15 cm sFH 93 Howitzer

15 cm sFH 93 heavy howitzer. The gun barrel is made from cast nickel steel. The breech was closed by a horizontal sliding breech block, missing in this example. The gun carriage is made from rivetted steel plates, and is supported by a fixed axle for transportation. The barrel is attached to the carriage by two circular trunnion caps.

Elevation was achieved by a toothed arc and pinion but the carriage did not allow traverse. The handwheel for the elevation mechanism is damaged, and slight shrapnel damage can be seen on the trail and on the gun barrel.

The gun carriage is of the short boxtrail type and has an eye bolt towing lug for transportation. The gun carriage axle is attached to two wooden spoked wheels with steel rims. The wooden brake blocks are missing.

The artillery piece and wheels are painted in a dark green. As this overlies many features which would never have been painted in operational use, such as the breech and toothed elevation arcs, it would appear that the current top layer at least was applied both post capture and post operational. Markings - SPANDAU 1898; Nr 828; 1896 on carriage. The gun weighs 2 tons, was horse-drawn and fired an 80Ib shell (high explosive or shrapnel).

This gun was captured by the Australian Corps on the Western Front in 1918. Considerable battle damage is evident on the carriage and barrel. The weapon was introduced to German Service towards the end of the 19th century, and was revolutionary for its time, featuring breech loading, and a barrel that made use of the latest in Krupp metallurgy. This allowed a heavy seige weapon, with high trajectory, to be fielded that had low size and weight compared to equivalent calibre weapons in other armies.

It was used by the German Army from 1893 to 1918. This gun predates the widespread introduction of axial recoil systems using hydraulics, pneumatics or spring based systems, and relied mainly upon its wheel brakes, which automatically tightened againist the wheel when the gun was fired, to prevent excessive recoil. Two straps, one encircling either wheel drum, applied additional pressure on the brake blocks as soon as the carriage showed a tendency to buck to the rear with the shock of discharge. Large wooden recoil wedges would also have been placed behind the wheels, to prevent the weapon moving rearwards on firing. The weapon was fired using a friction primer, inserted into a hole on the top of the breech ring.

This weapon was primarily used by foot artillery units during the early stages of the First World War until gradually replaced by more modern artillery pieces such as the sFH 02 and sFH 13. The fact that this piece was still in service in 1918 shows that the German army flung every available weapon into the struggle.