15 cm sFH 13

15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 13
15 cm sFH 13 L/14 howitzer displayed as a monument in Brantford, Ontario.
Type	Heavy field howitzer
Place of origin	German Empire
Service history
In service	1914-1945
Used by	German Empire Ottoman Empire Belgium Netherlands Nazi Germany
Wars	World War I World War II
Production history
Designer	Krupp
Designed	1913
Manufacturer	Krupp, Rheinmetall, Spandau
Produced	1913-1918
Number built	3409+
Variants	kurz sFH 13 lg. sFH13 lg. sFH13/02
Specifications
Weight	2,250 kg (4,960 lbs)
Length	2.54 m (8 ft 4 in)
Barrel length	2.096 m (6 ft 11 in) L/17
Shell	separate-loading, cased charge (7 charges)
Shell weight	42 kilograms (93 lb) (HE)
Caliber	149.1 mm (5.89 in)
Breech	horizontal sliding block
Recoil	hydro-spring variable recoil
Carriage	box trail
Elevation	−4° to +45°
Traverse	9°
Rate of fire	3 rpm
Muzzle velocity	381 m/s (1,250 ft/s)
Effective range	8,600 m (9,400 yd)

The 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 13 (15 cm sFH 13) was a heavy field howitzer used by Germany in World War I and World War II.

History

Variants were the original "kurz" (L/14 - 14 caliber short barrel version); later lg. sFH13 with a longer barrel; and lg. sFH13/02 with modifications to simplify wartime manufacture of the lg. sFH.

The British referred to these and their shells as "5 point 9"s or "5 9"s as the bore was 5.9 inches (150 mm). The ability of these guns to deliver mobile heavy firepower close to the frontline gave the Germans a major firepower advantage on the Western Front early in World War I, as the French and British lacked an equivalent. It was not until late 1915 that the British began to deploy their own 6 inch 26 cwt howitzer.

Guns turned over to Belgium and the Netherlands as reparations after World War I were taken into Wehrmacht service after the conquest of the Low Countries as the 15 cm sFH 409(b) and 406(h) respectively.

Image gallery

• 

  A lg. sFH 13 at the U.S. Army Field Artillery Museum, Ft. Sill, OK
• 

  Battery at the Battle of Arras, 1917

See also

• 6 inch 26 cwt howitzer British equivalent
• Canon de 155 C modèle 1917 Schneider French equivalent

In literature

• Siegfried Sassoon expressed the British respect for the "five-nine" in his World War I poem Counter-Attack
• Timothy Findley mentions "5.9s" in his book The Wars
• Wilfred Owen mentions being shelled by "Five-Nines" in his poem Dulce et Decorum est.

References

• Engelmann, Joachim and Scheibert, Horst. Deutsche Artillerie 1934-1945: Eine Dokumentation in Text, Skizzen und Bildern: Ausrüstung, Gliederung, Ausbildung, Führung, Einsatz. Limburg/Lahn, Germany: C. A. Starke, 1974
• Gander, Terry and Chamberlain, Peter. Weapons of the Third Reich: An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the German Land Forces 1939-1945. New York: Doubleday, 1979 ISBN 0-385-15090-3
• Hogg, Ian V. German Artillery of World War Two. 2nd corrected edition. Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997 ISBN 1-85367-480-X
• Ralph Lovett, 15 cm. schwere Feld Haubitze 1913
• Ralph Lovett, 15 cm. lang schwere Feldhaubitze 1913/02
• Ralph Lovett, Development of German Heavy Artillery

External links

• List and pictures of WW1 surviving 15 cm sFH 13 and 15 cm sFH 13 lang howitzers