Heavy artillery

A howitzer fires at a higher angle than a gun, so its shell falls on the target from above and reaches it behind cover; a mortar fires more steeply still. German and Austro-Hungarian usage called the heaviest howitzers mortars. In 1914 Krupp's 42 cm mortars, known as Big Berthas, and Austro-Hungarian 30.5 cm Škoda mortars smashed the forts of Liège, Namur, Maubeuge and Antwerp, and in 1915 they helped take Przemyśl, Kovno and Novogeorgievsk (Modlin).

In trench warfare heavy guns became the main means of destroying trenches, dugouts and enemy batteries, and their numbers grew in every army until 1918. The group also includes trench mortars, firing at short range from the trenches. The long-range gun that shelled Paris in 1918, often wrongly called Big Bertha, was a different weapon.