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
10 cm houfnice vz. 28 trail carriage, horizontal sliding-wedge breech, Hydro-pneumatic recoil system and high angle elevation. For the mountain gun role it could be broken down into three pieces for transport, a feature also shared by the contemporary 8 cm kanon vz. 28 and the later 8 cm kanon vz. 30 and 10 cm houfnice vz. 30 guns. The Czech Army declined to adopt the houfnice vz. 28, but ordered its successor the houfnice vz. 30 in larger numbers. The vz. 30 and vz. 28 shared a similar configuration, dimensions and their performance was largely the same. 10 cm houfnice vz. 28 The 10