The M1908 6-inch howitzer, officially the 6-inch Howitzer, Model of 1908, was the principal heavy

howitzer A howitzer () is a long- ranged weapon, falling between a cannon (also known as an artillery gun in the United States), which fires shells at flat trajectories, and a mortar, which fires at high angles of ascent and descent. Howitzers, like ot ...

piece of the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

prior to

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

History

Forty of these weapons had been produced before 1917, and all were employed within the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

for training purposes during the war. Although this weapon appears in World War I-era tables of organization and equipment, for combat use in France the Canon de 155 C mle 1917 Schneider was purchased, and variants of this remained the standard weapon of this class until early World War II. All surviving weapons were retired during the 1920s.Williford, pages 76-77 It is unusual among American-designed field artillery weapons in that it has the recoil cylinder situated above the barrel. The 4.7-inch howitzer M1908/M1912 shared this feature. The

75 mm gun M1917 The 75 mm gun model of 1917 was an interim measure, based on the British QF 18-pounder, produced by the United States in World War I after it had decided to switch from to 75 mm calibre for its field guns. History The US decided early in ...

also had this, but was based on the British

QF 18-pounder gun The Ordnance QF 18-pounder,British military traditionally denoted smaller ordnance by the weight of its standard projectile, in this case approximately or simply 18-pounder gun, was the standard British Empire field gun of the World War I, Fi ...

. Ammunition was either common steel shell with a base

fuze In military munitions, a fuze (sometimes fuse) is the part of the device that initiates function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder. The relative complexity of even the earliest fuze d ...

, or shrapnel with a combination time/percussion fuze.Handbook 1917, pages 22-23

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6-inch Howitzer M1908
at Landships II {{Authority control 152 mm artillery 1910 establishments in the United States Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1910 World War I artillery of the United States World War I howitzers

History

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