Artillery Doctrine-2
Three types of ammunition were available to the artillery enabling it to tailor its fire to each individual target. During counter-battery fire, high-explosive (HE) shells with impact fuses were used in combination with shrapnel shells equipped with time fuses (Brennzünder). The intent was to force opposing artillery crews to run for cover and silence enemy batteries. Against infantry, shrapnel was used with time fuses to scatter fire in full depth across infantry columns. The main ammunition of the field artillery was the shrapnel round that could be used against infantry in open terrain with good results, but it was of limited value against entrenched positions. In 1911, the introduction of an HE round with a time fuse began to provide field artillery-guns a limited capacity against trenches and covered targets. For close defense, the guns carried some canister rounds. Against covered or entrenched targets, either field howitzers or heavy howitzers firing HE at steep angles, provided better results.
For close defense against sudden infantry or cavalry assaults, artillery used canister shots that could be used like a huge shotgun. An English language anomaly is that word use has changed over time. High explosive shells splintered apart upon detonation, and those pieces would fly through the air at great speed causing damage to both living creatures and equipment. At the time, these pieces of metal were called splinters. Shrapnel shells were packed with many marble sized lead or steel balls that were thrown forward in a cone at high speed by a timed, secondary bursting charge. Those balls were known as shrapnel. Today in popular parlance the two types have been conflated and “shrapnel” is now used to describe any sort of metal fragment caused by exploding munitions of any kind.
Field guns (field artillery) as well as heavy guns (foot artillery) were fired over open sights. Due to the heavy recoil, the guns used to jump up and roll backwards so they had to be pushed back into firing position after each shot and laid once more on the target. This process was time-consuming, slowing down the rate of fire to such an extent that a contemporary field gun was not much faster in action (even after the introduction of breech loaders) than in the days of Frederick the Great and Napoleon.
Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War, the German army introduced its new C73 artillery system in succession to the successful C64 guns. During the next 20 years, development focused upon improving fuses and technical details. The C73 gun, the backbone of the field artillery, was now available in two versions: a light 8 cm (7.85 cm) gun for the riding batteries and a heavy 9 cm (8.8 cm) version for the driving batteries of the field artillery regiments. In the riding batteries, six horses towed the gun. There were four extra horses; thus, the entire crew of five gunners plus the NCO in command was on horseback. In addition, an ammunition wagon accompanied each gun, with another four soldiers running the supply chain between the ammunition train and the gun. Driving batteries did not have the four extra horses per gun. Their three gunners sat on the limber and two gunners on the gun carriage riding with the gun; only the commanding NCO was on horseback. Each horse assigned to the heavier (985 kg) 9 cm gun had to pull approximately 370 kg (share of gun, limber, ammunition, and crew), while in riding batteries with their lighter (895 kg) guns, each horse had to pull only about 275 kg. Therefore, the riding batteries—usually one battalion per regiment—were much faster and could operate with the cavalry. Most artillery regiments still had two battalions, both equipped with three batteries of six guns each (fahrende Abteilung). Some regiments received a riding battalion (reitende Abteilung) with three batteries of four guns each.
A great increase in range was the main improvement of the C73 over the C64. The 8 cm version had a maximum range of 6,800 meters and the 9 cm version of 7,600 meters. For Krupp, the C73 turned out to be a great economic success since many of the world’s armies ordered this field gun or one of its derivatives. With the C73 system in place, the German Army felt superior to its potential enemies, particularly the French, who seemed to be technically far behind, because they still depended primarily on the muzzle loaded Lahitte guns during the 1870-71 war.
There was an underlying problem in using artillery to destroy or even neutralize enemy infantry protected by trenches and fortifications. This came into sharp focus on 11 September 1877, at the battle of Plevna during the Russo-Turkish war. The Russians fired their field artillery at the entrenched defenders for three and one-half days. Following the low trajectory field artillery preparation, 60,000 Russian and Romanian soldiers advanced in dense columns against 25,000 entrenched Turks. Unfortunately, the bombardment had been almost totally ineffective, and the attackers suffered a staggering 18,000 casualties. Field artillery has been described by at least one historian as lined up “flinging handfuls of dried peas against the wall.” A heavier kind of gun with larger caliber ammunition and a high angle trajectory was needed to dislodge the defenders.
In the 1880s, the much-derided lowly foot artillery developed the 150 mm heavy howitzer that supported infantry attacks at ranges of 1,200 to 2,000 m. Up to and including the Great War, the German army referred to these weapons as “mortars.” When combined with the older 210 mm howitzer, these bourgeois technical experts simply destroyed earthworks and redoubts. Reinforced concrete, thickly added to defensive fortifications, kept the defense in front of the developments for a while. There were two different schools of thought. The traditional field artillery supporters, pointing to the battle of Sedan, praised the warlike attributes of German officers, while the technologically advanced foot artillery preferred to draw on the lessons of the battle of Plevna. The more traditional field artillery supporters aligned with the aristocratic tendencies of the infantry and cavalry and secured a majority of the resources allotted to artillery. The artillery regulations were revised in 1892, favoring open field positions over hidden positions. The use of shrapnel rounds at ranges closer than 1,500 m was an important part of this revision. Foreign observers and their military journals joined the theoretician von der Goltz in believing that the lessons of St Privat had been forgotten in Germany, in favor of glorious myth.