Howitzer groups called batteries. The English word ""howitzer"" comes from the Czech word ""houfnice"", from "houf", "crowd", and "houf" is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word "Hūfe" or "Houfe" (modern German "Haufen"), meaning "heap". "Haufen", sometimes in the compound "Gewalthaufen", also designated a pike square formation in German. In the Hussite Wars of the 1420s and 1430s, the Czechs used short barreled ""houfnice"" cannons to fire at short distances into crowds of infantry, or into charging heavy cavalry, to make horses shy away. The word was rendered into German as "aufeniz" in the earliest attested use in
8 cm kanon vz. 30 by the earlier 10 cm houfnice vz. 28 and the later 10 cm houfnice vz. 30 guns. 8 cm kanon vz. 30 The 8 cm kanon vz. 30 (Cannon model 30) was a Czech field gun used in the Second World War. Guns captured after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 were taken into Wehrmacht service as the 8 cm FK 30(t). It was used by a variety of German units during World War II, including I./SS-Artillerie-Abteilung 3 between 1939 and 1940. The origins of the 8 cm kanon vz. 30 began in 1930 at the Škoda Works