Hello everyone, I have tried to locate the overall length of the German 105mm leFH 18 and leFH 18M, a lot of sites say that the gun length is 2.94m but they mean the barrel, the basic length from barrel tip to the end of the carriage legs is not out there, or if it is, I cannot find it. One site said that the gun sheilds on these howitzers are 4mm thick, I have found this figure on a few German artillery pieces, I wonder if it is standard. Thanks for any help. Yan.
Actually Yan, if you count the muzzle break in the equation, the gun length (barrel + breech) of the leFH 18M is 3.3ms or 10.85ft. Comparing that known length to the trails or legs, it looks like the gun is pretty much the same length as the legs. Therefore, the entire piece would be about 6.5ms or 20 ft. - allowing for a little overlap between the two. This is not exact, but I believe it's pretty close. I hope this helps. --Harold
Hello Harold, you could be on the money there my friend, I have found that the 10.5cm leFH 18/40 was 6.14m long, which is not far off your 6.5m, but did the leFH 18 have a muzzle break? Yan.
Yessiree! The original leFH 18 didn't, but the leFH 18M did. The M (for Mundungsbremse) model was created because the original howitzer only had something like 10,650 Ms of range. With the muzzle break and a special charge they were able to get another 2,000ms, more or less in range. All this is in Ian Hogg's "German Artillery of World War Two". It deals with field artillery, heavy field artillery, AA artillery, railway guns, coastal artillery and recoilless guns-plus other info. Well worth the read if you can find it. --Harold
