le FH 18/40Field Howitzer

Kit#72-A-17/1

By StephenBrezinski

Summary

An all resinkit consisting of 21 tan parts.

GoodPoints : Very good casting with sharpdetail: and accuracy. The casting blocks and flash are easy toclean off. Much better detail than Revell's version of thisweapon. The elevation and traverse handwheels are particularlydone well. It's German! Price is reasonable and a very goodaccessory set of ammunition and boxes is also available fromLEVA.

NegativePoints : Very delicate and may not besuitable for wargaming where it will be handled rough; thoughgluing it to a base would solve this. Its German (I would like tosee more good Soviet, Italian and Czech artillery in small-scalealso.)!

The scan ofthe parts above shows the good rendition of the pressed steelwheels next to the very well done shield at the lower rightcorner. At the top left is the bottom carriage and the twotrails, both common with the Pak 40 AT gun. At lower right arethe two pressed steel wheels with solid rubber tires and theshield.

Above is acomparison photo of (from top down) LEVA's le FH 18/40 gun, thele FH 18(M) barrel from ESCI's Wespe model kit, and Revell's leFH 18 soft plastic version, all advertised as 1/72. I find theLEVA version is far more detailed and accurate than the lower twoand can substitute well.

HistoryFor The Modeler

The le FH 1810.5-cm was the standard and most common field howitzer from thelate 1930's till the Second World War's end. The gun replaced theearlier10.5-cm le FH 16 howitzer and the 75-mm le FK 18 guns(which actually continued to serve in training and second lineunits such as in Normandy, 1944). Over time it evolved as neededand proved to be reliable, though heavy for its caliber andperformance. According to Engelman's Schiffer book, the Germansbegan WW2 with 4,862 of these howitzers, with a further 6,933delivered by 1945 [I believe this quantity includes le FH 18(M)guns described below]. Engelman notes 24 different le FH 18variants designed. Below is a brief list of its variations andpotential conversion ideas. At the end of this article isglossary of terms and abbreviations.

The le FH 18is the howitzer represented by Revell's soft polyurethane setwith wagon, horses and figures. The Revell kit comes with pressedsteel wheels and solid rubber tires suitable for horse or vehicletowing, smaller and different wheels than LEVA's version. It wasalso and originally issued with wood spoke wheels, with orwithout solid rubber tires. [I have never seen the Revell kittype wheels used on the LEVA version of this howitzer so thisconversion may not be legal.] The trail legs were box types.Remove the muzzle break and LEVA's gun can be substituted ontothe Revell carriage to improve that model.

The le FH18/40: This is the gun represented by this LEVA model. Itactually is a combination of the original le FH 18, with themuzzle brake of the le FH 18(M) mounted on a modified carriage ofthe German Pak 40 anti tank gun and with the le FH 18 shield.This modification was an effort to make a lighter weapon and tostandardize parts. It was not much lighter though and thecarriage was stressed at high elevation firing. To address thisextra stress, wings were added to the muzzle break to increaseits efficiency. Pressed steel wheels with solid rubber tires,larger than the Pak 40 wheels, where given to raise the gunhigher and therefore allow a greater elevation of the gun.Between March 1943, and April 1945, 10,245 le FH 18/40 weredelivered (Engelman).

The le FH18(M): This version consisted of the regular le FH 18 howitzerand carriage with a few modifications and a muzzle break to allowa more powerful charge and therefore greater range. This versioncan be made by mounting LEVA's gun and cradle on Revell'scarriage (and sanding off the muzzle break wings). I have seen itwith either the pressed steel wheels with solid tires or withwood spoke wheels. This weapon, designated the le FH 18/2, iswhat was mounted in the Wespe SP howitzer [LEVA's gun can besubstituted for the less detailed gun in ESCI's Wespe model.].Also according to Engelman, 1,260 le FH 18 with a jacket cradleand muzzle brake was installed in the Sturmhaubitz III assaultgun.

7M85 7.5-cmFeld Kanone: The 7M85 high velocity cannon (rather than howitzer)is not mentioned in the Schiffer book but is discussed in IanHogg's book (both books mentioned below). This was a Germanattempt to give the field gun units a better anti-tank capabilityand is an odd step backward in ways. The Pak 40 high-velocityanti tank gun was mounted on the carriage of the le FH 18/40which is interesting in that the le FH 18/40 carriage is amodified Pak 40 carriage. The 7M85 cannon was produced with thele FH 18 shield, and with a greater elevation than the Pak 40.This should be an easy conversion using a Hasegawa, Al By,Modelkrak or ESCI Pak 40 gun with LEVA's shield and on LEVA's leFH 18/40 carriage and cradle.

Towingvehicles for these guns were typically any of the German 3-tontrucks: (ESCI or Retromodels Opel Blitz, AlBy Ford, or TP Models'Mercedes L701 trucks, etc.), a Maultier halftrack (AlBy-OpelBlitz Maultier or Ford Maultier. And let us not leave out the Sd.Kfz 11 3-ton tractor (ESCI), Sd.Kfz. 251 halftrack (ESCI orHasegawa), a Styer RSO tractor (Modelkrak), or a Skoda RSO(Extratech).

A noteregarding gun designations. Historically Germany, France andothers nations designated gun by the year released, such as theFrench 75-mm Model 1897 and German 77-mm FK 96 (for 1896). Thishas lead some to believe that guns like the leFH 18, 8.8-cm Flak18, 15-cm sFH 18 and 10.5-cm K 18 to have been of 1918 WW1vintage. Actually all these weapons were developed in the 1920'sin secret, in violation of the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Thedesignation 1918 was essentially a mask to hide German weaponsdevelopment and re-arming prohibited by the treaty (Jager, pages218-219).

Instructions

Noinstructions came with my gun so a copy of one I made up isincluded below

Construction

Clean-up waseasy with a sharp blade and razor saw. Scoring the pour plugswith a knife or razor saw often allowed the part to be easilysnapped off and then cleaned up with a sanding stick andsandpaper. Some parts are very delicate, both of the carriage'storsion bars were broken off during assembly and I recommend thatyou reinforce them with strips of thin styrene before gluing thewheels on. The muzzle break needs to be drilled out.

The onlyparts I added that did not come with the kit are four copper wireshield-braces, and a small curved(bullet-splash?) shield over thegun recouperator made from aluminum sheet. Cyanoacrylate (Super)glue was used for my model though 5-minute epoxy can also beused. The solid rubber tires I believe should have three grooves(channels) that can be cut in with a fine saw blade.

Painting& Markings

As the le FH18/40 was issued in March 1943, I believe that most of them wouldbe painted in Dunkelgelb (Panzeryellow) with or without brown andgreen camouflage patterns. The gun sight and solid rubber tires Ipainted dark gray to represent an in-scale black color. Guns didnot normally come with much as far as markings go, though aletter battery designation on the shield (A, B, C, or D etc.) wasnot uncommon. Names of girlfriends and spouses painted onto thebarrel were sometimes seen.

Conclusion

Very welldone model; competitive quality with many of the best resin modelmakers, and highly recommended. Very delicate though, which isoften the price to pay for fine detail. In the completed model Iadded LEVA German 105-mm howitzer ammunition from accessory set72-E-11. The 1/72 scale figure is from Preisser. I understandthat LEVA had plans on eventually releasing all the aboveversions, the original le FH 18, and the le FH 18(M) howitzers;and the 7M85 Feld Kanone, as well as a caisson (for a horse drawngun).

GlossaryOf Terms

References

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