15 cm sFH 02

The 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 1902 was a German heavy field howitzer introduced in 1903 and which served in World War I.

Design and history

It was the first artillery piece to use a modern recoil system in the German Army. Some 416 were in service at the beginning of the war.^[1] Its mobility, which allowed it to be deployed as medium artillery, and fairly heavy shell gave the German army a firepower advantage in the early battles in Belgium and France in 1914^[2] as the French and British armies lacked an equivalent.

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  The remains of a German sFH 02 howitzer located in Kei Mouth, South Africa. It was captured from German forces in South West Africa during world War I. Like other such German weapons of the time, it was cast with the markings R II Ultima Ratio Regum ("last argument of kings").

See also

Weapons of comparable role, performance and era

• 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze M 94: Austro-Hungarian equivalent
• BL 6 inch 30 cwt howitzer: British equivalent
• 6 inch field howitzer M-1908 : approximate US equivalent

Notes

1. ↑ Jäger, p. 29
2. ↑ Farndale 1986, page 59

References

• General Sir Martin Farndale, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Western Front 1914–1918. The Royal Artillery Institution, 1986. ISBN 1-870114-00-0.
• Jäger, Herbert. German Artillery of World War One. Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire: Crowood Press, 2001. ISBN 1-86126-403-8.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 15 cm sFH 02.

• Lovett Artillery Collection
• sFH 02 on Landships
• List and pictures of World War I surviving 15cm sFH 02 howitzers