The gun was a development of the previous standard howitzer, the 15 cm sFH 02. Improvements included a longer barrel resulting in better range and a gun shield to protect the crew. Variants were: the original "kurz", the lg. sFH13 with a longer barrel; with minor modifications to simplify wartime manufacture of the lg. sFH weapons. Initially there were serious issues of weak recoil springmechanisms that would break, and gun barrel explosions. The problems were solved with the upgrades. A sub variant of the sFH 13 was the lg. 15 cm sFH 13/02 which combined the long barrel with the carriage of the earlier sFH 02 when those guns became obsolete. The sFH 13/02 gun shield wasn't hinged at the top and it only used a hydro-spring recoil system. Approximately 1,000 conversions were completed and their performance was the same with only a 40 kg difference in weight. The British referred to these guns and their shells as "Five Point Nines" or "Five-Nines" as the internal diameter of the barrel was. The ability of these guns to deliver mobile heavy firepower close to the frontline gave the Germans a major firepower advantage on the Western Front early in World War I, as the French and British lacked an equivalent. It was not until late 1915 that the British began to deploy their own 6 inch 26 cwt howitzer. About 3,500 of these guns were produced from 1913 to 1918. They continued to serve in the Reichswehr and then the Wehrmacht in the interwar period as the standard heavy howitzer until the introduction of 15 cm sFH 18 in the 1930s. They were then shifted to reserve and training units, as well as to coastal artillery. Guns turned over to Belgium and the Netherlands as reparations after World War I were taken into Wehrmacht service after the conquest of the Low Countries as the 15 cm sFH 409 and 15 cm sFH 406 respectively. In the course of World War II about 94 of these howitzers were mounted on Lorraine 37L tractors to create self-propelled guns, designated 15 cm sFH13/1 auf Geschuetzwagen Lorraine Schlepper.
Obice da 149/12 - Italian version of the sFH13 produced under license
In literature
Siegfried Sassoon expressed the British respect for the "five-nine" in his World War I poem
Timothy Findley mentions "5.9s" in his book The Wars
Wilfred Owen mentions being shelled by "Five-Nines" in his poem Dulce et Decorum est
Robert Graves, in Good-Bye to All That, says "five-nines called 'Jack Johnsons' because of their black smoke" in reference to "the boxer Jack Johnson, the first black American world heavyweight champion."
