Howitzer A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories , with a steep angle of descent . Until fairly recently , about the end of the Second World War , such weapons were characterized by a barrel length 15 to 25 times the caliber of the gun . In the taxonomies of artillery pieces used by European ( and European - style ) armies in the 17th , 18th , 19th , and 20th centuries , the howitzer stood between the " gun " ( characterized by a longer barrel , larger propelling charges , smaller shells , higher velocities , and flatter trajectories ) and the " mortar " ( which was meant to fire at even higher angles of ascent and descent ) . Howitzers , like other artillery pieces , are usually organized in groups called batteries . Etymology . The English word " howitzer " originates ultimately from the Czech word " houfnice " . Czech " houfnice " is derived , through the addition of the suffix - " nice " , from the word " houf " , " crowd " , suggesting the cannon ' s use against massed enemies , and " houf " is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word " Hūfe " or " Houfe " ( modern German " Haufen " ) , meaning " heap , " akin to Dutch " hoop " as in " verloren hoop " ( " lost troop , " entering English through a folk - etymological back - formation as " forlorn hope " ) . " Haufen " , sometimes in the compound " Gewalthaufen " , also designated a pike square formation in German . In the Hussite Wars of the 1420s and 1430s , the Czechs used short barreled " houfnice " cannons to fire at short distances into such crowds of infantry , or into charging heavy cavalry , to make horses shy away . The word was rendered into German as " aufeniz " in the earliest attested use in a document dating from 1440 ; later German renderings include " Haussnitz " and , eventually " Haubitze " , from which derive the Scandinavian " haubits " , Finnish " haupitsi " , Polish " haubica " , Russian " gaubitsa " , Italian " obice " , Spanish " obús " , Portuguese " obus " , French " obusier " and the Dutch word " houwitzer , " which led to the English word " howitzer " . 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 " - relatively long barrels and high muzzle velocity combined with multiple propelling charges and high maximum elevation . This is particularly true in the armed forces of the United States , where gun - howitzers have been officially described as " howitzers " for more than sixty years . Because of this practice , the word " howitzer " is used in some armies as a generic term for any kind of artillery piece that is designed to attack targets using indirect fire . Thus , artillery pieces that bear little resemblance to howitzers of earlier eras are now described as " howitzers " , although the British call them " guns " . Most other armies in the world still reserve the word " howitzer " for guns with barrel length 15 to 25 times its caliber , longer - barreled guns being cannon s . The British had a further method of nomenclature that they adopted in the 19th century . Guns were categorized by projectile weight in pounds while howitzers were categorized by caliber in inches . This system broke down in the 1930s with the introduction of gun - howitzers . Current U . S . Military doctrine defines howitzers as any cannon artillery capable of high - angle ( 45 ' to 90 ' elevation ) and low angle ( 45 ' to 0 ' elevation ) ; guns and are defined as only capable of low - angle fire and mortars only capable of high - angle fire . History . Early modern period . The modern howitzers were invented in Sweden towards the end of the 17th century . These were characterized by a shorter trail than other field gun s meaning less stability when firing , which reduced the amount of powder that could be used ; armies using these had to rely on a greater elevation angle to achieve a given range , which gave a steeper angle of descent . Originally intended for use in siege warfare , they were particularly useful for delivering cast - iron shells filled with gunpowder or incendiary materials into the interior of fortifications . In contrast to contemporary mortars , which were fired at a fixed angle and were entirely dependent upon adjustments to the size of propellant charges to vary range , howitzers could be fired at a wide variety of angles . Thus , while howitzer gunnery was more complicated than the technique of employing mortars , the howitzer was an inherently more flexible weapon that could fire its projectiles along a wide variety of trajectories . In the middle of the 18th century a number of European armies began to introduce howitzers that were mobile enough to accompany armies in the field . Though usually fired at the relatively high angles of fire used by contemporary siege howitzers , these field howitzers were rarely defined by this capability . Rather , as the field guns of the day were usually restricted to inert projectiles ( which relied entirely upon momentum for their destructive effects ) , the field howitzers of the 18th century were chiefly valued for their ability to fire explosive shells . Many , for the sake of simplicity and rapidity of fire , dispensed with adjustable propellant charges . The Abus gun was an early form of howitzer in the Ottoman Empire . In 1758 the Russian Empire introduced a specific type of howitzer ( or rather gun - howitzer ) , with a conical chamber , called a licorne , which remained in service for the next 100 years . In the mid - 19th century , some armies attempted to simplify their artillery parks by introducing smoothbore artillery pieces that were designed to fire both explosive projectiles and cannonballs , thereby replacing both field howitzers and field guns . The most famous of these " gun - howitzers " was the Napoleon 12 - pounder , a weapon of French design that saw extensive service in the American Civil War . The longest - serving artillery piece of the 19th century was the mountain howitzer , which saw service from the War with Mexico to the Spanish - American War . In 1859 the armies of Europe ( including those that had recently adopted gun - howitzers ) began to rearm field batteries with rifled field guns . These new field pieces used cylindrical projectiles that , while smaller in caliber than the spherical shells of smoothbore field howitzers , could carry a comparable charge of gunpowder . Moreover , their greater range let them create many of the same effects ( such as firing over low walls ) that previously required the sharply curved trajectories of smoothbore field howitzers . Because of this , military authorities saw no point in obtaining rifled field howitzers to replace their smoothbore counterparts but , instead , used rifled field guns to replace both guns and howitzers . In siege warfare , the introduction of rifling had the opposite effect . In the 1860s , artillery officers discovered that rifled siege howitzers ( substantially larger than field howitzers ) were a more efficient means of destroying walls ( particularly walls protected by certain kinds of intervening obstacles ) than smoothbore siege guns or siege mortars . Thus , at the same time armies were taking howitzers of one sort out of their field batteries , they were introducing howitzers of another sort into their siege trains and fortresses . The lightest of these weapons ( later known as " light siege howitzers " ) had calibers around 150 mm and fired shells that weighed between 40 and 50 kilograms . The heaviest ( later called " medium siege howitzers " ) had calibers between 200 mm and 220 mm and fired shells that weighed about 100 kilograms ( 220 pounds ) . In the Russo - Turkish War of 1877 - 1878 the inability of rifled field guns to inflict significant damage upon field fortifications led to a revival of interest in field howitzers . By the 1890s a number of European armies fielded either light ( 105 mm to 127 mm ) or heavy ( 149 mm to 155 mm ) field howitzers and a few , such as that of Germany , fielded both . During the 1880s a third type of siege howitzer was added to inventories of a number of European armies . With calibers that ranged between 240 mm and 270 mm and shells that weighed more than 150 kilos , these soon came to be known as " heavy siege howitzers . " A good example of a weapon of this class is provided by the 9 . 45 - inch ( 240 mm ) weapon that the British Army purchased from the Skoda works in 1899 . Intended for use against the fortifications of Pretoria , which fell before the howitzer could be used , and subsequently deployed to China for use against the fortifications of Peking , which also fell without a siege , the howitzer was never fired in anger . Twentieth century . In the early 20th century the introduction of howitzers that were significantly larger than the heavy siege howitzers of the day made necessary the creation of a fourth category , that of " super - heavy siege howitzers " . Weapons of this category include the famous Big Bertha of the German Army and the 15 - inch ( 381 mm ) howitzer of the Royal Marine Artillery . These large howitzers were transported mechanically rather than by teams of horses . They were transported as several loads and had to be assembled on their firing position . These field howitzers introduced at the end of the 19th century could fire shells with high trajectories giving a steep angle of descent and , as a result , could strike targets that were protected by intervening obstacles . They could also fire shells that were about twice as large as shells fired by guns of the same size . Thus , while a 75 mm field gun that weighed one ton or so was limited to shells that weighed less than 8 kilograms , a 105 mm howitzer of the same weight could fire 15 kilogram shells . This is a matter of fundamental mechanics affecting the stability and hence the weight of the carriage . However , howitzers had a shorter maximum range than the equivalent gun . As heavy field howitzers and light siege howitzers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries used ammunition of the same size and types , there was a marked tendency for the two types to merge . At first this was largely a matter of the same basic weapon being employed on two different mountings . Later , as on - carriage recoil - absorbing systems eliminated many of the advantages that siege platforms had enjoyed over field carriages , the same combination of barrel assembly , recoil mechanism and carriage was used in both roles . By the early 20th century the differences between guns and howitzers were relative not absolute and generally recognized as follows : 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 in a vertical plane ( such as trenches ) , with large amounts of explosive and considerably less barrel wear . The German army was well equipped with howitzers , having far more at the beginning of the war than France . Many howitzers introduced in the course of World War I had longer barrels than pre - war howitzers . The standard German light field howitzer at the start of the war ( the 10 . 5 cm leichte Feldhaubitze 98 / 09 ) had a barrel that was 16 caliber s long , but the light field howitzer adopted by the German Army in 1916 ( 105 mm leichte Feldhaubitze 16 , see on the left ) had a barrel that was 22 calibers long . At the same time , new models of field gun introduced during that conflict , such as the 77 mm field gun adopted by the German Army in 1916 ( 7 , 7 cm Feldkanone 16 ) were often provided with carriages that allowed firing at comparatively high angles , and adjustable propellant cartridges . In other words , there was a marked tendency for howitzers to become more " gun - like " while guns were taking on some of the attributes of howitzers . In the years after World War I , the tendency of guns and howitzers to acquire each other ' s characteristics led to the renaissance of the concept of the gun - howitzer . This was a product of technical advances such as the French invention of autofrettage just before World War I , which led to stronger and lighter barrels , the use of cut - off gear to control recoil length depending on firing elevation angle , and the invention of muzzle brake s to reduce recoil forces . Like the gun - howitzers of the 19th century , those of the 20th century replaced both guns and howitzers . Thus , the 25 - pounder " gun - howitzer " of the British Army replaced both the 18 - pounder field gun and the 4 . 5 - inch howitzer . While this had the effect of simplifying such things as organization , training and the supply of ammunition , it created considerable confusion in the realm of nomenclature . In the US Army , however , the preferred term was " howitzer " . Thus , as gun - howitzers replaced both guns and howitzers , words such as " obusier " ( French ) and " Haubitze " ( German ) , which had originally been used to designate weapons with relatively short barrels , were applied to weapons with much longer barrels . During World War II , the military doctrine of Soviet deep battle called for extensive use of heavy artillery to hold the formal line of front . Soviet doctrine was remarkably different from the German doctrine of Blitzkrieg , and called for a far more extensive use of artillery . As a result , howitzers saw most of the action on Eastern front , and most of the best howitzers of WWII period were Soviet - made , as other allies mostly relied on different types of assault for the battle . Most of the howitzers produced by the USSR at the time were not self - propelled , as the country did not have resources to spare for the construction of the engines for the self - propelled variants . Notable example of Soviet howitzers include M - 10 , M - 30 and D - 1 . As Soviet howitzers were deployed a lot more than comparable Allied or Axis guns , they often had worse paper characteristics that were deliberately sacrificed to improve operational performance and the usability of the artillery pieces by the deployed troops . Since World War II most of the artillery pieces adopted by land armies for attacking targets on land have combined the traditional characteristics of guns and howitzers — high muzzle velocity , long barrels , long range , multiple charges and maximum elevation angles greater than 45 degrees . The term " gun - howitzer " is sometimes used for these ( e . g . in Russia ) ; many nations use " howitzer " while the UK ( and most members of The Commonwealth of Nations ) calls them " guns " , see , for example Gun , 105mm , Field , L118 .