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
87 mm light field gun M1877 87 mm light field gun M1877 87-mm light field gun M1877 () was a field gun utilized in Russo-Japanese War, World War I, Russian Civil War and a number of interwar period armed conflicts with participants from the former Russian Empire. The gun was initially developed by Krupp, but was also produced in the Russian Empire. Russian-manufactured pieces differed from the German-manufactured ones in breech type and construction elevation mechanism. The gun lacked recoil mechanism. In addition to the standard variant, a lightweight version was produced. It had shorter barrel (18 calibers), which resulted in reduced muzzle velocity (412 m/s)