German howitzer on the French chassis. SAU SdKfz 135 / 1
From the very beginning of the Wehrmacht’s North African campaign, complaints began to come from artillery soldiers. The soldiers were dissatisfied with the natural conditions of the theater of operations. Often had to fight on the sandy plains. For tanks and self-propelled guns it was fearless. But for towed guns, sand fields were a real problem. Wheeled guns and howitzers had insufficient patency, which is why the banal battery transfer sometimes turned into a serious and difficult operation.
Until a certain time, the command did not pay attention to this problem. Then the situation changed, which in the 1942 year led to the emergence of an interesting armored vehicle. In May 1942, the Nazi German military-political leadership demanded that a new self-propelled artillery gun be installed with a millimeter 150 caliber. The aim of the order was to provide the Africa Corps with a self-propelled gun capable of operating normally in the difficult conditions of the northern part of the Black Continent. Soon decided on the chassis, weapons and contractors of the project.
The basis for the new self-propelled took the French armored personnel carrier Lorraine 37L. Before the occupation of France, more than six hundred of these light armored vehicles were fired, about half of which fell into the hands of the Germans. BTR "Lorrain" was equipped with a gasoline engine Dale Haye 103 TT horsepower 70. With a combat mass of the original machine in 5,2 tons, this motor provided a tolerable power density, although not particularly large running performance. Thus, the maximum speed on the highway did not reach even 40 kilometers per hour. The reserve of the French armored personnel carrier - 130-140 kilometers was also insignificant. The Lorraine 37L armored hull did not provide a high level of protection. Frontal sheet with a thickness of 16 millimeters and sides of nine can only be considered bulletproof armor.
May 1940. Broken column of French armored vehicles. In the foreground is an Lorraine 38L armored personnel carrier, right in a ditch its trailer
It is obvious that the BTR "Lorrain" could perform only auxiliary functions. An alternative to them could be the use as a weapon intended for firing from closed positions. As a matter of fact, the weak protection of the chassis of the Lorraine 37L was the reason that they decided to equip the new self-propelled gun with a howitzer-type weapon. 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 1913 (15-centimeter heavy field howitzer model 1913 of the year) or abbreviated 15 cm sFH 13 managed to make war back in World War I. After graduation, part of the 15 howitzer cm sFH 13 was transferred to the Netherlands and Belgium as reparations. However, several hundred guns remained with Germany. Before 1933, they were carefully hidden. With the advent of Hitler, the development of a new howitzer of the same caliber began, and 15 cm sFH 13 was sent to warehouses. The howitzer had a barrel with a length of 14 calibers, which, in combination with a large caliber, made it possible to fire at a distance of up to 8600 meters. Installed on the native gun carriage, the gun guidance system provided a declination of the barrel to -4 ° and an elevation to + 45 °. In addition, there was the possibility of horizontal targeting within a sector nine degrees wide. The reason for choosing this particular howitzer was a large number of specimens preserved in warehouses. Send them to the Eastern Front considered it inappropriate, therefore, used to create an experimental-combat self-propelled guns.
Howitzer battery sFH 13 at the Battle of Arras 1917 of the year
The firm Alkett was instructed to develop an armored cabin for the new ACS and the entire production technology of the machine. On the cargo platform Lorraine 37L installed armored wheelhouse without a roof. It was assembled from straight rolled rolled armor panels with a thickness of 10 millimeters (forehead and gun shield), 9 mm (sides) and 7 mm (feed). When designing the armored jacket, I had to take into account a lot of things. Its minimum size was limited by the length of the recoil of the howitzer. The maximum, in turn, influenced the total mass of the self-propelled gun and its alignment. As a result, a metal box was assembled, the back of which went beyond the stern of the chassis. It was not possible to combine technical limitations and ease of operation of the three-person crew. Despite all the efforts of the designers Alkett, ammunition seriously "suffered". In the cabin, SAU managed to place only eight shells. The rest was supposed to be transported on auxiliary machines. The Lorrain chassis was equipped not only with chopping and tools. On the roof of the chassis, before felling, they established a support for the trunk, on which he fell in the stowed position. The consequence of installing the support was the inability to lower the barrel below the horizontal position. In addition, the combat mass of the self-propelled gun, which grew to eight and a half tons, did not provide effective damping of the recoil of the shot. Because of this, we had to install a special tiltable support on the stern of the chassis. Before shooting, the crew lowered it and rested against the ground. This feature of firing led to the fact that the SAU with the 150-mm howitzer, despite the ability to hover the gun, could not shoot on the move.
The German plant Alkett quickly coped with the task and sent three dozen howitzers to Wehrmacht ordered to Paris. There they were installed on the chassis Lorraine 37L. In July, the 42 of all 30 self-propelled guns, designated 15 cm sFH 13 / 1 (Sf) auf Geschuetzwagen Lorraine Schlepper (f) or SdKfz 135 / 1, were sent to Africa. A month later, Rommel's corps received seven more new SAUs. On the front, SdKfz 135 / 1 showed the entire ambiguity of the project. The fact is that the good firepower of the 150-millimeter howitzer was fully compensated for by its low speed, weak defense and low self-propelled gun weight. For example, as a result of the “rebound” of the ACS, due to recoil, the tracks of the vehicle or its suspension were often damaged. However, the SdKfz 135 / 1 ACS was recognized as more successful than not. In connection with these in the following months, several more batches of self-propelled howitzers were collected. Total 94 was made such machines.
Sd.Kfz. 135 / 1 French Lorraine 37L. 15 cm sFH 13 / 1 auf Lorraine Schlepper (f)
Heavy German 15-cm ACS Sd Kfz 135 / 1 based on the French tractor "Laurent", captured by the allies in North Africa. Shooting time: March 27 1943
During the North African campaign, self-propelled guns 15 cm sFH 13/1 (Sf) auf Geschuetzwagen Lorraine Schlepper (f) served in the 21st Panzer Division, in its battalion of armored artillery. By the nature of the use of howitzers, you can imagine the combat features of self-propelled guns. In addition, SdKfz 135/1 did not become famous due to the small number of copies produced. All the months remaining before the defeat of Germany in Africa, the artillerymen of the 21st Panzer Division were engaged in the fact that they went into a given area, "howitzer" fired at the enemy and went home. Some self-propelled guns were destroyed aviation and tanks of the allies, part of the British went as trophies. Those self-propelled guns SdKfz 135/1 that did not enter Africa were later used by the Germans for defense in Normandy. During the Allied offensive, most of the remaining self-propelled guns were destroyed, and the rest suffered the fate of trophies. There were no remarkable cases in the combat biography of SdKfz 135/1, so this self-propelled guns is better known not for victories, but for its interesting appearance with a characteristic “box” of an armored cabin.
Abandoned SdKfz 135-1 near El Alamein 1942
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