15 Cm S FH 18 - Combat Record

Combat Record

The first field combat for the 15 cm sFH 18 was with the Chinese National Revolutionary Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Chinese were desperately short on artillery guns and other heavy weapons, but the few 15 cm sFH 18 units the Chinese did have hopelessly outclassed their Japanese counterparts which were mainly the Type 38 15 cm howitzer and Type 4 15 cm howitzer, forcing the Japanese to introduce the Type 96 15 cm Howitzer. It is interesting that some earlier pieces (about 24) of sFH18 in China are designed specially with a 32/L barrel, known as sFH18 32/L. The maximum range was added to 15 km. But most of the sFH18 in China are soon lost to attrition. Only two pieces can be seen in the museums today.

Against the Soviet Union however, the sFH 18 proved to be greatly inferior to the Red Army corps artillery 122 mm gun and 152 mm ML-20 gun-howitzer, whose maximum range of 20.4 kilometres (22,300 yd) and 17.3 kilometres (18,900 yd) allowed it to fire counter-battery against the sFH 18 with a 7 kilometres (7,700 yd) and 4 kilometres (4,400 yd) advantage. This led to numerous efforts to introduce new guns with even better performance than the ML-20, while various experiments were also carried out on the sFH 18 to improve its range. These led to the 15 cm sFH 18M version with a removable barrel liner and a muzzle brake that allowed a larger "special 7" or 8 charge to be used. The 18M increased range to 15,100 metres (16,500 yd), but it was found that the liners suffered increased wear and the recoil system could not handle the increased loads in spite of the brake. This led to a more interesting modification, the introduction of the 15 cm R. Gr. 19 FES ammunition, which used a rocket-assisted round that could reach 18,200 metres (19,900 yd) and give it some level of parity with the A-19 and ML-20.

Several countries continued fielding the sFH 18 after the war in large numbers including Czechoslovakia, Portugal and many South American and Central American countries. Finland bought 48 sFH 18 howitzers from Germany in 1940 and designated them 150 H/40. These guns were modernized in 1988 as the 152 H 88, and they are still used by Finnish army.