Austro-Hungarian 10cm Feldhaubitze M.14

On the gun itself

When the word Austro-Hungarian Artillery is mentioned, most of us thinks of the huge 30.5cm Skoda Mortars - a feared and spectacular weapon, used also by the German Army - and we tend to forget all those standard pieces, that made the backbone of that nations Artillery arm. They were the 8cm M5/8 Feldkanone (the standard Field Gun), the 7.5cm M15 Gebirgskanone (the standard Mountain Gun), the 15cm M.14 Feldhaubitze (the standard Heavy Howitzer) and this gun: the 10cm M.14 Feldhaubitze, the standard Light Field Howitzer.

The design was sound, although pretty standard for its time. The barrel was made of bronze, the breech was of the Wedge-type, closing horisontally, and the recoil system of the standard hydro-pneumatic type. The charges were of the cartridge-type, and the charges had six steps: five standard and one extra. It was fired using a contact trigger (Wiederspannung-abzug) with the breech having a special mechanism preventing any discharge if the breech was not completely closed. It was served by a crew of six, who could use the gun to fire up to 20 shells a minute. Six horses were needed to move it.

The 10cm Feld-Haubitze M.14 was employed in the Field Howitzer Regiments of the Austro-Hungarian Army (Feldhaubitz-Regiment). These Field Howitzer Regiments consisted of 4 batteries of 6 guns each, i.e. 24 howitzers per regiment. Most Army Corps had one of these regiments assigned to them (together with three Field Gun Regiments - Feldkanoneregiment). During 1915 the artillery was reorganized, and these field howitzer regiments were instead organically attached to the Infantry Divisions. There were at least 36 of these Field Howitzer Regiments in service during the Great War. After the War, a modified version of this gun (the vz 14/19) was manufactured in Czechoslavakia by Skoda, and found service in Greece, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia and Italy.

See also this article!

10cm Feldhaubitze M.14 Walk-around

The guns below are on display at the big Military Cemetery in Pavé in Verdun, a town that needs no further presentation in this context - the hills in the background are actually the Battlefield of 1916, most of it overgrown by woods, but still bearing the horrible scars of the fighting. Note that there are two marks of this gun to be seen here, distinguished by slightly different barrels. How these two Austro-Hungarian guns (plus one 8cm M.15) came to end up in this place in France I have no idea.

These are pictures of the M.14 that is preserved in excellent condition in the Army Museum in Brussels. (I almost added of course, because all the guns in their truly excellent collection are in very fine condition, many of them still sporting their original WW1 camo.) Note that this gun is the later model, the vz14/19, with longer tube. The gun used in WW1 was pretty much identical, except for the shorter tube, as shown on the black-and-white pictures above. 

How to model this gun

A Czech Resin Company has made a super 1/72 model of this gun. Skytrex markets a white metal kit of the Skoda 10cm Gun used by the Italian Army in WW2. It was essentially the same gun, it only needed backdating. The backdating consisted mainly of replacing the Steel-Rubber wheels with Wooden Spoked ones, and putting two seats on the front of the shield, between the barrel and the wheels. Click here to see my model.