Monday, March 7, 2022

Obice da 149/12 Information

March 07, 2022 Posted By AdseRudita

The Obice da 149/12 was an Italian howitzer produced under license in Italy by Ansaldo and Vickers-Terni which was used during World War I and World War II.

After the independence and unification of Italy, the Italians were not self-sufficient in arms design and production. Foreign firms such as Armstrong, Krupp, Schneider, and Vickers all provided arms and helped establish local production of their designs under license.

One of the models that the Italian Army bought was the Krupp 15 cm sFH 13. With Italys entry into the First World War in 1915 on the side of the Entente Powers Krupp only produced 112 pieces for the Italians. However, before the start of the war, Ansaldo and Vickers-Terni had acquired a production license for the 15 cm sFH 13 which was given Italian classification Obice da 149/12. Although the overall length of the barrel is 14 calibers in length the Italians classified it as 12 calibers because the Italian system does not count the guns breech.

The 149/12 was a conventional artillery piece of the era with spoked wooden wheels with steel rims, a steel box trail carriage, a horizontal sliding-block breech, hydro-spring recoil system, a gun shield and used cased separate-loading charges and projectiles. The carriage had an open space behind the breech to accommodate high angles of elevation while the separate-loading system could accept up to 7 bags of propellant to vary velocity and range. The main difference between the models is their carriages and shields. Otherwise, their barrels remained the same. 1,500 guns of all three variants were produced.

A 149/12 battery consists of 4 howitzers, 4 Pavesi P4 tractors, 2 machine guns for close defense and 7 trucks. A 149/12 could be towed at 12–20 km/h (7.5–12.4 mph) and setup only take a few minutes.

All three models of the 149/12 were widely used by the Italians during the First World War and a number survived to be used in the Spanish Civil War and Second World War.

In addition to being used by Italy, the 149/12 was also exported to Albania and Bulgaria. It may have also been exported to Austria, Poland, and Spain. When Italy joined the Second World War in 1940, they had 580 Modello 1914 and 116 Modello 1918s in service, not having completed the replacement of this piece with the 149/13.