10cm Gebirgshaubitze M.16

[David]

The 10cm Gebirgshaubitze M.16 was developed from the Field Howitzer M.14, and modified primarily to increase the mobility and the elevation. Like most mountain guns, it could be disassembled for movement - in this case into three loads, each load carried by one cart, pulled by two horses. It weighed 1.235kg when deployed, had an elevation of -8º to +70º (!), a traverse of 5º to both sides. It could fire a 13.6kg heavy shell (a hybrid type grenade-shrapnel M.14) with a muzzle velocity of 397m/sec to a maximum range of some 8.1km. (There were also two other types of grenades available for this gun: one the 10kg HE M.14, and the 13.5 kg Shrapnel M.14.) The rate of fire was 5 shots per minute, and needed acrew of six men. It was produced in 550 copies, and of these 434 was made of Skoda. This gun can be seen in the big Italian War Memorial at Redipuglia, outside of Trieste.



The gun below can be seen in the excellent Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung of the Bundeswehr, in Koblenz, without doubt one of Germanys best military museums.