Artillery barrages

“ When the British introduced the "creeping barrage" of artillery pounding, which moved a little ahead of the infantry and curtained them from machine-gun and rifle fire, the need for rapid communication was greater than ever. Exultant attackers would rush forward in advance of the programmed speed and be mown by their own barrage. ”

“ That is to say, a time-table for the barrage is adhered to during the first part of the advance when the positions of the hostile lines are well known, while during the last part, when the infantry’s progress is not so regular and the ground is not so well known, each advance of the barrage may be called for by rocket, as each resistance met with is disposed of. If an assaulting battalion meets a resistance which it cannot reduce by its own means, it must call upon the support artillery for help. ”

“ We did dig out and mount a German gun which was used for a while, but I then had it taken, with several others, back to our line. We could do so much more good from our original position by maintaining a continuous barrage (p. 159) to hamper the enemy in getting up supports. From prisoners taken later we learned that our machine-gun barrage was much more effective than that of our artillery. However, as we were obliged to fire from temporary positions, on the parapet and without cover of any kind, it was impossible to prevent the loss of some guns by direct hits from shells. ”

“ In the meantime, careful barrage time-tables had been worked out for the attack itself, and every gun of the Field Artillery had been assigned its task, either in the barrage which should cover the advance of the infantry, in the shelling of specially selected areas where enemy concentrations might be expected, or in assisting the Heavy Artillery in its task of neutralizing or annihilating suspected enemy strong-points and machine-gun emplacements. ”

“ The enemy understands how to prevent, with his terrible barrage, the bringing up of building material, and even how to hinder the work itself. The consequence is that our trenches are always ready for an assault on his part. Our artillery, which does occasionally put a heavy barrage on the enemy trenches at a great expense of ammunition, cannot cause similar destruction to him. He can bring his building material up, can repair his trenches as well as build new ones, can bring up rations and ammunition, and remove the wounded. ”

“ It is not hard to understand from this modern method of attack what the French general meant when he said, "The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies."
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
ALLIED TROOPS CHARGING THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.
The fighters are under the protection of a perfect barrage. They have just gone over the top and are nearing the enemy's trenches.
Barraging on the field today is much the same as running a great ocean liner. ”

“ With the capture of the second objective the field artillery barrage was shot out, and the attack farther east had to be carried forward without its assistance. The enemy's resistance, free of the demoralizing effect of the barrage, stiffened considerably, the open country being swept continually by intense machine-gun fire. In addition, the tanks soon became casualties from enemy guns firing point-blank, and the advance on the left and center was held up. ”

“ On one occasion (7th October) the three battalions of infantry on this brigade front had to advance at different times; the consequence was that the last to move had to face a very heavy barrage in addition to machine-gun fire. It is thought that the infantry should always move at zero, even if they are not in line with each other, and that the barrage line should be made to conform with the line of the assaulting infantry.
As usual there was a complete lack of touch throughout the operations with the heavy artillery. ”

“ Our artillery was to lay a barrage on the first line of presumed German trenches at the same moment. A barrage is simply a moving wall of shell fire, which precedes the troops, who advance beneath the trajectory of the shells. We were to keep within fifty yards of our barrage in diamond formation. This barrage was indicated by men on the right and left flanks of our battalion frontage, which was a lateral distance of 335 yards.
Our battalion furnished four waves, each wave having its own mission to accomplish—the whole battalion having one final objective. ”

“ The Artillery barrage dominates the battle, and the landscape. The field is speedily covered with a cloak of dust, and smoke and spume, making impossible any detailed observation, at the time, of the course of the battle as a whole. ”

“ At last, precisely at the moment appointed, five minutes past six, in the rainy autumn dawn, our own guns—an enormous concentration of them—open a tremendous fire, and the earth-shaking noise "helps men to forget themselves, and go blind for the enemy." Then steadily the artillery barrage goes forward, one hundred yards every four minutes, and the infantry advance behind it, past the German front trench, to a ravine about three hundred yards further, which is known to be strongly held. The final objective is a strong German position protecting a village in the valley of the Ancre. ”

“ Buchanan, both artillery officers, had devised a modified form of the “rolling barrage” for use by the bombarding gunships against beachfront targets just before H-Hour. This concentration of naval gunfire would advance progressively as the troops landed, always remaining 400 yards to their front. Air spotters would help regulate the pace. Such an innovation appealed to the three division commanders, each having served in France during World War I. In those days, a good rolling barrage was often the only way to break a stalemate. ”

“ On several occasions we rendered assistance by putting up what is commonly known as a “Chinese barrage,” i.e., the artillery carries out the ordinary programme preceding an attack, but no action follows on the part of the infantry. Conditions were equally disagreeable at the wagon lines, which speedily developed into quagmires, and it was almost impossible to walk about the lines unless attired in waders, and, even then, there was always the possibility of completely disappearing in the mud. ”

“ Within this miserable inclosure, containing two barracks designed for only one hundred men each, and surrounded by a mud wall only four feet high, three feet in thickness at the base, and but twelve inches at the top—where the batteries were constructed by the simple expedient of leaving an aperture for each gun, so that the artillery-men served their pieces as in the field, with their persons entirely exposed to the fire of the enemy—within this inclosure were huddled together a thousand people, only four hundred and forty of whom were men, the rest being women and children. ”

“ Each time the barrage lifts forward—which it does according to a scheme previously worked out to the minute and the yard—the attacking lines must instantly move up behind it, as close as possible to the shelter of the appalling curtain of flame and death which it lets down before them. The progress of the wave being thus so strictly scheduled, it must often leave small enemy posts in its rear, or dug-outs sheltering furtive bands of machine-gunners. ”

“ We were too close to our own barrage, but I knew it would advance in a few minutes, and the enemy barrage was entirely too close behind us. Talk about being between two fires. A curtain of fire from our own artillery just ahead of us and a wall of the most intense [51] and concentrated fire from batteries guarding Metz falling immediately in our rear, the shells passing each other not far above our heads. A few from each side fell short.
To be killed or rendered unconscious is easy, but to have to live through a situation like that right out in the open is beyond all power to describe. ”

“ There should be sufficient Field Artillery, not merely to provide an effective barrage for the time-table advance to the Green Line and its flanks, but also, in addition, sufficient Mobile Field Artillery, not employed in the barrage, to enable the Australian Infantry to be provided with at least six Artillery Brigades for the exploitation phase of the operation. ”

“ For several days the guns had opened intense fire at midnight and again at 3 A.M. so that the enemy should not attach particular importance to our artillery activity on the night of action, and a creeping barrage nightly swept across No Man's Land to clear off the chain of listening posts established 300 yards in front of the enemy's trenches. ”

“ Our artillery barrage, which was very heavy and wide, moved forward at a slow crawling pace, but it could not easily be followed. It took many men an hour and a half to come back a hundred and fifty yards. A rescue party led by a sergeant-major could not haul out men breast high in the bog until they had surrounded them with duck-boards and fastened ropes to them. Our barrage went ahead and the enemy's barrage came down, and from the German blockhouses came a chattering fire of machine-guns, and in the great stretch of swamp the London men struggled. ”

“ While our raiders made prisoners of the occupants of some dug-outs by dragging them bodily forth, and dead men of others by simply throwing grenades in at the narrow doorways, our artillery made a barrage in the rear of the invaded trench and our machine-guns searched with their fire all the roads by which German reinforcements would be likely to move. ”

“ Some of our men got too close to the barrage and were hit by our own shells.
At last the barrage lifted, and the 27th and 28th went through the belt of wire, cutting with the attachments on their rifles, any strands that our artillery had failed to sever. A machine gun commenced firing at us, so down our crew went into a shell hole and up went our gun and a few rounds silenced that machine gun; then forward again with the 27th. We struck a trench and worked our way down, for this was our objective. On the way we came to a large dugout, and it was full of Germans. ”

“ When the German barrage opened, men, animals, and motor vehicles broke into their best speed. Great columns of white dust, due to the intensity of the summer heat, rose up, choked everything, and made seeing a matter of difficulty. Guns and limbers moved at a stretch gallop, lorries bounded from shell-hole to shell-hole, and every effort was concentrated on getting out of the zone involved in the barrage with as little delay as possible. ”

“ The men were then continually practised in the attack over the taped-out course. The 18-pounder barrage was represented by men with signalling flags and by the pipers, [143] under the command of an artillery officer. Hostile machine-guns were indicated by the drummers. The attack was practised so often that the men obtained a thorough knowledge of the distances from one objective to the next, of the length of the pauses in the barrage, and the trace of the enemy’s trenches. ”

“ Then, too, if the enemy had pretty definite information that our artillery preparation is coming down on a certain line and we have no men out in front he may move his machine gun squads a little to the front and avoid the barrage altogether and be ready to receive our attack when our first wave goes over the top. If I were commanding one of those assault companies I would keep my front thoroughly patrolled during the night and keep my scouts right up in the enemy’s lines until a minute or two before the barrage comes down. ”

“ A properly directed machine-gun barrage is far more difficult to traverse than anything the artillery can put down and the combination of artillery and machine guns, working together, whether on the offensive or defensive, represents the highest point ever attained in the effective use of fire in battle. ”

“ The extraordinary strength of the German machine-gun posts was such that the most intense barrage which the excellent Corps and Divisional artillery was capable of producing passed harmlessly over them, and only a direct hit was sufficient to disturb the occupants. ”

“ Immediately after the advance of the infantry begins, the artillery supporting it commences an intense bombardment with the object of forcing the enemy to take cover. At the moment laid down in the table of artillery fire the barrage lifts clear of the trench and the infantry rush in and capture it. The infantry must be taught that their success depends upon their getting within 75 yards of the barrage before it lifts, in order that they may reach the trenches before the enemy can man them. ”

“ When the attack is directed against a position the defence of which is known to have been elaborately organised, a pre-arranged covering fire in the form of an artillery barrage, lifted in successive stages as the attack advances, may require to be organised some time before the attack is launched. It will be necessary to detail an escort for the guns, unless the distribution of the troops for the attack already provides such protection. ”

“ Lord God, did they know what a German barrage was like? Did they guess how men walked day after day through harassing fire to the trenches? Did they have any faint idea of life in a sector where men stood, slept, ate, worked, under the fire of eight-inch shells, five-point—nines, trench-mortars, rifle-grenades, machine-gun bullets, snipers, to say nothing of poison-gas, long-range fire on the billets in small farmsteads, and on every moonlight night air raids above wooden hutments so closely crowded into a small space that hardly a bomb could fall without killing a group of men. ”