Crossword clues for howitzer
howitzer
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Howitzer \How"itz*er\, n. [G. haubitze, formerly hauffnitz, Bohem. haufnice, orig., a sling.] (Mil.)
A gun so short that the projectile, which was hollow, could be put in its place by hand; a kind of mortar.
A short, light, largebore cannon, usually having a chamber of smaller diameter than the rest of the bore, and intended to throw large projectiles with comparatively small charges.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1680s, via Dutch houwitser (1660s), German Haubitze from Bohemian houfnice "a catapult," from houf "heap, crowd," a loan-word from Middle High German hufe "heap." Introduced to German during the Hussite wars, 14c.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A cannon that combines certain characteristics of guns and mortars. The howitzer delivers projectiles with medium velocities, either by low or high trajectories. JP 1-02. 2 Normally a cannon with a tube length of 20 to 30 calibers; however, the tube length can exceed 30 calibers and still be considered a howitzer when the high angle fire zoning solution permits range overlap between charges. JP 1-02. See also gun; mortar. 3 (context sports rugby ice hockey English) A powerfully hit shot.
WordNet
n. a muzzle-loading high-angle gun with a short barrel that fires shells at high elevations for a short range [syn: mortar, trench mortar]
Wikipedia
A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles in 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, 18th, 19th, and 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.
Usage examples of "howitzer".
For the first time in years, Simone thought of Aloin Boyer, the handsome, virile husband she had lost to a German howitzer.
Each had a barbette with a raised edge in the center and the stubby muzzle of a heavy fortress howitzer protruding from it.
The hole in the cascabel for reeving a breeching has been purposely omitted in howitzers, as hitherto the use of a breeching has not been found necessary.
She was now armed with eight brass guns, of a calibre of six pounds each, four howitzers aft, and two cohorns on the taffrail.
A dead horse lay nearby, just one horse, and there was no limber, but only wooden chests of ammunition, and Starbuck remembered Swynyard telling him about the mountain howitzers of the old U.
The french howitzers on the other stream bank had begun lobbing shells into the graveyard and upper houses, adding to the smoke and noise.
It was a gale of heat that whirled burning branches aloft, and crashed from tree to tree, leaping a gap a hundred feet wide with a deep whooshing roar and bursting the next tree asunder as though it had been hit by a lyddite shell from a howitzer.
When at last he moved out on January 10th to attempt to outflank the Boers, he took with him nineteen thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and sixty guns, which included six howitzers capable of throwing a 50-pound lyddite shell, and ten long-range naval pieces.
Tactical employment is the same as that of field howitzers, but the Nebelwerfer is far inferior in accuracy.
The date groves and norias of the riverside were lost in a sea of tents, orderly clumps and rows, dog-lines running for kilometers, artillery parks with everything from the common pompoms to heavy muzzle loading howitzers.
With a howitzer, some matrosses and fifty infantry, Laurens moved down the river, and on the evening of the 26th reached the place of Mrs.
Arsenals heaped with muniments of war, With spurs and howitzers and drums and shot, But what does that permit us to infer?
But Joe soon discovered that with its short thick barrel, its heavy stock and enormous bullets, the musketoon could be used with extraordinary accuracy when fired in the manner of a howitzer, aimed in the air rather than at the target so the bullets traversed a high arc and struck from above.
Joe practiced with his musketoon in the mountains mastering the trajectories of a howitzer, careful to let himself be seen only from far away.
The four field guns were mere four pounders while the fifth was a five-inch howitzer, and not one of the pieces fired a ball of real weight.