Howitzers

A howitzer /ˈhaʊw.ɪts.ər/ is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles over relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent.

In the taxonomies of artillery pieces used by European (and European-style) armies in the 17th to 20th centuries, the howitzer stood between the "gun" (characterized by a longer barrel, larger propelling charges, smaller shells, higher velocities, and flatter trajectories) and the "mortar" (which was meant to fire at even higher angles of ascent and descent). Howitzers, like other artillery equipment, are usually organized in groups called batteries.

The English word howitzer comes from the Czech word houfnice, from houf, "crowd", and houf is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word Hūfe or Houfe (modern German Haufen), meaning "heap". Haufen, sometimes in the compound Gewalthaufen, also designated a pike square formation in German.

In the Hussite Wars of the 1420s and 1430s, the Czechs used short barreled "houfnice" cannons to fire at short distances into crowds of infantry, or into charging heavy cavalry, to make horses shy away. The word was rendered into German as aufeniz in the earliest attested use in a document dating from 1440; later German renderings include haussnitz and, eventually haubitze, from which derive the Scandinavian haubits, Croatian, Polish and Serbian haubica, Finnish haupitsi, Russian and Bulgarian gaubitsa (гаубица), Italian obice, Spanish obús, Portuguese obus, French obusier and the Dutch word houwitser, which led to the English word howitzer.

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