24 cm Haubitze 39
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| 24 cm houfnice vz.39 (24 cm Haubitze 39) | |
|---|---|
A 24 cm Haubitze 39 in 1941 during the Siege of Leningrad. | |
| Type | Heavy Siege Howitzer |
| Place of origin | Czechoslovakia |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1939–1945 |
| Used by | Turkey Nazi Germany |
| Wars | World War II |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Škoda |
| Manufacturer | Škoda |
| Produced | 1939–42 |
| No. built | 18 |
| Variants | H 39/40 |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 27,000 kg (60,000 lb) |
| Length | 6.765 m (22 ft 2 in) (total length of gun) |
| Shell | separate-loading, bagged charge |
| Shell weight | 166 kilograms (366 lb) |
| Caliber | 240 millimetres (9.4 in) |
| Breech | Interrupted screw, de Bange obturation |
| Carriage | Box trail |
| Elevation | -4° to +70° |
| Traverse | 360° |
| Rate of fire | 1 rd per 2 minutes |
| Muzzle velocity | 600 m/s (2,000 ft/s) |
| Maximum firing range | 18 kilometres (11 mi) |
| Filling | TNT |
| Filling weight | 23.66 kg (52 lb 3 oz) |
The 24 cm houfnice vz.39 (German designation: 24 cm Haubitze 39) (Howitzer model 39) was a Czechoslovak-designed siege howitzer used in the Second World War. It was kept in production after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and eighteen were delivered to the Germans. It was only used by the Army's Artillery Regiment 814 and entered service shortly before the Battle of France in 1940. The regiment participated in Operation Barbarossa and in the Sieges of Sevastopol and Leningrad.
Ammunition
Škoda designed it for export and Turkey ordered a batch, but only received two before the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939. It was a stablemate of the Škoda 21 cm Kanone 39 and used virtually the same mounting and transport arrangements. It used an interrupted screw breech with a de Bange obturator to provide the gas seal with bagged propellant. The carriage revolved on a ball-race firing platform that had to be dug-in before firing, a task that took six to eight hours to accomplish. It broke down into three loads for transport, the barrel, carriage and the ground platform. A modified version entered service in 1942 as the H 39/40 although the changes merely simplified production.[1] A total of eighteen were delivered to Germany.[2]
It used both Czechoslovak and German-designed ammunition. The Czechoslovak-designed 24 cm Gr 39(t) HE shell had a weight of 166 kilograms (366 lb). It used both nose and base fuses, two copper driving bands and contained a 23.66 kilograms (52.2 lb) bursting charge of TNT. The German copy, the 24 cm Gr 39 umg had only a German nose fuze, soft-iron driving bands and a smaller charge of 22.9 kilograms (50 lb). It also used a Czechoslovak-designed anti-concrete shell, the 24 cm Gr 39 Be, that had copper driving bands. It used 5 bagged charges that were enclosed in a single larger bag. Increments were simply removed to adjust range as necessary. [3]