Howitzers are artillery that is easily capable of firing high-angle and low-angle fires, sort of like a cross between a gun and a mortar. The M101A1 105mm was a howitzer and maybe the M114 155mm too - and I know that the M198 and the M777 are called howitzers but in real life are almost never fired above 900 mils.
Really pushes the definition of a "howitzer" to include weapons that can't be elevated easily and then can't be loaded at high elevations and the projectile loses stability at max ord..
Exactly so. Which was why I wrote:
...battleships' 16-inch guns were rifles, as were our divisional artillery 155mm,8-inch and 175nn howitzers and SP guns.
Honest! I can make enough mistakes without being called out over a conjunction not precisely linking the 175s [we called them the division sniper rifles] to SP guns. Proof being the comma I left out between *artillery* and *155,* as well as my ham-handed typo of turning the 175 into a 175nn tube.
I concur that that gun-howitzer divide is narrowing. So is the one between howitzers and mortars. And terminally-guided projectiles are making accuracy considerations of possible less importance as well.
Exactly so. Which was why I wrote:
...battleships' 16-inch guns were rifles, as were our divisional artillery 155mm,8-inch and 175nn howitzers and SP guns.
Honest! I can make enough mistakes without being called out over a conjunction not precisely linking the 175s [we called them the division sniper rifles] to SP guns. Proof being the comma I left out between *artillery* and *155,* as well as my ham-handed typo of turning the 175 into a 175nn tube.
I concur that that gun-howitzer divide is narrowing. So is the one between howitzers and mortars. And terminally-guided projectiles are making accuracy considerations of possible less importance as well.