Operation Veritable: Artillery Ammo Expenditures.

[Wartgamer]

Yes I am contesting Jason's theory (quite successfully and thanks for the data).

But if the troops were already under such indirect fire, I would imagine that the MG fire would have another effect beyond the limited thinking of a 'thickening agent'.

The arrival of MG fire would give the defending troops the impression of proximity of enemy forces.

And yes, most firepower can have a neutralizing effect, most people, including me, know it. But the fact that even the smallest indirectly fired HE type projectile can have the neutralizing effect of the impression of danger (it make a bang) can not be said of MG bullets. They must land very close to actual enemy position.

But I would challenge anyone that thinks JUST indirect MG fire is going to cause much of it.

188 x MMG (Vickers) (2,000,000 rnds)

Each gun has about 17 minutes worth of 'neut' power. Spread out over the time period, it would have been best used at the tail end of a targeted area. IE. a known enemy held group of buildings that has just been shellacked by real indirect fire weapons. Just distributing bursts randomly across 260 minutes may have made some officer happy but its just pissing away bullets.

I would attribute the POWs to many things. As anyone would. The war situation (prospects looking down at the time), just having an unreasonable amount of enemy attention, being out numbered (did you forget about this?) and some other things.

My math is actually quite good. It needs no pants. And, yes, the CW is probably the least interesting to me until lately. Some have told me that it is difficult to discuss the CW with some fans of these forces. But I bet there are many nice ones just the same.

[ March 12, 2005, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Melnibone]

Yaaaaaaaaawngamer

[Wartgamer]

CW Intel Officer: "Why did you surrender to our forces, you Nazi Bastard you?"

German POW: "It vus your excellent use of ze Vickers Masheengunts hitting the woofs of ze dugowts! I knew ze var vas lost then!!"

[Wartgamer]

UK/Can inf cas during this phase were 459, incl 110 on mines, spread across 12 bns.

And what do you attribute the 349 non-mine casualties to? A non-neutralized enemy I hope?

The Germans did fight back is the bottom line. I am sure some POWs were taken without a fight, Many Germans fought first and then gave up and some still either ran completely away or withdrew after some combat. And, of course, some died during combat.

I suppose that if you 'neutralize' the enemy, and do not followup with an assault on that enemy, you have just pissed away material and wasted an opportunity. The first part of the fire plan accomplished just that.

The creeping barrage, with its inherent dependancy on troops arriving right after a position has been barraged, is such a primitive use of artys potential.

The US would have used the shells better.

[ March 12, 2005, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[flamingknives]

And yes, most firepower can have a neutralizing effect, most people, including me, know it. But the fact that even the smallest indirectly fired HE type projectile can have the neutralizing effect of the impression of danger (it make a bang) can not be said of MG bullets. They must land very close to actual enemy position.

I am reliably informed that a bullet passing 20' over your head sounds no different to one passing 20" over your head

[Wartgamer]

And you can tell if its friendly or hostile? And it isnt muffled out by all the other noise? The planes, the AA, the arty, the whole wall of sound?

An explosion occurring in your vicinity has much more sinister intentions.

And indirect MG fire is very spread out on the recieving end. Hitting anything is just luck and would be percieved as single shots and not the same as if you were being targeted by a directly firing MG. This is why I would not use individual guns but rather a dozen guns all targeting the same 'area'. This way, its a percieved mass of bullets dropping. And, as you can see, its very limited in actual area you can effect. If they all target a small farm lets say, about 100 yds square, then they can possibly keep it neuted as long as they fire. But they will eat up much ammo and it cant last forever. About 17min to maybe a an hour. And its a very small area considering the total area that is being attacked.

Unlike a HE attack, once its stopped, its rapidly recovered from. Troops in trenches would have been safe and anyone with any overhead cover untouchable. HE deafens, shellshocks, creates massive dust and displacement of soil. MG bullets? c'mon.

[ March 12, 2005, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Is this where the virgins start talking about sex, too?

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Is this where the virgins start talking about sex, too?

If thats what you have done, then I guess that was the start.

I have had high velocity automatic weapons fire over my head. Also impact the ground near me. No HE beyond close proximity to hand grenades.

I have extensive reading, just as many of the others here, in regards to this.

I have had single shot HV rifles going over my head approx 20 feet. The only indication of where it came from was the report. In indirect MG, you would not get that since the MGs are so far away. Also, the bullets will have scrubbed much velocity at longe range. It would not have the same feel as a string of 30 cal going over your head that direct fire has.

Being under a real arty barrage may be an experience few people have had here. Certainly no one has experienced anything like a TOT or massive shelling like Veritable.

Readings indicate that the effects are like being bounced around, beaten up, gagging from dust/dirt/fumes, intense discomfort to say the least. Many report a feeling of being dazed, punch drunk, and needing time to shake the effects off. Deafness and ringing in the ears can effect anyone that does not cover the ears and opens the mouth to equalize pressure. The need for water is intense afterwards. Urinating on ones self can be common and there is the occasional crapper.

A persons first experience of this is probably the worst. The odd occurance of someone actually fleeing under intense bombardment is typically a new person. Suicide also happens. larger HE like carpet bombing drives people crazy.

[ March 12, 2005, 01:59 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Soddball]

I was blown up in an artillery barrage.

I got better.

[Wartgamer]

Yes I thought as much. So, were you a pisser or a crapper or both?

As far as artillery tactics, this whole Veritible action kind of has a WWI feel to it. This is late WWII?

[ March 12, 2005, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

The creeping barrage, with its inherent dependancy on troops arriving right after a position has been barraged, is such a primitive use of artys potential.

I wouldn't knock it if it works. Simple concentrations are a much more "primitive" use of arty, in terms of the calculations needed to fire them.

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

The US would have used the shells better.

I beg leave to doubt that, given that the US had a doctrine of "fire for destruction" as opposed to the RA's "fire for neutralisation", and the characteristics of the 105mm howitzer (bigger bang, steeper angle) make it hard to follow up as closely as 25-pdr. Leaving aside the fact that Commonwealth gunners were the most professional and effective artillery of any in WW2.

All the best,

John.

[Wartgamer]

Table 2 - Shell and Filling Weights

HE Shell

Weight (lbs)

HE % Weight

76.2-mm OF354

14

10.9

25-pdr

25

7.0

3.7-in How

28

9.0

10.5-cm Gr38

33

9.3

105-mm M1

33

14.8

122-mm OF 462

48

16.9

[ March 12, 2005, 03:45 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[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.

Jason did have some interesting data as far as what is needed to stop 105mm class shells from getting casualties. Its apparent that the earthworks needed to stop a 25 pdr would be much less.

1.75 pds HE (25 pdr) vs. 4.88 pds HE (105mm)? Do not even compare them.

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

This website claims that a US 105mm is about 70% greater equivalent than a 25 pdr.

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

Having a weapon with very tight 50% zones (or using a charge that attains that), would be a preferable creeping barrage method. The troops are trying to stay as close to the barrage as possible. Shorts would certainly be a problem.

Some data I have for German weapons shows that higher velocity charges leads to tighter spread of the shells.

[ March 12, 2005, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

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

The creeping barrage, with its inherent dependancy on troops arriving right after a position has been barraged, is such a primitive use of artys potential.

I wouldn't knock it if it works. Simple concentrations are a much more "primitive" use of arty, in terms of the calculations needed to fire them.

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

The US would have used the shells better.

I beg leave to doubt that, given that the US had a doctrine of "fire for destruction" as opposed to the RA's "fire for neutralisation", and the characteristics of the 105mm howitzer (bigger bang, steeper angle) make it hard to follow up as closely as 25-pdr. Leaving aside the fact that Commonwealth gunners were the most professional and effective artillery of any in WW2.

All the best,

John. </font>

[Wicky]

Stylistic Deja Vue

Mr Tittles once said, before he imploded:

I was optimistically hoping that since CM2 was supposedly being worked on concurrently with the CMAK patch, that they would drop some experimental goodies on us. Just to see how we would feeedback on it. I should drink less I suppose.

[ March 12, 2005, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[JasonC]

I believe I explicitly stated that attempting annihilation by arty by overconcentrating rounds fired in space and time, especially on the hardest dug in targets, is extremely wasteful from a men hit per round fired attritionist perspective.

Arty attrites is not equivalent to arty annihilates, nor to neutralizes. Both of the latter are maneuver commander objectives - to eliminate a particular position in the maneuever units' way (annihilation) or to suppress them for a period the maneuver units need (neutralization).

Attrition is focused on a distinctly longer time scale and does not care whether the enemy is neutralized, for how long, nor expect him to be annihilated. It wants the most efficient shooting, in likely kills per round. Therefore it does not concentrate them in time and space on tiny enemy subunits. It wants to shoot at large targets not small ones, with moderate doses per unit time (to avoid overkill waste at select points, etc).

Getting a good target can also mean coordination with manuever arms, of course. Forcing the enemy to man forward positions, to come out of his dugouts, to counterattack points seize within his defense, etc. Combined arms applies, obviously (single threats all have counters).

When arty is used to further objectives distinct from efficient attrition, the efficiency of attrition naturally suffers. In the case under discussion, no attritionist minded artillerist would waste so much ammo on such a thin target.

[Wartgamer]

Why not just wait for an enemy attack and then you get the best kills per round? The best Attrition is a Defense?

The whole attrition aspect is another WWI throwback.

The Veritible data shows just how difficult dug in troops are to get at with arty. Once they are in the bunkers, trenches, etc. They are like dugin ticks.

You can't attrite what you can't get at.

The absolute best way to use artillery, when trying to win a war of actually taking ground, is to have a very short duration intense bombardment that is followed up by quickly moving attack forces. It isn't a new concept, many good military units were doing it in WWI!

This actually saves shells. You get maximum bang per buck. Fast firing artillery is the best followed by masses of slower firing weapons. The US actually had both with the 105mm. The TOT and Concentrations that the US practiced were superior to any other nation.

Its becoming apparent that guns did not have as many shells delivered that they could fire. Even a 1 shell a minute rate can't be kept up. Shooting 200-500 shells and getting a casualty, who may be patched up anyway, is poor returns.

You could get better attrition by using trained snipers.

[ March 12, 2005, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[JasonC]

Making the enemy attack you is a perfectly fine idea. One way you do that is night infiltration. Another is forming pockets when you can. Then, precisely, you get good arty targets.

You can also get good arty targets just by forcing the enemy to thickly man forward positions. E.g. by broad front, opportunistic and incessant, infantry probes. When he leaves only OPs forward, your probes KO them. When he leaves a sector empty, you grab something.

When he fully mans his line, your probe detects it, calls for fire, and that fire plasters defenders who are not hiding in cellars or deep dugouts, because you can't see from those places. On these occasions, you do not need to take the ground. You just make him pay for having stopped you today, by taxing him 10% of the infantry he used to do it.

You also just grab points with good observation, and opportunistically shoot up anything seen moving about on the enemy side of the line. An OP with binocs and a field phone bleeds everything it can see for a week. This might entice the enemy to counterattack and try to take the observation point. Fine, good shooting. Or he might withdraw from the area dominated by the OP. Fine, ground gained, pocket it. Or he might stand and hold. Fine, bleed him white, right where he stands.

Arty attrition as a strategy (meaning, other arms work to help it, not the other way around) is a passive aggressive form of warfare. It is stubborn and relentless. It lets the enemy pick the form of his suffering, not trying to force one outcome upon him. But it ensures he suffers.

No pursuit of mythical breakthroughs before the enemy is so weak he can't hold a line. No grand over the top infantry charges. No attempt to win the war in one day. It is a perfectly decisive form of warfare when it is done well. It requires time, patience, and a logistical advantage. It is enough on its own to turn those meager assets - even modest advantages in those things - into inexorable strategic results.

As for snipers, in fact they use similar principles. They pick their shots, patiently. They don't care about the outcome of today's battle. They just care about a clean, asymmetric kill. Then they repeat. Their method does not scale with mere scoped rifles. But battalions of 155s can also get clean asymmetric kills, and can get them to scale up to the point where infantry divisions bleed to death, in weeks.

[Wartgamer]

I respectfully think that you are changing the parameters. You are actually a very good poster and bring up good discussions. This is like the old board I remember from a few years ago. Not sure if you were around then.

Arty attrites on longer time scales than individual CM scenarios. But it attrites on a massive scale, when the time scale is extended to anything from a few weeks to a few months. The cold fact is armies that can field millions of men can field hundreds of millions of large caliber shells (in major wars).

Formations of tens of thousands of men get tens to hundreds of thousands of shells tossed at them in single battles (operations, whatever you want to call them - engagements between divisions to armies on a time scale of weeks to months). The shells are readily replaced before the next one. The men aren't.

In CM, if you buy a 105mm module and hit 10-15 men with it, you will probably consider it a waste. The real ratios between the things in the long run mean, if you get shooting only that good, the other guy is going to run out of men way before you run out of shells.

A tactician may think the only point of arty is to suppress, because he doesn't expect a modest barrage to annihilate whole companies at a go. But a logistician knows better. You don't have to win the war this afternoon. The enemy is right over there, he isn't going anyplace. As fast as you can truck up the shells, he bleeds.

The only way to stop that is to dig in so deep, with such an enourmous investment in materials and labor, that every unit really has that double log bunker with 3 feet of packed earth, or (when the 150s and 155s come up) even more. Which only happens at lines prepared six months in advance by huge engineering operations, or static for ages.

The big difference between WW I and II in this regard wasn't that tanks won by driving around the other guy (though that did of course happen, especially early against inexperienced enemies etc). It was just that fronts that move at all - even just a few miles a day - never really get arty proof. And as a result, whoever has the logistics bleeds the other guy to death - pretty rapidly, operationally speaking. JasonC

[ March 12, 2005, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Other Means]

The thing is it isn't 200-500 shells getting a casualty. It's the shells landed achieving the objective. The objective in this case was a breakthrough in the lines; which was achieved. During that breakthrough the enemy had a certain amount captured, a certain amount wounded a certain amount KIA.

You yourself list the end which it achieves and then re-state 200-500 per casualty.

It wasn't that ratio pre casualty which was the important statistic.

It was that ratio per casualty + (percentage of PoW) + Delay of reinforcements + lack of comms + etc etc.

[Wartgamer]

It was actually in the thousands if you followed the earlier math. Lets say that German losses including POW were 1500, its still 266 shells for each German 'victory'. Many of them fought and it was no cake walk. The CW forces suffered 5% cas among inf? Perhaps they also had armor losses?

Most people would recognize this is as a waste of arty.

If the CW units had any good counterbattery, they could have easily just used 1/10th the shells in conjunction with detection units to achieve the main result of all those shells; ie. stopping the German defense by neutralizing the German arty. They could have smothered it once it disclosed itself. Creeping barrages could have been replaced with fast firing precision missions against definite enemy positions.

I suspect the attacking forces had much in the way of armor advantage also. They probably had a OK advantage in infantry. They certainly had the arty advantage. And the air forces.

But the Germans still fought. They were not completely neutralized. They were no where near destroyed (but heavy weapons may have had a loss rate). The CW won but still had casualties and expended an enormous amount of firepower.

[ March 12, 2005, 06:51 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[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?

[JonS]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

If the CW units had any good counterbattery, they could have easily just used 1/10th the shells in conjunction with detection units to achieve the main result of all those shells; ie. stopping the German defense by neutralizing the German arty. They could have smothered it once it disclosed itself. Creeping barrages could have been replaced with fast firing precision missions against definite enemy positions.

They DID have good (excellent, actually) CB you clown! Can't you read? From my other post:

comms throughout the [84 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.

What do you think the first 5 hour bombardment was for? Just mucking about till daylight or smfink? There was no German artillery fire throughout the first day.

You are wasting peoples time here. Just like your alter ego did before he was banned.

Hi Mom, and goodbye.

[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.

[Wartgamer]

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

comms throughout the [84 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All this says is that some weapons were destroyed during the barrage. Its apparent that you think it was because of counter battery. I disagree and since its apparent that the Germans did not fire, how do you show that it was counter battery fire then? For someone that feels at ease calling people names, you sure do show a remarkably silly logic patterns.

You seem like a particularly testy fellow and I hope you get help.

A German inf division being supported by 147 odd pieces? Seems a bit much?