What killed the artillery

[coe]

Ok so if the conclusion is that artillery did most of the killing, what got the artillery (besides abandonment). Deep penetrating raids by armour? Air craft, counterbattery? I assume this varies by front of course..

Coe

[JasonC]

Artillery was ammo limited, not tube limited. It didn't matter that much how many enemy guns you took out. The actual tubes weren't that hard to replace. Logistics was the artillery limiter, one way or another.

The most effective tube killer was certainly breakthrough or encirclement. Both the Germans and Russians used horse drawn arty for a large portion of their force (the Russians somewhat more). The mobility of the artillery was limited, which mattered when the front moved rapidly.

Horse drawn arty tends to be abandoned in breakthroughs, whether the forces are actually encircled or just have to retreat very fast to get away. Even when the guns themselves can be moved, the ammo dumps can't be, not as quickly as breakthroughs happen.

Since it will take some time to get repositioned guns back into good supply and therefore effective action, they are a low priority in the scramble of a retreat. Their horses tend to get overworked and die off, too.

Counterbattery, in contrast, was generally pretty ineffective. It might suppress guns for a tactically important, brief period. (The gunners are driven away from the guns, the guns are forced to move, etc). But it rarely destroyed guns or even caused significant losses to their crews.

Actual overruns of rear area arty weren't common - it was easier to bypass them and "kill by mobility". But sometimes arty was incorporated into fall back positions and wound up fighting in direct fire duels. FO directed arty, infantry heavy weapons, and tanks could all take them out in that case, much like front line ATGs.

To see the point about being ammo limited, though, you just have to do a little math and consider what rates of fire the arty was technically capable of. Divisional pieces could easily fire a round every 2 minutes indefinitely (their peak ROF is almost ten times that for most of them).

If you add it up, a single division's arty park could physically fire 35 million rounds over the length of the war, with time for gunners to sleep included. Total ammo produced was only a handful of division's worth at that rate, while the actual armies were hundreds of divisions.

Otherwise put, on average a gun only fired once per hour over the war as a whole. The few that were supplied and in position to shoot best could easily shoot faster, making up for any that couldn't shoot at all because of enemy action, logistical difficulties, placement, etc.

If the ammo is produced and eventually finds its way to any working gun, it has its effect whether there are more tubes out there or less. More tubes are really needed for flexibility in delivering the ammo (surges at the right time, guns in range of the right place, etc). They aren't needed for their physical "thruput", raw "throw weight" capacity.

[ May 25, 2003, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[GenSplatton]

So, to sum that up in 10,000 words or less, they ran out of sh*t to shoot?

[JasonC]

Not "ran out". Fired only as often as the supply situation allowed. Which was set by raw industrial capacity, and the time it had to work - little else.

If you took on a country with the industrial capacity of Germany and stood in front of them for 46 months, you would be hit by over a hundred million heavy shells, because they could make that many in that period of time. You would therefore take millions of casualties. No matter what you did.

How many millions would depend on the effectiveness of the shooting, the big advances, the speed of the campaign, all the details of the fighting. But the overall scale (millions) was set simply by the industrial capacity in front of you. The "weight class" of the fighters was set by economic size, acting through artillery supply and attrition, not by tactics.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Not "ran out". Fired only as often as the supply situation allowed. Which was set by raw industrial capacity, and the time it had to work - little else.

Er, surely you shouldn't need me to point out that the facility for getting it from the factory to the front was a major factor. Bottlenecks in moving supplies across the Polish/Soviet border in 1941 contributed mightily to the difficulties of the Germans that winter.

And although it is an exaggeration to claim that the Allied tactical bombing of German supply lines effectively "strangled" them, they must have made life a lot harder than it otherwise might have been.

Michael

[JasonC]

Transport delays matter for how soon production gets applied to the enemy, yes. Or how constantly. But shells bunched up in the supply pipeline do not evaporate. Unless and until huge stocks are lost in large overruns of large areas, eventually anything made finds its way to the business end.

The overall totals are hundreds of millions, with averages running millions per month. The flow out the far end is effectively limitless, because the guns are ammo starved compared to the firing time available. The supply chain can bulge now and then, but does not grow to the sky indefinitely.

Periods of building up rear area stocks because of inactivity or transport problems are followed by periods of drawing them down, due to massive offensives. The "rate determiner", therefore, is the entry side, production out of the factories.

The only way to avoid this conclusion is to get the war over with so fast that only a tiny portion of the production every has a chance to be fired. If you take out a Poland or a France in a month or two, that matters, certainly. In campaigns that last a year or more, if they can build it they can get it to you.

Then you must pay the butcher's bill for practically everything they can build. It is not like the overall efficiency of the shooting has to be particularly high. You don't need shells getting several people. You don't even need shells as large as 105mm getting 1 wounded apiece. If 1 out of 10 105s causes 1 wound, that is quite sufficient. In CM terms, efficiency as low as 1000 blast per casualty is enough to bleed whole nations dry.

[coe]

yet time and time again we read of German divisions only having like one battery left, this makes sense in the retreats but in advances?

Coe

[JasonC]

I don't know where that "time and again we read" comment comes from. I don't see such reports, not "time and again" anyway.

I've seen particular cases of e.g. units that break out of pockets, or survive operational disasters (like the retreat from the south of France, on foot, or from Falaise, or AG South in the second winter), where leg infantry divisions have lost practically all their heavy weapons because of inability to move them as fast as the front moved. The main "tube killer" is operational breakthrough, as "mobility kills" of slow horse drawn stuff that can't get away.

I can imagine - not that I've heard many accounts of it, but I can imagine - that it would be possible to "distance" much of the artillery in very rapid advances, like those of the early 1941 campaign, or the fall of 1942. But temporarily.

Guns without ammo might remain behind when the infantry moved on, to spare the horses. Or horses not spared might be worked to death, immobilizing portions of the arty. Then "left" would mean "have kept up with us", not "intact". In some late war cases, only limited portions of the guns could be moved even by horse team, with others left behind in fixed defensive positions.

In long periods of attrition fighting without large movements of the front (e.g. Normandy in July, pre breakout) what one sees instead is front line infantry rated as "fought out", while arty and heavy weapons are still rated as 70% of TOE.

Loss rates were certainly higher in the infantry than in the artillery. There was no absolute tube shortage, either. Particular units long in the line might be weakened, but the army as a whole had no great shortage of weapons (which it was receiving in large numbers from the factories).

About the only period of exception was after the simultaneous collapse of AG center in Russia and France in the west. The material losses in those were enourmous, and took some time to replace. The force that stood at the borders of Germany and Poland in the fall of 1944 was infantry heavy, weapon light. Production was still high, though. In 1945 the scarce items were fuel and men, rather than weapons.

Perhaps if you clarify the cases you are thinking of, behind the "time and again we read" comment...

[GenSplatton]

coe, let it go before his keyboard gives out.

[SgtMuhammed]

One must also take into account the situation when talking about the state of a unit's artillery park. Units set into the defense had less priority than those set to attack. There was also a tendency to bunch batteries at higher levels to try and maximize their punch in important sectors.

Things like this lead to local deficiencies while overall the picture is entirely different. Jason, though, is entirely right. The biggest limiting factor for arty was supply. Even the Allies had sever problems with this and nearly ran out at several points.

Supply problems can occur without attack on one's supply lines. American problems, for example, were caused by bad decisions on the production and procurement front as well as priority of supply problems because of the limited availability of port space. All of this was without constant attacks on the lines of communication.

Tubes were easy to make and so were rounds but getting them together often proved to be the hard part.

[JasonC]

The supply problem was primarily a matter of getting it there only in the case of the U.S. Because it is far from all the fronts, and production was so high. For the US, the absolute limit was shipping space, rather than physical output. For everyone else, the problem was absolute scarity of completed goods, or of raw materials, not moving the stuff they had.

Germany had to use 60/40 amatol because they did not have enough nitrate production to meet the unlimited demand for explosives. It also faced numerous, interlocking metal scarcities. Only oil was tighter.

Russia lost territory that contained half her ammunition production capacity in 1941 (especially the Donbas region). She also had inadequate copper production to use what was left. Lend lease had to cover both deficiencies.

The US had 43% of world copper production in 1939, and exported 15% of world production to the rest of the world, using only 28%. It was the #1 exporter. By 1944, it was the #1 importer, importing 17% of world production.

By keeping its own rising production and grabbing imports in addition (from Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc), the US expanded its copper supply about 2.5 times between 1939 and 1944. (World wide production only rose 23%).

For everyone else combined, copper available fell 37% from the 1939 level. Yet even the US had to ration copper, use scrap drives, economize inessential uses, and still was left with shortages.

Yes the transport problem, as a coordination or planning problem, limited total carrying capacity of transport links, cost of additional transportation equipment etc - is part of the logistic limit on artillery. When you make it, you also have to make the stuff to move it.

But even physical production of the shells was not at all easy, outside the U.S. In continental Europe, the extensive rail network did most of the moving job, without needing thousands of new ships. They were instead cut off from raw materials overseas.

[Sardaukar]

Well, IMHO troubles with artillery were :

1. Not being able to bring enough tubes to battle, problem with horse-drawn artillery during fluid situations.

2. Not being able to bring enough ammunition to tubes that were capable to engage (very glaring deficiency in Finnish arty during Winter War due ammo shortage)

3. Not being able to bring artillery to bear due C&C difficulties while theorethically able.

4. All above

Cheers,

M.S.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Yet even the US had to ration copper...

During my childhood I used to regularly come across steel pennies the US stamped in 1943 in order to conserve copper that year. I still see one once in a while, though they are now rarely found in circulation, mainly because collectors have snapped up most of the remaining ones.

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

The German supply system seems to have worked fairly efficiently throughout the war; units that weren't encircled generally were able to keep supplies of food, for example; that's second hand from correspondence with a scholar who lived in Germany and interviewed many veterans. I can only presume it would apply to artillery ammunition as well. My scholar friend was under the impression the Germans seldom if ever complained about starving in the front line - though bearing in mind provisions were easier to secure locally than ammunition (!)

Counter battery artillery fire originated in the modern sense in World War One. I think Currie of the Canadians, among others, was led to ask if there was some sort of "freemasonry" between the adherents of St. Barbara on each side - the artillery never seemed to engage each other, just the poor infantry on either side. That changed by 1917, when sound ranging, flash spotting and other techniques led to artillery being used to engage other artillery. The majority of German artillery was spotted and actually destroyed or driven off preceding the landmark assault on Vimy Ridge on 9 April 1917, for example.

Andreas may have much to add to JasonC's brief treatise on counterbattery fire; a member of his family served in a German artillery observation battalion in WW II.

By WW II, there were fairly sophisticated ways of at least locating enemy batteries and guns - even if it was not so easy to destroy them.

Consider also the wide use by the Germans of mortars - which were harder to spot and harder to kill (they could move quickly, and could be deployed underground - and I presume their bombs were of little use in spotting the firing weapon given their short range and soundless flight?).

I believe the western Allies actually had officers/staffs specifically set up to deal with the problem of counter-mortar work - a very real concern to frontline infantry battalions.

[ May 27, 2003, 02:53 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by coe:

Ok so if the conclusion is that artillery did most of the killing, what got the artillery (besides abandonment). Deep penetrating raids by armour? Air craft, counterbattery? I assume this varies by front of course..

Looking at the question more narrowly than JasonC et al have, the simple answer is 'no-one'. In the case of the US Army, out of a total battle casualty list of some 936,259, only 57,969 (6.2%)were from the Coast Artillery Corps or Field Artillery. From memory The Royal Artillery shows a similar ratio, although I don't have the figures to hand.

Regards

JonS

[Andreas]

The key to counterbattery is not only to destroy the enemy guns and soldiers. The positive outcomes can be much more varied than that:

1) Destruction of enemy materiel and personnel

2) Neutralisation of enemy assets at critical times

3) Inhibiting enemy use of assets at any given time

1 in particular, and 2 are achieved by using quite heavy concentrations of fire on the target. They work best as part of a long-term approach to dealing with the fire assets of the enemy that utilises strong reconnaissance combined with heavy fire either at a critical time (during a breakthrough operation or during an enemy attack), or over a long time. The former approach was used by the Soviets at Kursk. The latter approach was used by the Germans on the Leningrad front in summer 1942, in preparation for the planned assault on the city by 11th Army (that then never happened). I am not certain of the success of the former, others know more about Kursk than I do. German evaluation of the latter was that it was very successful, almost leading to a complete cessation of Soviet artillery activity in the sector. This can however have been flawed intelligence, because this reduction in Soviet fire can well have been in preparation for their own offensive against 18th Army in September 1942.

3 is a bit more 'easy-going'. This is where reconnaissance picks up batteries and somtimes single guns, and takes them under fire, compelling them to move. If you have an effective system for picking them up, you can keep the other guys moving, which means that they are not shooting. It also means that sooner or later they will run out of good places to shoot from.

German and Allied approaches to counter-battery seem to have been quite different. The Germans had independent formations (Corps or Army level assets), and had CB batteries attached to Panzerdivisionen. They used flash, sound and balloon spotting, and tried to cover the whole frontline. The Soviets used all of these as well, but seem to have concentrated their CB formations with heavy artillery formations (RGVK regiments and later artillery divisions), which means that they would not be able to cover the whole front, but that in the sectors where they concentrated forces, a lot of these units would have been about. The Commonwealth used mostly sound-ranging, as I understand that, but would have tried to achiev 1, 2 or 3 as well.

I would not agree with Jason's claim that counter-battery was not a great killer of artillery guns or crews unless I see some evidence for that it. It probably was not on the Allied side, where the Germans were generally not able to bring the heavy fire needed. I am much less certain that it was not more of an issue on the German side.

As Mike says, mortars were another completely different problem. BTW Mike, the first German CB started in 1915, IIRC.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I believe the western Allies actually had officers/staffs specifically set up to deal with the problem of counter-mortar work - a very real concern to frontline infantry battalions.

Correct. The RA had a Counter Battery staff at Corps level, but due to the nature of the target, Counter Mortar staffs were usually at a lower level (i.e divisional). Despite great efforts, and some modest success, the problem of the mortar was never satisfactorily countered.

Nigel Evans has a nice summary of CB and CM in the RA.

Regards

JonS

[JasonC]

Counterbattery is difficult because there are limited assets for it and many effective countermeasures. When it all goes perfectly in the day to day case you get only a marginal effect. Huge offensives with enourmous shell supplies can do more, and can indeed silence the enemy artillery park for a critical period of attack. But usually without physically destroyed that park. If a breakthrough results and they can't get away, then you might get the guns.

All sides used longer range pieces for CB work. For the Germans, the standard type was the 10 cm K18, which is rather light caliber for the role. Their 17 cm guns were excellent, but not numerous - only a few hundred were available over the whole war. Even smaller numbers of long 15 cm pieces were also used.

In practice, the number limits meant day to day CB fires were typically a matter of a single battery firing at a suspected enemy gun position. The same guns also had other deep "harassment and interdiction" missions, spreading an already meager portion of the available firepower rather thin.

As for locating them, Andreas has covered many of the methods, but another should be mentioned for the Germans in particular. Signals intelligence. The Germans were very good at locating strong enough, active enemy radio sources and triangulating their position. (It could take a few days, but if the enemy does not move too often that is fine).

The front line Allied units did not really understand the capability and radio discipline was loose. Batteries and HQs could be hit pretty accurately. Some units eventually caught on and kept their radios physically seperate from the rest of the unit and moved them around.

One effective countermeasure to counter battery fire plans was the "roving gun". US and Germans used this often - I don't know so much about the other nations. Basically you detach a single gun from a battery position and fire a few rounds of H&I or CB fire from a different location, away from the battery. Then move again, and do it again. The main battery position remains silent. Not only does the roving gun avoid CB by rapid movement, it leaves a trail of false gun positions on the enemy's CB fire plan map. At the next big offensive, he may bombard all of them, with nobody there. Meanwhile the main battery position remains unlocated.

The US had some 4.5 inch guns for CB work, a bit better than the 10 cm K18 but suffering some similar problems from limited punch. More common was the 155mm gun (as opposed to howitzer). The Russians used long barrel 122s in particular, in independent "gun" rather than "howitzer" regiments.

You can always press everything into service in a CB scheme for a big offensive, the ordinary howitzers included, by using "up" deployments of the batteries themselves. Just behind the line, your "reach" into the enemy rear is deeper. The guns are more exposed to reply themselves. But if you expect to silence (at least temporarily) the bulk of the enemy arty in the sector in a big bombardment, that is an acceptable risk.

Rockets still had too short a range for CB, and the same was true of mortars (except against their opposite number, perhaps). The standard howitzers were best at plastering the enemy front line, but could in a pinch reach deeper into the enemy position. Particularly the heavier calibers.

The most exposed enemy batteries, if perfectly located, can be hit that way. For the first 48-72 hours that will matter. After that, enemy guns will have had time to move around, reserve formations set up secondary positions, the front moves away from your initial gun positions, etc. The full neutralization effect will have passed by then. Either breakthrough takes over or enemy guns come back into operation.

The typical effect of such bombardments on enemy gunners is to drive them away from their guns or to force them to displace. Defenders build dugouts and shelters, if they've been in position for any length of time and enemy CB is at all heavy.

If a barrage is not perfectly accurate the instant it falls, the battery targeted will move. They can see they have been located, though not perfectly. Even if it is accurate, unless the battery is firing at that moment, many of the personnel will not be right beside the guns.

Batteries are sited in a dispersed manner, with HQ and fire direction center, ammo operation and transport pool some distance away from the guns themselves. Certainly larger than a narrow "point" sheaf.

You can see how limited the "annihilation" effect from a typical 10 cm K18 CB mission will be if you place 4 howitzers, 8 trucks, and 2 platoons of infantry over about 400 yards on a CMBB map, dug in, then fire at it with a single German 105mm battery, wide sheaf.

Using a 150mm or better still a 170mm FO will increase your chances of a "best shell" doing significant damage. But you aren't going to wipe out the whole battery.

If you use 3 Russian 122mm gun FOs and the same aim point, you may do more damage. But wait 5 minutes and see how far the panicked units recover, and how much of the damage is lasting. You will damage the soft transportation assets the most, while inflicting only modest personnel casualties.

If you can keep that sort of thing up for months on end, with very good spotting (e.g. from L-5 planes, or a dominant high ground point of observation), plenty of ranged shooters and ammo, then one by one you might run the local enemy out of working batteries.

If he can get away from the superior observation, he is likely to just shift his positions or give up a little ground instead of sitting and taking it, though. He will relocate his batteries in woods, reverse slope dead ground, stay quiet, use roving guns, etc. You will force his fire to slacken, which is useful. But you won't kill all his guns. He has more to send, anyway, if supply links and his ammo is intact.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Andreas:

BTW Mike, the first German CB started in 1915, IIRC.

NO! It was a purely Canadian invention. PURELY I TELL YOU! Like hockey, and the Mercedes Benz. All-Canadian!!!!!

[JasonC]

A check of sorts on the effectiveness of CB fire. I looked through Gerob's German Normandy OOB for reports on artillery strengths in non-static German Heer infantry divisions, and independent higher level arty battalions. The reports are spotty, because the returns aren't all for the same dates or for the most relevant dates. From what reports there are, though, the following picture emerges.

Some units fighting in the Cotentin against the airborne from early on lost 20-25% of the personnel in their arty regiments during June. There are few reports of early personnel losses elsewhere, but one has 10 men lost in one division's arty for a week in the British sector. Some units were destroyed in the Cherbourg area of course, and occasionally one finds a single battery in a battalion that did not get away from that pocket.

In cases where losses up to the breakout can be IDed, they are usually modest. Most seem to be at 70% of TOE gun strength by then. An exception is the 352nd, in heavy action from D-Day onward, which lost 2/3rds of its guns before the breakout.

Gun losses after the breakout rise steeply. The mid to late August figures are typically 50% of TOE, actually a split with some closer to 75% and others closer to 25%. By 1 September, with France lost, the gun losses rise to more like 75%.

The basic picture is that only a quarter of the guns were taken out in a month and a half of heavy attrition fighting, against an enemy with complete control of the air and high levels of artillery ammo expenditure. While half the initial force was lost in the operational scale retreat.

The only serious losses before then occur with cases like paratroops behind the lines, getting cut off in Cherbourg, or an outlier unit that stood directly in front of the main effort for a month and a half.

I submit this picture is consistent with CB fire at most reducing outgoing fire, not annihilating units, quickly or by gradual attrition processes. Guns are killed by failure to keep up in operational retreats. CB can reduce their effectiveness while alive, but does not kill them.

[Michael Dorosh]

And what report have you read that indicated the Allied artillery was actually conducing CB missions? From the little I've read about Canadian arty in Normandy, they spent a lot of time on defensive fire missions just keeping the panzers off the front line, but that is only a superficial assessment on my part.

Do you have reason to believe the Allies were actually targetting German batteries on a regular basis and were unable to eliminate their opposite numbers? Or are the poor stats in that regard from want of trying?

[JasonC]

They were definitely targeting the German batteries. The US front operational histories are full of that stuff. They had L-5s up at daybreak looking for gun flashes. The Germans complain about it, note batteries going quiet to avoid detection, and the like. US ammo expenditure was enourmous. The logistics guys are complaining that they are firing at every possible target, and that ammo demand is out of control because of it.

That much from memory. A little rechecking in the official US history of the St. Lo period alone gives these comments -

Early July German 84 corps complaining of air observation directing CB fires, silencing his batteries, and calls for all available FLAK and air to be shifted to their sector. 7th Army concurs and notes US arty is firing 5-10 times as much as German.

7 July the St. Lo offensive kicks off with a 45 minute prep by corps arty, 9 battalions, firing CB missions, before shifting to the front lines and being joined by the divisional artillery.

Later in the day the German arty is still active. "Corps and div arty fought a steady counterbattery duel, many missions coming from air OP". But the German fire continues. One US division expended 5000x105mm plus 4000x155mm that day.

In the Lehr counterattack, the German artillery is described as showing "unusual activity", including engaging in CB duels with US guns (both ways). US divisions are firing 6000 and 9000 rounds per day. Later one division hits 13000 rounds in 45 missions.

11 July corps arty is described as still conducting its regular CB fires. 13 July, 30th Div arty "waged relentless CB duels", firing 28 CB missions. 14 July it fires 25 CB missions. Another US division is expending 11000 rounds a day.

Still, on the German side up to the fall of St. Lo, the front line commanders describe their exhausted infantry as barely holding on thanks to "outstanding" artillery support from their own guns.

The US was trying plenty, had plenty of means and ammo and observation planes. The Germans complained and took lumps, but remained in action and effective.

[ May 27, 2003, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas:

BTW Mike, the first German CB started in 1915, IIRC.

NO! It was a purely Canadian invention. PURELY I TELL YOU! Like hockey, and the Mercedes Benz. All-Canadian!!!!! </font>

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Caption: "A sideways and height direction listening device of Sound Ranging Section 51 - End of 1915"

"Ach, Wolfgang! I zink ve have finally heard a message from extra-terrestrial lifeforms! Bring out the Zampaigne!"

"Nein Fritz, I zink it is zust another BBC broadcast."

"Teufel! I vish ve had a Krieg on zem Tommies or zumfink..."

[Michael Dorosh]

And the Mercedes??? :mad: :mad: :mad:

Yes, interesting info indeed, Jason.