A 10.5 cm howitzer mounted in the back of a Steyr RSO cargo tractor – The Steyr RSO (Raupenschlepper Ost / “Crawler Tractor East”) was originally designed as a slow, unarmored cargo vehicle to tackle the nightmarish, axle-deep mud of the Russian Rasputitsa. However, as the German Army grew increasingly desperate for mobile artillery, engineers began boldly mounting heavy weapons directly onto its lightweight wooden and steel bed! Putting a massive 10.5 cm light field howitzer on such a small chassis pushed the vehicle to its absolute limits. The recoil from firing a 10.5 cm shell was so immense that it would violently rock the entire tractor, meaning it had to be carefully braced to avoid flipping over or shaking its own transmission to pieces!
