Topic summary
Field guns
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Field gun.
World War II
Since the start of World War II, the term has been applied to long-range artillery pieces that fire at relatively low angles, as opposed to howitzers, which can fire at higher angles. Field guns also lack a specialized purpose, such as anti-tank or coastal artillery. By the later stages of World War II, the majority of artillery in use was either in the form of howitzers of 105 mm (4.1 in) to 155 mm (6.1 in), or in the form of hybrid anti-tank/field guns that had high enough muzzle velocity to be used in both roles. The most common field guns of the era were the British 5.5 in (140 mm), the American 155 mm Long Tom (a development of a French World War I weapon) and the Soviet BS-3 – an artillery piece adapted from a naval gun and designed to double up as an anti-tank weapon.