10.5cm leFH 16 auf Geschützwagen Mk. VI(e) — visible on the armour is the so-called Scotti Stern, the insignia of the Wehrmacht's 227th Infantry Division, source: Flickr.com, with permission of the publishing user, edited

Origins of the Vehicle

The driving force behind this light self-propelled gun was the commander of the 12th Battery of the 227th Artillery Regiment of the Wehrmacht's 227th Infantry Division, Captain Alfred Becker. In him, a technical education and practical experience in industrial engineering combined with an energetic character and knowledge of how artillery functioned, gained as far back as the First World War. And when fate, in June 1940, stirred into this mix a generous measure of chance, a new and highly interesting chapter in the history of German armoured fighting vehicles began to unfold. In May 1940, the 227th Infantry Division had taken part in the German western campaign against the Netherlands, Belgium and France. After the French capitulation the division was left in Normandy for garrison duty along the Channel coast in the Le Havre area — the very area from which approximately 11,000 soldiers, mostly British, had been evacuated between 10 and 13 June 1940. Their equipment, however, could not be evacuated and had to be left behind.

For Becker, who was clearly fascinated by machinery of all kinds, such a quantity of unused military equipment lying quite literally right in front of him was undoubtedly a powerful temptation. As he looked over the abandoned British tanks, the idea came to him that they could serve admirably as gun carriers. If his battery used self-propelled guns instead of conventionally towed ones, its mobility would increase and his men would have an easier time in many respects. And since garrison duty in Normandy in the second half of 1940 was probably not particularly adventurous, Becker decided to take advantage of the temporary lull, his skills and his connections, and try to build such self-propelled guns for his unit.

Of everything that remained in the Le Havre area after the British forces, the chassis of the Vickers Mk. VI light tank appeared the most promising. On this type, the engine and gearbox were housed in the front of the hull — ideal for the intended conversion, as it left plenty of room in the rear section for a new fighting compartment. The fighting turret and part of the hull roof were removed from the light tank. The originally sloped rear wall of the hull was rebuilt as a vertical plate, and the side walls were extended accordingly, creating a space at the rear large enough for the gun and its crew. The front section of the hull, including the driver's station, was left largely unchanged. The engine exhaust vent on the left side did however have to be reduced in size, and the exhaust pipe and silencer had to be relocated from the rear of the hull to the front of the left track guard.

Firing trials on the first incomplete prototype confirmed that the British light tank chassis could carry the German 105 mm howitzer without difficulty, source: Flickr.com, with permission of the publishing user, edited

The armament chosen for the new fighting vehicle was the 105 mm leFH 16 light howitzer — a First World War-era weapon for which this was essentially an ideal new purpose. Becker planned to enclose the crew's fighting space with light armour on all sides. First, however, it was necessary to verify whether the chassis could actually carry the chosen howitzer and withstand the stresses produced by its firing. Initial driving and firing trials were therefore carried out on the vehicle with an open, unarmoured cab. On the basis of these trials, a folding stabiliser spade was fitted to the rear of the hull to improve stability during firing. The overall behaviour of the test vehicle was satisfactory, and development work could continue.

Becker worked out the precise design of the fighting compartment's armour and drew it up in detail down to the level of individual steel plates. He then sent the drawings to the firm Krefelder Stahlwerke (which by that time had become part of the Deutsche Edelstahlwerke group) in his home city of Krefeld. In addition to the armour plates, Becker may also have asked Krefelder Stahlwerke to manufacture other components — such as the howitzer mounting, ammunition bins and so on. Alfred Becker had previously worked for Krefelder Stahlwerke and thus had some significant connections there — without which it is hard to imagine him being able to simply order the production of steel plates in the middle of a war for what might appear to be a "clandestine" armoured vehicle project. Though how clandestine this development actually was is debatable. It was certainly not a purely private venture on Becker's part, if only because the end result concerned not just his own battery but the whole battalion. Moreover, even with the best connections in the world it is difficult to imagine Krefelder Stahlwerke supplying steel plates for nothing, and Captain Becker could hardly have paid for their manufacture and transport from Germany to France out of his own pocket. Becker's project also employed a large number of soldiers and mechanics and made use of the division's workshop facilities. It is therefore highly unlikely that Becker would have undertaken the whole affair without the blessing of his superiors.

However things stood, Krefelder Stahlwerke delivered the ordered components and Becker's men were able, over the following six months, to slowly but surely build 12 leFH 16 self-propelled howitzers on the Vickers Mk. VI tank chassis. The chassis used for the conversion were probably those of the B and C variants of the tank, which were not visually very different from one another. From the British tank, the German self-propelled gun inherited a chassis with four road wheels sprung in pairs by coil springs, a six-cylinder Meadows petrol engine producing 88 horsepower, a Wilson five-speed gearbox, and a hull with a maximum armour thickness of only 14 mm.

10.5cm leFH 16 auf Geschützwagen Mk. VI(e), source: Flickr.com, with permission of the publishing user, edited

In the rear half of the vehicle a fixed fighting compartment was welded from armour plates — 14 mm thick on the sides and rear, and 22 mm at the front. Armour of this thickness was capable of stopping 7.92 mm armour-piercing rounds and light shell splinters. Given the vehicle's combat role, this was a reasonably adequate level of protection. The self-propelled gun was not intended for direct close-range combat; like conventional artillery, it was to remain behind the front-line units and provide fire support from a relatively safe distance, firing over the heads of its own troops. An opening in the front wall of the fighting compartment allowed limited vertical and horizontal movement of the weapon. Most surviving photographs show these self-propelled guns with armour protection over the recoil mechanism beneath the barrel, but there are also photographs in which this protection is absent, and the vehicles otherwise appear completely intact — suggesting these were not battle losses of that component. It is therefore possible that early examples simply did not yet have the recoil mechanism armour and it was only added at a later stage (photo HERE).

The 10.5 cm leFH 16 Howitzer

The standard towed leFH 16 howitzer in 105 mm calibre could theoretically fire 14.81 kg high-explosive fragmentation shells to a maximum range of 9,225 metres. In the self-propelled installation, however, the effective maximum range was probably lower, for two reasons. To the naked eye, the front wall of the fighting compartment appears to have restricted the gun's maximum elevation compared with the standard towed howitzer, which would naturally reduce the range. What certainly did limit the range was the prohibition on using the heaviest propellant charge — number 6. The howitzer used separate-loading ammunition, meaning the shell was first rammed into the barrel followed by the cartridge case, into which varying amounts of propellant could be inserted (in the form of a varying number of powder bags). The British light tank chassis was not particularly robust, and firing with the heaviest charge would have placed excessive strain on it. The rule was therefore that firing with charges 1 through 3 required no special precautions; firing with charges 4 and 5 was only permitted with the stabiliser spade lowered (the spade was mounted on the rear wall of the hull); and firing with charge 6 was prohibited altogether.

The crew of the self-propelled gun apparently consisted of four soldiers: a driver, seated separately in the left front section of the hull, plus a commander, gunner and loader. Surviving photographs show that for firing, the driver moved from his normal position into the fighting compartment, where he apparently assisted with loading. The vehicle commander had his station in the left rear corner of the compartment, with a scissors-type artillery periscope as his primary observation device. In front of the commander sat the gunner, who aimed the weapon using the Z.E. 34 periscopic sight. To the left of the gunner, a Fu.Spr.Gr. radio set was mounted on the side wall of the compartment, connected to a whip antenna in the rear corner. To the right of the gun, an MG 34 machine gun could be mounted on the edge of the front wall, providing a means of defence against enemy infantry. The fighting compartment was open at the top, which aided ventilation as well as aiming and ammunition handling. Entry was over the rear wall, whose upper half could be folded down. How much ammunition the self-propelled howitzer actually carried is not entirely clear from the sources; photographs of the interior show at least 15 shells stowed in the centre of the compartment, 8 shells along the left wall and 8 along the right — 31 rounds in total.

When preparing to fire, the driver would move from his station into the fighting compartment to help with loading the howitzer, source: Flickr.com, with permission of the publishing user, edited

The self-propelled gun received the official designation 10.5cm leFH 16 auf Geschützwagen Mk. VI(e). Its total weight was probably around 6.5 tonnes — a figure of 8.2 tonnes is sometimes cited, but this seems unlikely to be correct. Even 6.5 tonnes represented an increase of roughly 23% over the load of the original British Mk. VI tank; at 8.2 tonnes the increase would be 55%, which the chassis would probably not have been able to sustain. The vehicle could achieve a respectable top speed of around 50 km/h and could maintain a road speed of around 40 km/h comfortably over extended periods. With 159 litres of petrol in the tank, the range was up to 280 km on road and approximately 180 km cross-country.

In addition to the 12 self-propelled howitzers, Becker's men managed during the second half of 1940 to convert a further 12 Mk. VI tanks into ammunition carriers, convert four more into command vehicles, and build several additional ammunition vehicles on the chassis of British Bren Carrier tractors. Becker's technical education and engineering experience, combined with professionally manufactured armour plates and other components, were very positively reflected in the finished vehicles. While it was in a sense an improvisation using available chassis and weapons, the overall quality of the 10.5cm leFH 16 auf Geschützwagen Mk. VI(e) self-propelled guns was genuinely very high — something confirmed by their subsequent performance in combat. Crews praised the reliability of the chassis and drivetrain, the ease of handling thanks to the vehicle's small size, and the low fuel consumption even when driving cross-country (most of the praise, in effect, being directed at the British foundation the vehicle was built on).

Organisation and Deployment

Thanks to the efforts of Ing. Becker, the 227th Infantry Division became the only German formation of its kind to possess self-propelled artillery. Even tank divisions could only dream of something like that at the time. How were the new fighting vehicles incorporated into the organisational structure? A standard infantry division artillery regiment (Artillerie-Regiment) consisted of four battalions (Abteilung), of which three were light (105 mm guns) and one was heavy (150 mm guns). Each battalion had three batteries of four guns each, giving a total of 12 guns per battalion.

Four men had precious little room to spare in the fighting compartment, source: Flickr.com, with permission of the publishing user, edited

At the turn of 1940–41 — roughly when all 12 self-propelled guns were completed — a fifth battalion was added to the organisational structure of the 227th Artillery Regiment. Becker's 12th Battery (previously part of the fourth battalion) was transferred to it, and a new 13th Battery was created at the same time. The literature does not state this explicitly, but from the context described one can infer that Becker's self-propelled guns were concentrated in the new 5th Battalion, split between the transferred 12th Battery and the new 13th Battery. If that was indeed the case, it meant that 12 self-propelled guns were divided between two batteries — making both of them larger than regulations stipulated.

In September 1941, the 227th Infantry Division, together with its artillery regiment, was transferred to northern Russia, to the Leningrad front. From December the division was actively engaged in fighting against the Red Army and, thanks to its high mobility, soon became a kind of "fire brigade" unit dispatched to threatened sections of the front. News of the success of Becker's self-propelled guns eventually reached the representatives of the German Ordnance Office (Waffenamt), who decided to make use of the obviously talented engineer. In the years that followed, Ing. Becker at the head of the so-called Baukommando prepared conversions of a whole range of captured vehicles into fighting equipment for the Wehrmacht.

Technical Data

ARTICLE
CONTENTS:

ORIGINS OF THE VEHICLE

THE leFH 16 HOWITZER

ORGANISATION AND DEPLOYMENT

TECHNICAL DATA