . 2 - inch howitzer ammunition was so scarce in the early years of the Second World War that gun - crews in training were reduced to shouting ' bang ' in unison , as no shells were available to practice with . US service . Bethlehem Steel was already contracted to manufacture 9 . 2 - inch howitzers for Britain before the US entry into World War I in April 1917 . The order was to be completed by July 1917 but they failed to meet the contract timescale and a year later deliveries had not been completed . As British manufacturing capacity increased , guns became available for export . The US government ordered 100 from Bethlehem and 132 from Britain to equip the US army building up in France . Sevellon Brown states that in fact Bethlehem could not meet the US order but that 40 were delivered from Britain by the end of the war . The US Ordnance manual of 1920 describes its current stock of Model of 1917 ( Vickers Mk I ) and Model of 1918 ( Vickers Mk II ) as being built both in Britain and USA . The US - built guns may have been British orders to Bethlehem which were redirected to the US army . Brown describes the US acquisition of the 9 . 2 as based mainly on the need at the time to utilize immediately available manufacturing capacities , and that acquisition of a howitzer based on the French Schneider 240 mm howitzer for its super - heavy artillery was the main US goal . This view is supported by the 1920 US Ordnance manual which describes the 240 mm howitzer as far superior to the 9 . 2 . Russian and Soviet service . Only four out of 44 9 . 2 - inch howitzers promised by the allies ended up in the service of the Russian Empire . These four pieces were actually given by Japan in 1917 . The Russian designation for the gun was 234 - mm Vickers howitzer . An ammunition tally on 15 September 1917 showed 1 , 110 rounds per gun available in the Russian arsenal . There was however no local production of this ammunition , all had to be imported . Three of the guns were still in service with the Soviet 317th artillery battalion , part of the 13th Army in the winter of 1939 - 1940 , when they were employed against the Mannerheim Line . Ammunition . The primary ammunition was HE ( high explosive ) shells filled with Amatol , Trotyl ( TNT ) or Lyddite . The standard shell weight was . However , there were 19 variants of HE shell , some with sub - variants . Later marks of shell had a fill that varied between about of HE , and shell bodies varying in length between . There was also some use of Common Pointed shell filled with Shellite . Later fuzes included various versions of No 101 , 106 and 188 . More than three million rounds of ammunition were expended during the war . Chemical shells were introduced in 1918 , these were filled with mustard gas , a persistent chemical agent . However , only 7000 shells were produced . Surviving examples . Imperial War Museum . The barrel of the original prototype , known as ' Mother ' is preserved on a Mk I carriage by the Imperial War Museum . This howitzer was tested at Rhyader in Powys , Wales in July 1914 . Sent to France , it was operated by 8th Siege Battery from October 1914 . Something of a curiosity , the howitzer was visited by Field Marshal Sir John French on 5 November 1914 and by the Prince of Wales on 18 November . Transferred to 10th Siege Battery in early 1915 it saw use during the battles of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 and Festubert in May 1915 . The weapon returned to Britain in July 1915 and was fired at the Shoeburyness ranges until worn out . With its barrel relined , it was reissued to France in 1917 . Acquired by the Imperial War Museum , the howitzer was exhibited at Crystal Palace , from 1920 and at South Kensington from 1924 . Around this time , the howitzer served as the model for the Royal Artillery Memorial designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger . Australian War Memorial . A Mk I howitzer , probably used by 55th Siege Battery of the First Australian Imperial Force in 1917 , is preserved at the Australian War Memorial ( AWM ) in Canberra . The weapon was received by the AWM in 1939 , later being used at an artillery range at Port Wakefield , South Australia for proof test ing before returning to the AWM ' s stores in April 1949 . It was later loaned to the Royal Australian Artillery for display at Holsworthy Barracks , returning to the AWM in 1998 . Charleston , South Carolina . A 9 . 2 - inch howitzer barrel , manufactured in 1918 by the Bethlehem Steel Company , is displayed in White Point Garden in Charleston , South Carolina .