15 cm sFH 02

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 World War I. 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 as the French and British armies lacked an equivalent. France had a Canon de 65 M with a recoil system, but used it only as a mountain howitzer.

File:SFH 02 Howitzer Kei Mouth.jpg|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"). File:1905 World War I Krupp Cannon 150mm SM CA.jpg|Another sFH 02 howitzer, this one confiscated by the US after World War I and now located in Sierra Madre Memorial Park. File:15cm-sFH02-howitzer-001.jpg|A German 15 cm sFH 02 howitzer from 1917

Notes

References

• General Sir Martin Farndale, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Western Front 1914–1918. The Royal Artillery Institution, 1986. .
• Jäger, Herbert. German Artillery of World War One. Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire: Crowood Press, 2001. .

References

1. Jäger, p. 29
2. Farndale 1986, page 59
3. [http://www.lovettartillery.com/Development_of_German_Heavy_Artillery.html lovettartillery.com, Development of German Heavy Artillery, by CW2 Ralph Lovett]