German Artillery naming

[modelbouw nederland]

Dear fellow forum members,

First of all I want to say that I'm brand new here. And that I didn't know much about this place.
But that I will certainly enjoy this place, because I want to know the more fine details off the axis etc.

Now to the actual question, I was wondering what the numbers behind the name off the German SPGs meant.
If they are meaning something off course. For Example, the 10.5 cm leFH 18. What does the 18 behind the name mean?

I hope you can help me with my question. Like I said, I'm new here. So I have to get used to the forum.
And feel free to give any tips, tricks etc.

Modelbouw Nederland

[Grzesio]

Generally it's a year of development or introduction (sometimes it could be derived from a factory prototype designation), although all the designations with 18 were actually fake, suggesting guns were of WW1 origin (while they were actually newly designed in the 1920-30s). There were also guns without a number in their designation, like e.g. 3,7 cm Pak or 7,5 cm KwK.
Somewhere around 1943-44 guns started to be designated with a model number (generally according to an official list of military equipment, the Geraetliste, just with few exceptions) rather than a year, e.g. 7,5 cm Pak 50.
Then in 1944 the system was revised completely, with new designations looking like FK 7 M85, where FK is for field gun, 7 calibre group (i.e. calibre from 7 to 7,99 cm), M ammunition type, 85 gun model number.
The full key to this late war model designation is actually not known, as far as I'm aware.

[modelbouw nederland]

Thank you for your reply.
This definitely clears up some things that wasn't clear in the past.
I'm just asking myself, how did they came up with such weird systems with 18 for example.
If they were not build or designed in that period off time?
Interesting topic I would say, do you agree with me?

[Grzesio]

German armament production and development was severely affected by the Treaty of Versailles, limiting types and quantity of new projects. To overcome these limitations, they designated new guns with 18 mark, suggesting their WW1 provenience, i.e. pretending they were not newly designed.