Operation Veritable: Artillery Ammo Expenditures.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Waste of arty may be defined as its use in a fashion such that, if I fired the shells more intelligently from the standpoint of attrition efficiency, I'd kill or wound ten times as many men for the same ammo, at no risk to myself.

There may well be times when greater expenditure of ammo is called for to secure some tactical objective. But if you give up 90% of the damage the same guns and shells could achieve, to get that, you are almost certainly overpaying.

You are more likely to achieve your eventual strategic objective and to do so cheaply, if you kill more men using the rounds more intelligently. Tactical advantages will present themselves, in the form of enemy sectors too thinly defended, etc.

If you give up half the theoretical possible attrition to suppress enemy A at location B for important task C, fine, that may make tactical sense. And you aren't losing much ground on the ammo efficiency side, if you do this occasionally, with modest overall ammo expenditure, with the fall off in efficiency kept within bounds.

But if you expend half the ammo you'll ever get on grand mega shoots at targets with densities approaching zero, then you will dramatically reduce the overall impact of your arty. If you make a habit of it, whenever the maneuver commanders ask for it or the higher ups want a show, then you will get practically zero overall impact from your arty.

Yes, and none of these factors are present in the current scenario.

JasonC, I agree with your general approach which I think is manouverist within an attritionist wrapper, and I think that is what the CW commanders were doing in the scenario highlighted.

Therefore I feel the CW CO actions in this engagement where scaled, right and proper.

TBH I don't really know what Lewis's point is, apart from yar-boo-sucks.

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by Other Means:

Define a "waste of arty". If you have the shells and can fire them, they won't be missed and will save a life - would you count it as a "waste"?

Bear in mind by this time the CW had been at war for 5 years. Casualty lists in newspapers had lost their inital sparkle. Any HE fired which stopped MG bullets coming back were welcome. Would you as CO have fired less?

Thats wargame thinking. You have to fight another day.

The US had the lowest rate of casualties didn't they? Must have been a fluke huh?

If those 25 pdr shells were replaced with 105mm shells, perhaps the battle would have been different? I am surprised that Jason has not jumped on that fact.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Other Means:

Define a "waste of arty". If you have the shells and can fire them, they won't be missed and will save a life - would you count it as a "waste"?

Bear in mind by this time the CW had been at war for 5 years. Casualty lists in newspapers had lost their inital sparkle. Any HE fired which stopped MG bullets coming back were welcome. Would you as CO have fired less?

Thats wargame thinking. You have to fight another day.

The US had the lowest rate of casualties didn't they? Must have been a fluke huh? </font>

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Other Means:

Define a "waste of arty". If you have the shells and can fire them, they won't be missed and will save a life - would you count it as a "waste"?

Bear in mind by this time the CW had been at war for 5 years. Casualty lists in newspapers had lost their inital sparkle. Any HE fired which stopped MG bullets coming back were welcome. Would you as CO have fired less?

Thats wargame thinking. You have to fight another day.

The US had the lowest rate of casualties didn't they? Must have been a fluke huh?

If those 25 pdr shells were replaced with 105mm shells, perhaps the battle would have been different? I am surprised that Jason has not jumped on that fact. </font>

[JonS]

BTW Jason, while I agree with the general principles, I don't agree with arty attrition as a valid doctrine. The density of targets in the opening of Veritable wasn't especially low - the Germans knew an attack was coming and roughly where. The Germans had 5 bns on a front of ~7,000 yds, which doesn't strike me as especially sparse.

The RA tried again and again, and just could not acheive worthwhile destructive effects, against either men or material. VERITABLE showed that, as did VARSITY later, and the attack on Boulogne earlier. All the advantages were with the RA in these cases, but they were not prepared to use Somme-like weeks-long bombardments to 'guarantee' destruction. I appreciate that the centrepiece of your theory is that repeated bleeds of a few men in many locations, day after day destroy divs within a few weeks, and not 'one day of big bangs sould do it'. And I agree. But if that's all you do the western Allies would still be in Normandy now.

Neutralisation followed by a supported infantry advance secured objectives and destroyed enemy fmns at an acceptable cost in shells, lives, and time. In VERITABLE the artillery caused 60-odd cas (plus some material) over about 12 hours. The infantry exploiting the effects of the artillery caused 1100-odd cas (PWs) in the space of about 6 hours, and advanced several miles while penetrating the enemies 'elaborate defences'.

Regards

JonS

BTW, FWIW, this is what the report has ot say about the enemy. Usual caveats about wartime reports discussing the enemy, although in this case the report is by a bunch of scientists who were doing this sort of thing for a job.

The Enemy: Quality, Dispositions and Defences

8. The front was held entirely by 84 Division, a formation in every way typical of German second-class infantry. The Division wa well up to strength in men and material. If anything it was a little above average in the medical category of troops.

9. The disposition of units in the area of the atack is known fairly accurately, and is shown on Map II. It will be seen that in the first instancewe attacked into 4 seperate enemy battalions and met elements of 2 more battalions further back.

10. The defences encountered in the first drive were extensive, but not particularly strong; there was no concrete. Weapon pit and communication trenches were not usually covered in, but there were numerous roofed dugouts. There were many houses in the area, mostly isolated, the cellars of which had clearly been used as shelters, but had not been reinforced.

[ March 12, 2005, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Other Means]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Waste of arty may be defined as its use in a fashion such that, if I fired the shells more intelligently from the standpoint of attrition efficiency, I'd kill or wound ten times as many men for the same ammo, at no risk to myself.

There may well be times when greater expenditure of ammo is called for to secure some tactical objective. But if you give up 90% of the damage the same guns and shells could achieve, to get that, you are almost certainly overpaying.

You are more likely to achieve your eventual strategic objective and to do so cheaply, if you kill more men using the rounds more intelligently. Tactical advantages will present themselves, in the form of enemy sectors too thinly defended, etc.

If you give up half the theoretical possible attrition to suppress enemy A at location B for important task C, fine, that may make tactical sense. And you aren't losing much ground on the ammo efficiency side, if you do this occasionally, with modest overall ammo expenditure, with the fall off in efficiency kept within bounds.

But if you expend half the ammo you'll ever get on grand mega shoots at targets with densities approaching zero, then you will dramatically reduce the overall impact of your arty. If you make a habit of it, whenever the maneuver commanders ask for it or the higher ups want a show, then you will get practically zero overall impact from your arty.

JasonC, let me answer this again - in hope of me learning more.

Would it really have matted to the WE if they HAD fired 10X more ammo? Your calculations seem to be predicated on the upper edge being the amount of ammo available.

Whereas ISTM that the WE can afford to shoot off more or less what they want. There were no hold ups while ammo stocks were re-filled. So a purely attritionist doctrine in this won't be calculable as an upper shells-fireable isn't really an issue.

[Wartgamer]

I suppose it would be interesting to compare US and CW casualties during the fight across france. The US starts out way behind due to a bad showing on D Day. I believe that US casualties were 200K for the whole D Day to VE day.

I actually agree with JonS about Jason's theories. It does not seem that the German division was that well entrenched. Its just another example how hard it is to defeat infantry with artillery if they are not out and about.

And it does not take hours of bombardment to cut commo wire. It can be done rather quickly. 15-30 minutes. Even quicker when you have a general idea about the units dispositions (which was the case).

The German command should have taken some Corp or Army action if such a barrage was going on. I suppose this battle is worth further reading.

And the British arty during the Somme was nearly useless. One division commander DID use his arty correctly and achieved his goals. The French taught him how it seems.

[ March 12, 2005, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

I suppose it would be interesting to compare US and CW casualties during the fight across france. The US starts out way behind due to a bad showing on D Day. I believe that US casualties were 200K for the whole D Day to VE day.

Canadian infantry (rifle) battalions had an establishment of roughly 801 officers and men each, with about 450 in the rifle companies.

From June 1944 to May 1945, battalions averaged around 400 killed and 1600 wounded. I can get some specific figures for you, if you have comparable figures for US units. I don't have a breakdown per campaign - major actions were Normandy (June to Aug 1944), Channel Ports, Antwerp and Albert Canal (Sep 1944), The Scheldt (Oct 1944), Rhineland/Veritable (Feb 1945) and the Final Phase (March - April 1945).

[JonS]

It strikes me that Jasons' Arty-Attrition Theory (AAT) and the RAs Neutralisation Theory (NT) are actually compatible. Further, that both can be carried out at the same time.

NT helps to acheive immediate, short-term objectives that advance the war and improve 'our' overall situation relative to the enemys.

AAT helps to acheive long time wearing down of one side faster than your own is being worn down.

So in the case of VERITABLE, to take a random example , NT got the infantry into and through the first couple of miles of the heavily defended Rhineland, which was a pre-requisite to crossing the Rhine. They are in a worse position at the end of it, we are in a better position.

AAT (applied to the same fireplan) saw ~3% enemy killed and incapacitated, and some equipment lost for essentially no loss to the CW artillery. They are now a bit weaker in men and equipment, we are relativly a bit stronger.

But the AAT gains are negligible compared to the NT gains, in this case. However, AAT can be repeated in many places tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, etc, until the enemy collapses. Grinding, remorseless attrition (well, duh!).

NT situations - especially on anything approaching the scale of VERITABLE - are rarer, and take a while to set up. In all of NWE there were probably about a dozen CW attacks on an artillery scale comparable to VERITABLE. Smaller NT situations come up more often, especially across an Army Group, and can be exploited more rapidly, but the returns are comensurately smaller.

Jon

[JonS]

Jason,

could you email me please. The email in your profile is invalid.

Cheers

Jon

[Wartgamer]

But the AAT gains are negligible compared to the NT gains, in this case. However, AAT can be repeated in many places tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, etc, until the enemy collapses. Grinding, remorseless attrition (well, duh!).

You can't maintain this sort of firing rate. You would probably ruin 25 pdr barrels in a month of shoots like this. Also, manufacture/delivery of this rate of rounds can't be maintained. As an attriting device, light artillery (25 pdr) is probably the worst.

As a cover defeating weapon, the 25 pdr is inadequate.

Firing at real firing rate levels and attrition goes to zip against dug in troops.

[dieseltaylor]

One thing that strikes me here is that the morale effects, both on the attacking troops and the defenders [local and bystanders] is worth having. If you wanted to run a tote amongst all in the vicinity at that time on number of men killed and wounded I suspect that they may have gone for much higher figures.

And perhaps more importantly for the Commonwealth civilian market the sight and sound, via the news reels, of the bombardment for the troops assault of the famous Siegfried line was worth quite a lot more than using up a stock of artillery shells.

Tsk! You military types - no thought for propaganda.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Other Means:

Define a "waste of arty".

I think my definition would be "reserve artillery".

All the best,

John.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

The 25 pdr is somewhat of a light shell. Indeed, its a small HE carrier. They had to be used as a neutralizer/fragment-maker.

You are holding your chain of causality backwards. The RA were not, as you seem to imagine, reduced to a doctrine of "fire for neutrlization" because of the terrible inadequacy of the 25-pdr. The 25-pdr was specifically designed in accordance with that doctrine, which had been developed by some thoughtful people at Larkhill who knew a good deal about field gunnery, much from hard experience. They chose the 25-pdr over a 105mm howitzer design that was also under consideration -- although its carriage made it into service, as the 25-pdr carriage.

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

I also disagree that a 25 pdr is good for a creeping barrage.

I suggest that you inform yourself about the occasions on which it was proven to be most effective, then. In particular, I believe it is Blackburn's "Guns of Normandy" that says German infantry believed that 25-pdrs were issued with a non-lethal shell for the last few rounds of a bombardment, as they could not otherwise believe how quickly the infantry followed up.

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

One of the factors is the fragment size. Shells with small percentage of HE tend to make large fragment chunks. these fly great distances. Shells with high HE content blast the casing into smaller pieces that lose velocity over distance.

In naturally-fragmenting shells, fragment size will follow a negative-exponential formula (Mott's equation), so I doubt it makes a great deal of difference when compared with the obvious fact that a larger shell with a larger payload makes more fragments altogether and has a larger area of effect.

All the best,

John.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

The creeping barrage is easily defeated. Just firing a barrage of shells in front of your own positions, when they come under fire, stalls the attacking infantrys pace. Once the barrage moves past your positions, you open up with MGs and other weapons.

A brilliant idea, provided only that you can wish away the attacker's CB programme. You seem quite prepared to delude yourself that 21 AG's artillery was incapable of mounting any sort of CB programme, but a very slight acquaintance with their history will reveal what complete nonsense that is.

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

And just because something requires calculations, doesnt justify its use. A TOT, which does not require as many calcs as many think, is much more effective. Its also a great jump off signal so attacking infantry can coordinate.

Ah, the amazing party trick of the TOT shoot, always touted as the distinctive achievement of American artillery by wargamers whose knowledge of artillery tactics is based mainly on James Sulzen's piece (http://www.combatmission.com/articles/Arty/arty.asp) based on a talk at Origins '96 by Dave Wesely. As James says in the intro, he learnt things in that talk that he had never heard anywhere else. Unsurprising, really, because much of it is pure moonshine. In particular, the idea that only the Americans could do the brain-crunchingly hard maths needed to subtract the time of flight from the time of opening fire beggars belief.

Now, consider, how many nation's artillery could do a trick like a William target?

All the best,

John.

[melb_will]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

James Sulzen's piece (http://www.combatmission.com/articles/Arty/arty.asp)

I just read this. Made me scratch my head a bit actually. At the start James points out that he couldn't find supporting or refuting evidence.

He must not have looked very hard. IMHO and in books which if anyone cares enough I'll look up, the Brits definitely took into account environmental conditions when firing shells. I'm sure there may be others but that one just comes to mind.

cheers

Will

[Andreas]

German artillery formations only had a meteorological platoon for fun. And because the first keeper of Adolf's favourite dog was a meteorologist, and they got along well, so Adolf wrote in 'Mein Kampf' that all meteorologists would be spared during the war, by being used in HQ meteorological platoons. They really were not needed to deal with the impact of weather on firing guns and howitzers.

As an aside, he did not like geographers, so they all went to the infantry.

All this is well known. Facts dear boy, facts. So the article is wrong. As it is on the use of radio by German FOOs.

[JasonC]

"worthwhile destructive effects, against either men or material."

When you try to destroy divisions in one shot with a prep bombardment, you get squat. That is not the way to use arty. Yes the Brits did that on a massive scale on numerous occasions, in WW I and II, and got squat to show for it. Artillery attrition is a strategy, not a method of letting Tommy go over the top with impunity.

"they were not prepared to use Somme-like weeks-long bombardments to 'guarantee' destruction."

At the Somme, they were trying to achieve "breakthrough", to win the war with one big push, after one of those typical set piece seven day "everyone in their shelters" shell wastes. And lost disasterously. Then they settled down to much more sensible fighting for six months. Which also cost them, but cost the Germans about as much (not the first day, though, that cost them next to nothing and the Brits an arm and two legs).

The later five months of the Somme, on the other hand, did see systematic artillery attrition. It just wasn't well planned. It still scared the bejeesus out of the Germans (read Falkenhayn on it. The first day didn't scare them, but they could hardly believe it when the Brits didn't stop after that. They couldn't see how to stop the bleeding).

"repeated bleeds of a few men in many locations, day after day destroy divs within a few weeks, and not 'one day of big bangs sould do it'. And I agree."

Quite. And you probe the whole time. Not one arm trying to take the place of another - that is what these grandious shoots are. They are trying to employ one arm in separation, without regard for its own inherent logic, just subordinating it to a problem another arm is having. We might get shot by MGs. What can the arty do for us? They could shoot off all their ammo in 5 hours - yeah, that's it! Mindless.

"But if that's all you do the western Allies would still be in Normandy now."

If it depended on the British sector they would be. But it didn't. Where did the breakthrough occur? US sector. Why did the breakthrough occur? The Germans did not have enough left to hold a line. Why did they run out? Because half a dozen infantry divisions assigned to the area were devoured by two US corps in nasty attrition fighting, within 2 weeks.

June the US is just going after Cherbourg. July they turn south, some prelims earlier but the big attack starts on the 11th. Between July 11 and July 25, they chew through the whole German defense. They lose 300 men per division per day doing it, and they fire off a million and a half rounds of heavy arty (plus mortars, tanks, etc). But the Germans are the ones that run out of infantrymen. When the front is so thin the battalions are the size of platoons, several US divisions attacking at once still take two days to pick their way across the carpet bombed moonscape. But there is nothing adequate left to stop them.

How did this happen? Did the US infantry sit on their backsides and tell the arty to shoot off a lot of ammo at heads down enemies in podunk, with no targeting intel, no simultaneous threat to get the Germans to man their positions? No. It happens by battalion after battalion on day after day following this drill: One company in reserve. One company probes. One company support by fire from the start line. Reserve relieves probe company and defends anything taken, if anything is taken. Nibble. Nibble.

No serious threat in that at all, except it takes place under the barrage. 6 US IDs on on-line, with 2 corps artillery groups. That is roughly 300 105s and 200 155s firing every day, on *observed* targets, on *manned, forward* defenses. Not cellars. Not dugouts. No "while the arty barrage is happening, nobody needs togo outside. After it, no more shells will land".

The Germans go into crisis management mode within days of the start of the US July offensive. They send division after division into the front - some from the Brit sector, most off the march from Brittany etc as they arrive. They arrive and get thrown in and a few days later cadres are left. Lehr has 10 infantry battalions subordinate by then, and still can't man a line they are all so weak. Divisions report trench strengths of 700 men.

This did not happen in 5 hours, it did not happen because everybody else sat still while gunners pulled lanyards. It happened because the whole attack caused massive attrition to the defending German infantry. Because they had to fight off probe after probe, and every time they did so they got another helping of directed arty. While they *weren't* in their cellars.

[JonS]

* sigh *

The RA knew a thing or two about directing artillery fire. CW inf didn't sit on their chuffs waiting for the RA to win it for them. The whole point of NT is combined arms - what can we do for you, what can you do for us.

As I said, I'm inclined to agree with you, but I don't think it is the complete answer. However, when you start spouting jingoistic things like "If it depended on the British sector they would be [still in Normandy]" I have to wonder a bit. You aren't Tittles/wartgamer or waltero or blue division. You're better than that Jason.

COBRA and VERITABLE are similar in some respects - massive intial bombardment to get through the crust. Although it didn't take the XXX Corps two days to do it. They did it in a morning. See, I can play too, but it's a dumb game.

Jon

[JasonC]

Understand, the Germans have a defensive doctrine of defense in depth, dug in MGs and registered arty, and instant counterattack. They are tigers at it. It is meant to defeat immediate breakthrough, to screen the front with modest forces (not thick arty targets) when things are quiet, and to intimidate the heck out of attackers. You are supposed to stick your fingers in there once or twice, get burned, get intimidated, and back off. The Germans have to pay a bit for each of those intimidations. But they pay, and if you back off then they stop paying any more. They hold the front securely and cheaply (blood cheap, not forces used cheap - the forces used remain intact).

Well the US in Normandy just refused to be intimidated by it. Didn't know any better, I am sure was the view of some. But they didn't try to run a breakthrough proof defense scheme off its legs in one go, either. Constant probes with massive on call arty are well adapted to defeating this scheme of defense. When the line is thinned, held by OPs, company sized probes drive in the OPs. They take ground, sometimes hurt the OPs as well. That triggers doctrinal instant counterattacks. Which may well succeed - like as not. But even when they do, they put the counterattackers on a known bit of ground out of their deep shelters and in contact. The place they take back blows up.

If they try to hold everything thickly up front, the arty would grind them to powder in days. If they try to just screen, the ground ebbs away. They can mix it up, giving here and being stubborn there, and thus try to spread a bit of misdirection. They can try larger scale counterattacks - but they aren't likely to go anywhere against a superior force. They can thin selected bits of the front, as bluff - but they will get called on it here or there over time, and the most they get is some delay.

An active, aggressively counterattacking defense in depth makes very high demands on the defenders, if it is actually expected to operate daily. If it only has to work 2-3 times and the other guy gets the message and backs off, that is one thing. But if the defenders are expect to operate it every day against a superior force for weeks, they take losses. If they are very good at it, maybe they inflict even higher losses on the attackers. But they *will* bleed. And rapidly. That is what happened to the Germans opposite the US sector in July. And they flat ran out.

[JasonC]

No jingo in it, plain fact. Goodwood failed, Cobra didn't. As set pieces, either one had anything you please. The Germans threw as much armor against Cobra as they had for Goodwood - which was precious little, frankly. The difference wasn't that the Brits were idiots, it was that the Germans had not run out of infantry in their sector, and they had run out of infantry in the US sector. And the reason for that is what happened in the two weeks prior to either attempt, in the respective sectors. The US was systematically bleeding the German infantry to death on their portion of the front. That was the difference.

[JonS]

Originally posted by JasonC:

That triggers doctrinal instant counterattacks. Which may well succeed - like as not. But even when they do, they put the counterattackers on a known bit of ground out of their deep shelters and in contact. The place they take back blows up.

You know, you could be just as well be describing the German experience east of Caumont.

But that's after the attack. How do you get them on to the objective in the first place? That's where NT, combined arms, helps most.

[Wartgamer]

Neutralisation was 'complete' however, and comms throughout the div were rooted, which among other things rendered the German arty that did survive - about 2/3 of the 147-odd pieces supporting the 84th Inf Div - useless.

This number (147) must be the grand total of all howitzers, mortars, ATG, IG and whatever else they had. It was not all artillery like 105mm or 150mm.

The 105/150 arty that survived was severed by loss of commo after the barrage. As I said before, this could have been accomplished with much less effort.

I am sure there were AT, mortars and other pieces that survived that contributed to the CW infantry losses. Indirect arty battalion were neuted but the German division still fought.

I assume that about 20% of the German division was lost through KIA/WIA/MIA? In other words, there was still a division left after the first day? Most of its trech strength was zapped though?

[ March 13, 2005, 08:43 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Wartgamer]

Another item of particular interest during this battle was the issue of rum. During the complete campaign in NW Europe 53 Division issued 2894 gallons of rum; in the seven days of the Reichswald 1228 gallons were consumed!

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

Another item of particular interest during this battle was the issue of rum. During the complete campaign in NW Europe 53 Division issued 2894 gallons of rum; in the seven days of the Reichswald 1228 gallons were consumed!

And what was the standard issue of rum for a seven day period? You do realize the rum ration was a standard part of active service, yes?