In 1916, the call for a re-engineering of the old field howitzer '10 lFH 98/09' generates a Rheinmetall bid, whose '10 cm lFH 16' will be the chosen one, and a Krupp bid, hoping to re-gain shares of the German Foot Artillery market. It is worth reminding the great success of Rheinmetall in that segment, since that company modernized the obsolete '77 FK 96 a/A' from Krupp to transform it into the famous '77 FK 96 n/A', and will later succesfully modernize this one too into the '77 FK 16'.

Krupp's prototype '10 cm lFH Kp 16', using the carriage of the 120mm Krupp howitzer M 12 built for Switzerland and proposing interesting specifications, was defeated by its competitor on the proving ground.

Some hundreds of the Krupp model were built though during the war, and at the end of the war, 264 such howitzers were inventoried in the German Army, compared to 3044 Rheinmetall howitzers.

Main characteristics :

• Weight in firing position : 1500 kg
• Calibre : 104.9 mm
• Longueur du tube : 20 calibres
• Number of grooves : 32
• Projectile weight : 15.7 kg
• Initial velocity : 430 / 453 m/s
• Maximum range : 8950 / 10200 m
• Elevation range : -4 / +43 degrees
• Direction range : 4 degrees total range