Steep fire

Steep fire - Upper angle group

As a ball of fire , even throw fire, is referred to in the artillery being a form of attack in which the shells are fired at an angle of more than 45 degrees. In technical language, this is known as shooting in the upper angle group .

history

Since siege weapons were developed, defensive weapons have also been developed. One of these weapons, albeit passive, was the wall. She protected a castle or a city. In order to overcome this wall, weapons that shot over the wall were developed. This was first the blide and finally, a much smaller weapon, the catapult . With the development of gunpowder, different variants of guns were built. On the one hand mortars , on the other hand flat-fire guns such as field snakes . The former were still used in sieges to overcome walls. They did not serve to destroy a wall, but the objects behind it. Defenders used mortars to combat enemy artillery and keep the enemy from storming the fortress. During the First World War , mortars and howitzers were used to destroy the enemy trench systems and bunker positions . During the Second World War , the guns became more complex. The Red Army in particular relied on a concept that is still used today. This concept was aimed at the multipurpose use of guns. This is how cannons / howitzers came about. In other words, weapons that could shoot both flat and steep fire. The mortar is still one of the few pure high-angle weapons available today .

Mode of action

Steep fire is always used when a larger geographical obstacle ( mountain , forest ) prevents direct sighting of a target or direct fire would have little or no effect (e.g. against a buried or fortified enemy). The large firing angle causes a strongly parabolic trajectory of the projectile and means that it hits the target at a very steep angle and can thus show the greatest possible effect.

Since a large part of the launch energy is used to fire the projectile upwards, the range of high-speed guns is relatively limited. With new types of ammunition such as “rocket-assisted projectile” bullets (RAP bullets), that is, bullets with extended range, firing ranges of up to 30,000 meters and more can now be achieved. A classic example here are the self-propelled howitzers .

The classic high-angle firearm is the mortar . The type used in the Bundeswehr , for example, has an effective range of 6,350 meters with a caliber of 120 mm. Another important type of high-speed gun is the howitzer . The self-propelled howitzer 2000 is mainly used in the Bundeswehr . In addition, many countries still use motorized hoods such as the FH155-1 .