21cm Morser 18 (21cm Mrs 18)

History

During World War II (1939-1945), the German Army used artillery extensively during marches in Europe, and these systems were generally divided into three categories: light, medium and heavy. One of their heavy tools is the Morser 18 Series 21cm Cannon, a towed heavy howitzer that provides long-range indirect fire and heavy hits against enemy positions. The weapon was introduced in the late 1930s as the successor to the 21cm Morser 16 unit that debuted in World War I decades earlier.

The famous heavy artillery manufacturer Krupp was contracted to produce the new howitzer, eventually producing over 700 between 1939-45.

The 21cm Morser 18 was a typical large artillery design of the time - it required several crews to operate efficiently, relied on ammunition in separate loading boxes and had a horizontally sliding breech block. The caliber was 210 mm and each shell weighed 250 pounds. About six charges are inserted into the barrel to fire a single projectile with a range of up to 15,840 yards (effective). Mounting hardware includes a hydropneumatic dual recoil mechanism - one of the first of its kind in the world - to keep the gun well trained after subsequent firing. Dual recoil means the upper parts of the gun and mount assembly each recoil together along a separate recoil system - making for a very smooth firing action that also helps with repeatability.

The gun mount provides an elevation range of -6 to +70 degrees and a lateral range of 16 degrees from the centerline.

The cart system is a two-wheeled "box walk" design that allows a moving vehicle to tow the system at high speed to a new location, usually on the road. To facilitate the transport of this massive weapon, the gun could be divided into two main parts - one consisting of the most important barrel itself.

The carriage also features a launch platform that, when the system is deployed with the wheels raised, can rotate 360 ??degrees to engage the target at any approach angle - providing a useful launch angle beyond the inherent 16-degree arc. The wagon wheels dropped.

After the declaration of war in September 1939, the Moser Type 18 artillery was slow to enter the hands of German front-line troops. This resulted in limited production as the guns were phased out during the war - manufacture of these larger guns actually ceased in 1942 as the Army started using the "smaller" 17cm Kanone 18 series for most of the early war operations Artillery (however, only about 340 of the series were made).

Wartime factors forced the resumption of production of the Morser 18 in 1943, which continued into the final months of the war, which ended in 1945.

Specification

Basic

Roles

Dimensions

Performance

Performance

for everyone else in our database)

Armor

Depends on the ammunition carrier.

Changes