Artillery Battery Fire Direction

[usdaoven]

During World War II, who, by duty position and in a battery, calculated the firing data for each gun? What was the name of the organization in which this duty position existed? Typically, where on the battlefield was this organization? Ok, that's enough questions to start with.

 

[Old Sweat]

Shortish answer: In British pattern artillery, which included us, the initial fire order included a grid reference of the target picked from the map by the forward observer. A field or medium battery had two troops, each of four guns controlled by a troop command post. Each command post was led by a lieutenant gun position officer (GPO) with a small staff of signallers and technical assistants (TARAs.) A TARA would plot the target on an artillery board (think big, blank map sheet) and read the direction and range from the right gun in the troop to the target. Corrections for weather, muzzle velocity, etc could be added and the result was ordered to the guns.

If more than one troop was involved the gun data for each troop was checked by the battery command post under the control of the command post officer (CPO) and his staff. If more than one battery was required, fire was controlled by the regimental command post under the direction of the adjutant. If more than one regiment was required the brigade major, royal artillery (BMRA) did the same at divisional artillery headquarters.

There is much more to it than this, but our artillery outclassed that of all our enemies, and in technical ability, that of the Red Army as well. It is still an open question whether the Brit or the American system was better. The main difference is that in the Brit system the forward observed ordered fire, while an American forward observer requested it. Either system could literally deliver tons of ammunition in a matter of a very few minutes on a target. Our rate and volume of fire was such that there are recorded instances of German prisoners asking to see the automatic field guns.

 

[pbi]

It is still an open question whether the Brit or the American system was better.

Good question. Both systems were very good but I think the US  gets the nod on sheer weight of tubes available at  Div, Corps and Army levels (Ardennes Campaign being, I think, a very good example of the decisive power of massed US Arty fires).

An important factor contributing to the high effectiveness of the US and Commonwealth artillery branches was their complete motorization and partial mechanization. (Canada had already motorized the RCHA batteries before WWII broke out).  Allied firing batteries could move farther, faster and much more frequently than the German artillery which was overwhelmingly horse drawn. The waggon lines (ammo supply vehicles) in motorized artillery could also hold many more rounds than horse drawn German equivalents.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

A substantial portion of any horse drawn unit is taken up carrying feed for the horses. I read a report from my unit who experimented with borrowed trucks back in the early 30's and they raved about the increases in efficiency of being mechanized over horse drawn. Both in bulk stores and manpower.

 

[pbi]

But, to be fair, if you are starving in Russia in January you can't shoot a gun tractor and eat it.

 

[Old Sweat]

Mechanization and the ability of Western industry to produce guns in the thousands and rounds in the millions, maybe billions, was a factor, as was the organizational ability to deliver it when and where required. However. by 1943 the Commonwealth artilleries had managed to devise a fire control system that allowed for the movement of the concentrated fire of literally every gun within range across the front in response to calls for fire from relatively junior gunner officers. This fire could also be concentrated in planned programmes. The first William Target, that is using all the guns in a field army on a target of opportunity, was fired by Brigadier Bill Ziegler, the CRA of the First Canadian Infantry Division, in the Liri Valley in mid-1944. Note, this required a sophisticated communications system as well as highly standardized procedures in gunnery, fire discipline and artillery fire orders - a subset of voice procedure.

The Soviets, and the Germans too for that matter, seemed stuck in 1917 in terms of artillery employment that was rigid and inflexible.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Mechanization and the ability of Western industry to produce guns in the thousands and rounds in the millions, maybe billions, was a factor, as was the organizational ability to deliver it when and where required. However. by 1943 the Commonwealth artilleries had managed to devise a fire control system that allowed for the movement of the concentrated fire of literally every gun within range across the front in response to calls for fire from relatively junior gunner officers. This fire could also be concentrated in planned programmes. The first William Target, that is using all the guns in a field army on a target of opportunity, was fired by Brigadier Bill Ziegler, the CRA of the First Canadian Infantry Division, in the Liri Valley in mid-1944. Note, this required a sophisticated communications system as well as highly standardized procedures in gunnery, fire discipline and artillery fire orders - a subset of voice procedure.

The Soviets, and the Germans too for that matter, seemed stuck in 1917 in terms of artillery employment that was rigid and inflexible.

During my later years in the service I had the opportunity to work closely with my ABCA+NZ (plus, now and again Singaporean and Indian) colleagues on parts of the "sophisticated communications systems" and my impressions were that the Americans were still behind us in that procedural realm ... what we used to call "gunner juju." Our American friends leapt out in front with the use of computers as far back as the 1960s and early '70s, but the key, in my mind ~ the FOO in the combat team with the authority to call the fire of all guns within range and the technical "black magic" of Commonwealth fire control procedures ~ seemed to have eluded them. We, Australians, Brits and Canadians, often spoke of the "gunner overlay" of radio-comms over the formation C3 system and the Americans always seemed a bit lost ... when we went to the chalkboard to illustrate they just said, "oh, no that's not our way."

Maybe I'm wrong but I felt that we were using fire control procedures (which includes radio-comms) "gunner juju" to multiply our effectiveness while they preferred to use simple mass.

 

[Old Sweat]

One other factor than got rounds on the ground more quickly was competition. Believe it or not, the controlling regimental, divisional or corps artillery CP did not automatically detail which troop and battery would be used to adjust its fire onto the target. Instead every troop raced with every other troop to report "ready," that is loaded and pointed at the target  and ready to shoot. It was quite a distinction to win adjustment (ranging in the day) and to do so required the troop to have its act together, but overall a good TARA (see my first post in this thread) counted for a lot. This competition shaved seconds, sometimes as much as a minute, off the time to get the first round in the air, and thus got rounds on the target in support of our forward troops.

And if I can hoot for a minute, as a 20-year-old TARA, I won adjustment for my troop on the first regimental mission I ever "fired" on the arty board in our CP, and then carried on to do the same for all the rest on the annual regimental fire mission day in 4 RCHA way back in 1960. The troop signaller, my buddy "Spud" Gallant, and I didn't have to buy beer in the battery canteen that evening.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

You forgot to mention, Old Sweat, that during WWII, another factor that helped Canadian and British artillery was the excellent British 25 pdr Field gun that could be turned around in any direction in a matter of almost seconds by  a well trained crew because of its (I don't know the correct technical name) bottom circular plate on which you could rotate with the wheels.

This made it possible for all the field guns to be turned very quickly onto any target of opportunity or to support an SOS target somewhere nearly instantly if in range, then turn back just as quickly to their originally designated area of responsibility and assigned targets.

 

[Old Sweat]

You are absolutely correct. The 25-pdr could be switched by one person lifting the end of the trail by means of the handspike, throwing the centre-of-gravity forward, and walking it around. Seconds count, especially if you are an infanteer in a tight spot, and Commonwealth gunners knew who had the worst job in the army, and it wasn't them. While it sounds corny, they were utterly dedicated to the ideal behind the words on their cap badges.

 

[FJAG]

The circular plate is called a "firing platform"

:cheers:

 

[medicineman]

One other factor than got rounds on the ground more quickly was competition. Believe it or not, the controlling regimental, divisional or corps artillery CP did not automatically detail which troop and battery would be used to adjust its fire onto the target. Instead every troop raced with every other troop to report "ready," that is loaded and pointed at the target  and ready to shoot. It was quite a distinction to win adjustment (ranging in the day) and to do so required the troop to have its act together, but overall a good TARA (see my first post in this thread) counted for a lot. This competition shaved seconds, sometimes as much as a minute, off the time to get the first round in the air, and thus got rounds on the target in support of our forward troops.

And if I can hoot for a minute, as a 20-year-old TARA, I won adjustment for my troop on the first regimental mission I ever "fired" on the arty board in our CP, and then carried on to do the same for all the rest on the annual regimental fire mission day in 4 RCHA way back in 1960. The troop signaller, my buddy "Spud" Gallant, and I didn't have to buy beer in the battery canteen that evening.

Me dad was a troop signaller - he told me part of his job was interjecting onto the net on Mike Targets the literal second all guns called in ready, even if he cut some higher up off, to ensure they got to fire the first rounds out.

I'm reminded of a documentary about the Battle of Long Tan in 1966 with the Aussies - the rifle coy engaged had a Kiwi FOO and a combined 105mm Regt of RNZA/RAA on call with support from a battery of US Army M109's.  He had some issues intially trying to get all the assets to fire in what was essentially a regimental target - roughly a provicnical VC battalion that decided to hug the buckle on them, so it was danger close for most fire missions - the Americans didn't want to drop the 155's in as close as the OC/FOO wanted, so they fired at depth targets. 

MM

 

[Rifleman62]

Brigading everything together, guns/ammo, what could the CF, RegF and PRes do today and how long could they sustain fire.

 

[FJAG]

Brigading everything together, guns/ammo, what could the CF, RegF and PRes do today and how long could they sustain fire.

:rofl:

No seriously -

:'(

[cheers]

 

[Rifleman62]

Seriously, what could we do now with everything we have. Leaving out the smart munitions which would be for specific tgts.

I don't expect an actual brigading.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We have about 37x155 and about 95 x 105, making about a 132 guns, guessing at least 10% aren't working at anyone time, so lets say between 100-112 guns available if you gathered all of them together, which would be 18 batteries, not a bad turn out.

 

[pbi]

Rifleman: right now I believe each of our three RCHA Regts is crewing six M777 155s on a regular basis. So that's 18 tubes there. In the Reserve, given the  fluctuating crewing levels on the old 105mm guns, I'd throw out a rough guess of about 50 tubes across all the CBGs. That is just Reserve tubes and doesn't account for tractors, ammo waggons, command posts or other support vehicles, or the trained support people required to keep everything moving, shooting and communicating.
That's my guess and I welcome corrections.

 

[Rifleman62]

Ammo? You got guns, how long could they sustain fire? That's the question.

 

[FJAG]

Ammo? You got guns, how long could they sustain fire? That's the question.

Back in the seventies there was a period of time where we had an abundance of ammo due to rotating time sensitive war stocks. I remember one fire mission in 3 RCHA where my troop of three guns had to fire 500 rds of WP as part of a regimental smoke screen. When the call came for that we had to empty the command post (except for one sig) and the echelon in order to get everyone to dump on the ground and unpack all the ammo. We had 105mm L5s and were able to sustain 8-9 rounds per minute although half way through the mission one of my guns packed it in (it recoiled out of battery after a round and stayed there) about twenty minutes later we took another gun out of action when the brass bushing on one of the trunnions started to flatten out and the barrel started skewing sideways and slamming into the shield.

The point of this small story is to say that the answer to your question is based on the following factors: the number and quality of the guns, the number and quality of the gun crews, the amount of ammunition available within reach of the gun platforms, the availability of transport and personnel who can get it onto the gun platform and unpack it. Much of the talent of artillery staff work is to predict ammunition expenditure needs and to initiate the appropriate dumping programs to get it into place.

To put some numbers to it, the sustained rates of fire for the M777 is 5 rounds per minute maximum and 2 rounds per minute normal; the 105 mm C3 is 3 rounds per minute normal and I've seen 9 rounds per minute for short bursts; the 105 mm LG1 is 8 rounds per minute but I would think that, like the C3, 3 - 4 rounds per minute sustained would be more realistic. Guns, properly manned and with the appropriate ammunition delivery and unpacking support should be able to keep up the normal rate of fire indefinitely. (Barring mechanical failures and enemy interference - let's never forget about the enemy's counter-battery capabilities)

:cheers:

 

[Rifleman62]

I read in The Guns of Normandy how the RCASC carried the boxes from the trucks on the road to each gun.

To be more specific, as I should have been from the start, how much ammo does Canada have in stock and how long would it last?