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M1 105mm Howitzer

Using captured German 105-mm. howitzers as models, field artillery and ordnance officers built four 105-mm. howitzers in 1920. The Field Artillery Board found both weapons too heavy (based on a six-horse draft), too clumsy to be easily maneuverable by hand with a normal gun crew, structurally weak, and generally unsuitable for adoption.

The Ordnance Department tested various boxtrail and split-trail carriages with improved American 105-mm. howitzers mounted on them. At the same time the Field Artillery Board mounted captured German 105-mm. howitzers that had been rechambered for American ammunition on split-trail carriages and rigorously tested them. Pressured by field artillery officers, who endorsed the German pieces, the Field Artillery Board favored adopting them until a satisfactory American howitzer could be manufactured. The shortage of ammunition, the cost of putting the German howitzers into serviceable condition, and the lack of uniformity of those available from which to prepare drawings for production caused the Chief of Ordnance to protest.

This led the War Department to abandon the superior German howitzers and place them in storage in 1925 and allowed the department to concentrate its limited funds on building an American howitzer and carriage. Pressed by the requirement for a companion piece for the 75-mm. gun and by General Snow, who insisted that developing a satisfactory 105-mm. howitzer was the most pressing ordnance problem, the Ordnance Department constructed a new American 105-mm. howitzer and mounted it on a split-trail carriage for testing. Supported by trials that demonstrated the howitzer and carriage were satisfactory, the War Department standardized them in 1928 as the horse-drawn M1 105-mm. howitzer.

Even before the M1 105-mm. howitzer went into production, the War Department modified the field piece to load shrapnel as fixed ammunition to complement high-explosive shell and chemical shell of smoke or gas. The Field Artillery Board found the weapon generally satisfactory, although the carriage needed some improvements. In 1929 the possibility of manufacturing enough 105-mm. howitzers for use as divisional general support artillery seemed extremely remote, even though the new models of the 155-mm. howitzer were more mobile than the old because of improvements in their carriages. Since there was a small increase in the budget that year, the War Department decided to reinstate the 155-mm. howitzer in the division, while reducing the authorization for each corps artillery brigade by one 155-mm. howitzer regiment.

Although the War Department reinstated the 155-mm. howitzer in the infantry division, interest in developing the 105-mm. howitzer did not wane. Its development was hampered, however, by an increased desire to have an all-purpose weapon for the infantry division, a weapon that would also be capable of performing as antiaircraft artillery.