Improvements included a longer barrel resulting in better range and a gun shield to protect the crew.

Initially there were serious issues of weak recoil spring mechanisms that would break, and gun barrel explosions.

[3][4] The British referred to these guns and their shells as "five point nines" or "five-nines" as the internal diameter of the barrel was 5.9 inches (150 mm).

[citation needed] It was not until late 1915 that the British began to deploy their own 6 inch 26 cwt howitzer.

[5] They continued to serve in the Reichswehr and then the Wehrmacht in the interwar period as the standard heavy howitzer until the introduction of 15 cm sFH 18 in the 1930s.