Artillery and marshes

[Sublime]

i disagree. while word of mouth ended up having an effect on German troops in the Bulge within a few weeks of VT fused shells arrival, its been conclusively proven airbursts cause waaay more casualties. A tree burst is very similar in effevt to an airburst, if less sure shrapnel wise.

Word of mouth did lead to a supposed bunker mentality for a lot of Wehrmacht troops by January 45 in the Ardennes.

in fact its the very fact that a treeburst is a defacto airburst that makes it so dangerous to dug in men. Why else would Aint and the M25 have been invented? The shrapnel fliez downward as well with treebursts allowing shrapnel to enter foxjoles and trenches.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Sublime

[Sublime]

I'm pretty sure mortars work their best from a dug out pit or trench... If I'm not mistaken, that's why they were invented - trench warfare.

actually istr mortars had already been around for some time - like a hundred years or so before ww1

[JasonC]

While mortars in the sense of high trajectiry shell throwers have been around for centuries, the modern mortar was invented early in WWI as a trench fighting weapon.

The name "mortar" comes from the mortar and pestle, the kitchen utensil for grinding spices and such. The name was given to very wide mouth, short shell throwers using a very high trajectory, originally as a countermeasure to bastion defenses against direct fire guns in the early modern era. Vertical stone walls were readily cut down by horizontal cannon fire directed at their base, since that part of the structure has to bear the weight of the rest of the wall above. Fortress designers thus countered the rise of artillery by shifting to low thick walls of packed earth, only faced with stone, which were not carrying such weights and were dynamically stable, thus abke to ignore narrow holes punched into them by siolid shot. Bastion defenses then covered the approach to such low walls - inherently more open to escalade - with cross fire from cannon mounted on top of those low walls, or in galleries punched into their sides, etc.

It was that series that prompted the seige mortar, to fire high explosive shell rather than solid shot, over rather than into the walls, to suppress the defending batteries with blast. They also just shell fort interiors, fired towns, and the like. The shells were primitive, with cloth fuzes cut very inexactly to a hoped for effective length, innacurate, etc. but they served, as seige weapons. Bht they also weighed tons, and were in no way an infantry weapon.

Note that some confusion is still caused by terms borrowedd from that history. Very heavy German seige artillery would get weapon titles if "morser" as stubby high trajectory seige guns, when they are properly howitzers (just big ones) - and some then confuse those with modern mortars.

The modern mortar, on the other hand, is the Brandt-Stokes mortar, named for its early WWI inventors and perfectors, respectively. They called them mortars because they were very high trajectory, low velocity, semi seige warfare weapons, in their early form. But they were designed around much longer tubes, with much smaller caliber, and above all man packable when dissambled. Allowing them to be manhandled to their forward firing positions in range of enemy trenches, where they tried to drop their grenade sized "bombs" between the front and back walls of enemy trenches.

In that form, the mortar dates only from late 1914, and was perfected and fielded in numbers only in 1915-16.

[kevinkin]

Maybe this will add to the discussion :

 

"Then there is vegetation.  Fragments and blast will strip away foliage and eventually reduce large trees to shattered trunks. The branches and trunks will absorb many splinters, one test for the 58 ft-lbs criterion was that a fragment penetrated about 1 inch into wood.  In heavy bombardments the blast will move the loose and shattered vegetation on the forest floor to the edge of the impact area or pile it up against obstacles such as large branches 'cut' from the trees.  However, before the trees are well stripped by shell fire the shells burst in the branches and are effective air-bursts. Flying debris can be a hazard, particularly rubble in built up areas when large shells are used.  In either soft or hard ground artillery shells do not cause a noticeable hazard from flying spoil and forest debris usually offers little danger except at close range to the burst."

 

BRITISH ARTILLERY IN WORLD WAR 2 - EFFECTS & WEIGHT OF FIRE
 

http://nigelef.tripod.com/wt_of_fire.htm

 

Note: No citations on the site that I can find.

[Bulletpoint]

actually istr mortars had already been around for some time - like a hundred years or so before ww1

 

So had trenches

[Sublime]

trenches really made their serious debut in warfare during the American civil war in certain areas. The machine gun too. Unfortunately the European generals didnt take any lessons from the US experience in the American Civil War it seems

[JasonC]

Sublime - trenches in seige warfare are much older than that.  Trench warfare just saw the methods of seige applied by whole maneuver force armies across much longer frontages, instead of only using them to invest specific stronghold points.  Which was as much a function of the increasing size of armies - mobilized and supplied by richer states and railroad logistics - as anything in weapon technology specifically.

[Sublime]

Yes JasonC thats rather more what I meantI shoulda been clearer. Im well aware of siege trenches being dug towards and finally into castle walls but I mean in the strongpoint WW1 sense ISTR the first war really featuring such use was the ACW

[JoMac]

Pretty sure it's been established that the damage effects of arty are the same whether it lands in Marsh or on a concrete hardstanding. I can't see an engine that makes no distinction for damage purposes making a distinction for spotting purposes.

Well, that sounds disconcerting...I never paid attention and would've assumed Arty had different damage effects in each type of Terrain.

 

Joe

[JasonC]

Sublime - trenches were standard in seige warfare from the invention of cannons onward.  They were used in field battles in the "age of reason" - in a few cases in the 30 years war, in plenty of the fighting in Holland and Belgium during the long Dutch revolt and in the later wars of the French, etc.  Musket men before the invention of the bayonet made extensive use of barriers, low mounds, and trenches to protect themselves from enemy melee troops and cavalry, in addition to the famous mix with pikemen and such.  Field fortifications to hold artillery - redoubts and such - were frequently used in the Napoleonic wars, though never as extensive at the whole battlefield.  Long before any of that, the Romans had made a point of extensive use of the spade, though the trenches they dug were obstacles (akin to modern anti tank ditches, just directed at cavalry) and worked with ramparts made of the earth moved in emptying them.  Really, the practice isn't new.  Modern firepower - especially high explosive shell from breech loading artillery - made it more vital than ever to survive on the battlefield, but that's really about it.

Edited August 7, 2015 by JasonC