
Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage - vinnyglennon
https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/07/01/anatomy-of-a-world-war-i-artillery-barrage/
======
camperman
I've been shelled with 155mm shells. There is (or used to be) a bunker on
Salisbury Plain where trainee artillery officers could experience it for
themselves. It has very thick concrete, four foot thick windows and so on.

Even with all the protection it's terrifying. They drop the rounds a few yards
in front of you. The noise is unbelievable, the shockwaves actually bend the
concrete inward a little and the dummy target vehicles you can see get
instantly shredded with shrapnel. Delay the fuse a little and the shell
penetrates a few yards before exploding, leading to a strange effect where all
the dust and stones jump off the ground as the shockwave traverses it. Make
the fuse go early and you get an airburst that sprays red hot metal down in a
100 yard radius and rattles those windows with waves of shrapnel.

We were all jumpy for days. It just does that to you.

~~~
thearn4
I was an artilleryman is the U.S. Army. We get the machine gun fired over us
in a trench during basic training (like everyone else), but that sounds like
so much more profound of an experience. I kind of wish we did that here.

That said, I was enlisted (NCO), not a commissioned officer. For all I know,
they may do something like that for (to?) the officers at Fort Sill.

~~~
camperman
On that topic, artillery shells flying over you sound strange, like tearing a
linen sail or sheet down the middle - no joke.

~~~
13of40
I was in an infantry exercise at JBLM where they were firing artillery from
right next to our position, and I remember every tenth round or so would have
a defect that made it go zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzoooooommmm when it came out of the
barrel.

~~~
camperman
Ah yes, the whistling round. On the 105mm Light Gun this was from small gaps
in the copper jacket around the shell that whistled when spinning.

~~~
gonzo41
120mm rocket artillery incoming near Talil. Felt like an earthquake. Was great
fun at the time, now I think back and wow...

~~~
camperman
Oh to be young and carefree again :)

It does feel like an earthquake. The most powerful subwoofer I've ever heard
doesn't come close to the teeth-scraping body-slamming whump of a near miss
from large ordinance.

------
brudgers

      Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
      Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
      Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
      And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
      Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
      But limped on, blood-shod.  All went lame; all blind;
      Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
      Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
    
      Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
      Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
      But someone still was yelling. out and stumbling
      And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
      Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
      As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
    
      In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
      He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
    
      If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
      Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
      And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
      His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
      If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
      Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
      Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
      Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
      My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
      To children ardent for some desperate glory,
      The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
      Pro patria mori.
    

_Dulce et Decorum Est_ , Wilfred Owen

~~~
noir_lord
One of the few poems that stuck with me from English in high school, the Dulce
et decorum est pro patria mori translates as "it is sweet and honourable to
die for ones country".

------
grellas
There is no more eerie account of what it was like to be a foot soldier caught
up in trench warfare than Arthur Guy Empey's book "Over the Top" (1917).

It is available free as a Kindle ebook: [https://www.amazon.com/Over-Top-
Arthur-Guy-Empey-ebook/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/Over-Top-Arthur-Guy-
Empey-ebook/dp/B008478XB4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-
text&ie=UTF8&qid=1467665338&sr=1-3&keywords=Over+the+top#navbar) (some reviews
can be found here:
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1517707.Over_The_Top](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1517707.Over_The_Top))

Empey was an American who managed to get in the mix with the British soldiers
before America entered the war. His account is based entirely on his own
first-hand experiences. His last patrol depicts an utterly futile foray at
night in which dozens of his comrades lost their lives and he (and I believe
one another) survived. I am going from memory here on something I read quite a
while back and so my summary may be imprecise. But anyone wanting to get a
sense of the horrors of what it meant to fight in such battles will most
certainly get it through this account.

The strange thing is that this became a runaway bestseller in America in 1917
and 1918. Far from recoiling at the horrors, the public chose to celebrate the
heroism of the soldiers who put themselves in such incredible danger.

It is in any case a bone-chilling account to read this and all the more so
because its style is almost detached and matter-of-fact, even clinical in
describing one horror after another.

~~~
abrie
The posted article lacks substance, but I read "Over the Top" because of your
comment. It is excellent. Thank you. I found my copy on archive.org[0].

I read it alongside "The Arms of Krupp"[1], and found the combination highly
synergistic. The sensation of perspective is multiplied further if read with
"All Quiet on the Western Front".

[0]
[https://archive.org/details/overtopbyamerica00empe](https://archive.org/details/overtopbyamerica00empe)

[1]
[https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24200511M/The_arms_of_Krupp_...](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24200511M/The_arms_of_Krupp_1587-1968)

~~~
saiya-jin
"All Quiet on the Western Front" \- the only book from cca 40 we were forced
to read during high school classes that really consumed me - the horrors
described, the progressive apathy to death all around and almost total
randomness of survival... far from usual poetry. Still cannot comprehend such
madness that was happening 100 years ago

------
dexterdog
If this piques your interest at all I highly recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore
History where he did 6 parts and about 18 hours on WWI from a mostly military
history perspective. He also did a shorter one on the eastern front in WWII.

~~~
untothebreach
Came here to say this. I learned _so much_ that I didn't previously know about
WWI from HH. Not only the military history aspect, but the political and
cultural context for a lot of it.

~~~
douche
The Great War youtube channel is also great. They do at least one video a
week, on what was happening 100 years ago, plus extras on notable people,
questions from viewers, and other things.

------
ternaryoperator
Here is the aerial view of what a town looked like before and after almost a
million shells were directed at it in WWI:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Passchen...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Passchendaele_aerial_view.jpg)

------
Noseshine
In this context, about PTSD: "What if PTSD Is More Physical Than
Psychological?"

    
    
        > A new study supports what a small group of military researchers
        > has suspected for decades: that modern warfare destroys the brain.
    

Cause: Brain injuries stemming from blast exposure.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd-
is-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd-is-more-
physical-than-psychological.html)

~~~
e12e
I suppose a better synopsis would have been that there may be a set of
injuries that result from physical trauma to the brain, that can be conflated
with war-induced PTSD. But as people that suffer trauma without serious head
injuries exhibit some of the same traits as those that are associated with
PTSD, it's not really about PTSD in _general_ being physical (as in result of
external physical trauma, as opposed to physical changes in the brain, which
can often result from eg: depression "alone").

But it is certainly interesting that "just" being subject to such physical
abuse could lead to conditions similar to that of PTSD.

~~~
Noseshine

        > that suffer trauma without serious head injuries
    

You didn't read or you didn't understand the article.

The injuries they are talking about _are invisible unless you put the brain
under a microsocope_.

~~~
e12e
I meant trauma in the sense of head injury/head trauma -- a concussion is
usually first diagnosed by secondary effects, not by "looking at the brain" as
far I am aware.

Perhaps I should've said "head trauma without visible/apparent injuries to the
head". Sorry for the confusion. I only meant to contrast the micro-injuries
that these new studies reference with the also real physical changes that
often accompany "purely" psychological conditions.

~~~
Noseshine

        > I meant trauma in the sense of head injury/head trauma
    

Yes? I linked an article with a specific subject and contents. I would expect
replies to somehow relate to that (article).

I don't think it needs to be said that "PTSD" is not a specific condition but
a word that collects a large variety of them. The article is quite clear in
describing what it is about.

------
Aelinsaar
I just want to throw this in here for some more context:

 _" During The Somme, the British bombardment consisted of 1,537 guns firing
over 1,500,000 shells over a period of 168 hours averaging 8,929 shells fired
per minute."_

That is just... staggering. I can't find a source for it, but I remember some
factoid stating that on average it took several hundred shells to kill one
soldier. That's not to say they had to take several hundred hits, but that on
average that's how many shells it took to rack up one kill.

(from: [http://www.tommy1418.com/wwi-facts--figures--
myths.html](http://www.tommy1418.com/wwi-facts--figures--myths.html))

*Edit for caps only

~~~
jschwartzi
It seems like the purpose of a bombardment like that isn't to kill the
soldiers outright, but to crush their advance and keep them out of your
territory.

~~~
Khaine
It is also due to the creeping barrage, where you would inch your artillery
fire forward with your troops behind its shield as the enemy took cover during
a barrage and therefore it stopped them from being able to gun down your
troops.

"In late 1915 / early 1916, Commonwealth forces began developing a new form of
barrage. Beginning close to their own lines, the 'creeping' barrage moved
slowly forward, throwing up dirt clouds to obscure the infantry who advanced
close behind. The barrage would reach the enemy lines and suppress as normal
(by driving men into bunkers or more distant areas) but the attacking infantry
would be close enough to storm these lines (once the barrage had crept further
forward) before the enemy reacted. That was, at least, the theory."

From
[http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/worldwar1/p/prcreepingb....](http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/worldwar1/p/prcreepingb.htm)

~~~
lostlogin
What could possibly go wrong? I know it's Wikepedia, but the concept that 10%
casualties on your own side could be expected _when done correctly_ should be
a clue that this is another crap WW1 technique.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_(artillery)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_\(artillery\))

------
happyslobro
Does anyone know offhand how airburst shells were fused in those days? The
only way that I can think that it could have been done, would be to have a
very accurate timer detonate the shell. But then you have to know the flight
time, and that would have changed whenever the gun was aimed at a different
spot. Was the gun capable of setting the shell's timer automatically, based on
it's firing angle? Did someone compensate for elevation difference? Or, was
there a guy with a slide rule tweaking a knob on each shell just before
firing?

~~~
angry_octet
In WWI the British used burning timers, which are quite inaccurate due to
variable burn rates vs pressure and chemical composition. The Germans had
mechanical timers. The battery command post would do the calculations from gun
tables, tell the battery the fuse setting (twisting something in the fuse
(nose) of the round), then observers would report back and it would be
adjusted.

In late WWII the UK invented RF proximity fuses, first for AA then for
surface.

Nowadays the guns talk to the shells, the shells run self tests, etc. They
will be self aware before too long, a la Darkstar:
[https://youtu.be/qjGRySVyTDk](https://youtu.be/qjGRySVyTDk)

~~~
chiph
One of the first large-scale uses of POZIT proximity fuses by US forces in WW-
II was at Elsenborn Ridge[1] in late 1944. Prior to this, the commanders
restricted their use for the fear that the Germans would find a dud and
reverse-engineer it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Elsenborn_Ridge#Arti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Elsenborn_Ridge#Artillery_role)

------
Animats
France is still digging up and disposing of tons of unexploded ordnance from
WWI. About 900 tons a year, every year.

~~~
neppo
This is the so called red zone, here are some pictures about it:
[http://imgur.com/gallery/CdxZM](http://imgur.com/gallery/CdxZM)

~~~
ourmandave
I wonder how many kids grow up in these areas thinking this is normal and the
whole country isn't safe to play in.

~~~
martindelemotte
As a kid I played in these areas while my dad was cutting wood. It was rather
exciting to find a shell as these were rare compared to other pieces of metal.
We were just told not to play with them.

I remember that one day we found a shell buried not that far from a fire that
my dad had lit.

I was young so I can't certify that we were in a "red zone" but it was in the
woods around Verdun so there's a high chance.

~~~
trhway
>It was rather exciting to find a shell as these were rare compared to other
pieces of metal. We were just told not to play with them.

We were told about the same. Fortunately, we didn't have parents around during
the day - USSR, all parents at work :)

------
sandworm101
The article treats conditions along WWI front lines as static. They were not.
The conditions in the trenches changed from one part of the war to another.
Gas was not a thing during the entire war. And the germans and allied trenches
were different from each other, with allied trenches being much more haphazard
due to the insistence that they not be permanent. Artillery too underwent
change over the years, with new and technologically interesting shell designs
changing the experience on the ground.

xxxxxxxxxx

(Something is blocking me from replying more than twice an hour. I'm trying to
reverse-engineer this system to see exactly what limits are being enforced,
but for now I'll edit-in this comment that I had wanted to add to
ternaryoperator's link/pic.)

A million, ten million, a hundred million ... there is a point at which you
are just moving the same dirt back and forth without any difference. I'm more
interested in the smaller stuff. You can push dirt around for months, but is
the barbed wire actually cut? Destroying the little things is very much harder
than leveling roads.

~~~
Someone
_" The article treats conditions along WWI front lines as static"_

I don't read that:

 _" On the opening day of the Somme on July 1, 1916, British guns hurled
250,000 high explosive and shrapnel shells towards German positions"_

That's phase one: throw lots of stuff in the hope to destroy their capability
to fight. When you think that succeeded, have your infantry walk over and
conquer their positions.

 _" During the beginning of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, over 3,000
British guns and howitzers fired a “creeping barrage” on German positions"_

Throw lots of stuff to prevent their soldiers from killing your soldiers with
their guns while your soldiers advance on their position.

 _" The Germans developed and perfected the “box barrage"_

Throw lots of stuff to prevent your enemy from being reinforced.

 _" The American St. Mihiel Offensive on September 12, 1918 was preceded in
some areas by a seven-hour preparatory bombardment"_

Throw lots of stuff for ages to soften their defenses. Stop bombarding when
your troops attack. Problem: they dig down deep, wait for the bombardment to
end, and then get up and shoot your infantry while it still is exposed between
trench lines.

 _" By the end of the war, most attacks by French, American, and British
forces began with a swift but short artillery bombardment that massed
thousands of guns on one small area, followed up almost immediately by a
ground attack"_

Throw lots of stuff to force them to keep their heads down, then immediately
have your infantry get up to them (= use artillery bombardments as covering
fire)

That's a lot of evolution, partly driven by technological advances. For
example, a creeping barrage requires the capability to drop stuff close to
your own troops, while not hitting them. That requires good maps and
explosives with reliable explosive force (so that one can be confident that
shells will carry the desired distance). As another example, concentrated fire
requires precision, too.

~~~
sandworm101
Static technology, which is something different than tactics or positions. The
article does not do the subject of technological progression necessary
justice. Many of the effects described as if true throughout the war,
specifically the blast effects, changed radically with technology (think
fragmentation rounds).

~~~
Someone
_" The article does not do the subject of technological progression necessary
justice."_

If you had said that in the comment I responded to, I likely would not have
reacted, but I think that's quite a different claim from _" The article treats
conditions along WWI front lines as static"_

When you write a one-page article on a four year war involving millions of
people, you can't do all its aspects justice, but not discussing something
doesn't mean denying its existence.

------
vermontdevil
So many shells were fired that farmers are still digging up unexploded ones
today. I saw a bunch of them at a corner of a farm field in Belgium pending
pickup and it spooked me.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2015/08/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2015/08/13/the-bombs-beneath-us-unexploded-ordnance-linger-long-after-
wars-are-over/)

~~~
duskwuff
Often referred to as the "iron harvest":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest)

~~~
scoot
Yup, right there in the article vermontdevil linked to:

 _In the small farming towns of France and Belgium, undetonated World War I
explosives that turn up during each year’s spring planting and autumn plowing
are known as the “iron harvest. "_

------
beloch
Imagine being a member of an attack force following a creeping barrage,
especially before it was perfected and short-falling shells were expected to
kill a significant fraction of your comrades. Willfully walking into that kind
of hell simply blows my mind.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Willfully walking into that kind of hell simply blows my mind. //

Walk or get shot for desertion, not sure how wilful it was. Yes, you may have
signed up willingly before knowing the horror that awaited you, but still ...

------
jlengrand
I must admit that after reading such horrifying words, the Sharing sentence
look very weird :

"Enjoy what you just read? Share via social media using the buttons below."

------
scoot
By coincidence, this video of the receiving end of a modern artillery barrage
is near the top or /r/videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvcdKGD-
FM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvcdKGD-FM)

Obviously a video is nothing like physically being present, but might give
some idea.

------
rdl
The amazing thing to me, aside from the inhumanity of the war and weirdly
anachronistic things like the French cavalry uniforms and tactics at the
beginning of the war, was that shell shock/PTSD/etc. wasn't recognized as a
real thing, instead the armies would execute soldiers for cowardice. At least
many of those have been posthumously (and far later) pardoned, not that it
really makes much difference.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>instead the armies would execute soldiers for cowardice //

Was it not a necessity (on the basis of "winning" the trench warfare)?

If you can go home to a nice feather bed and being looked after in a care home
without even the appearance of an injury by presenting as having PTSD/shell-
shock then the effect on moral and ability to force men to go over-the-top
with the threat of capital punishment for desertion is going to be detrimental
to the offensive capabilities. Here's me 6-inches deep in mud sitting on a
firing step, thirsty and flea-bitten, nursing my shrapnel wound; there's Joe
going home without a scratch on him??

Cowardice and PTSD/shell-shock probably present in similar ways on a
battlefield too - I'm a huge coward, I'm not trying to suggest anyone had less
honour than they did, just that I'd expect to be a gibbering wreck without any
shell-shock.

With the tactics employed it looks like it was a numbers game, to play that
game they couldn't afford compassion for the fighting men of either side.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Strangely it had no impact on the outcome. Marching millions of men 'over the
top' to be mowed down by machine guns was pointless. Even though the tactic
failed utterly, they kept doing it. Out of desperation? They executed a
generation.

~~~
Spooky23
They didn't really understand what was happening. Keep in mind that 1914 was a
different war -- there was maneuver and grand strategy elements there.

What had happened is that you had officers and political leaders fed on a
steady diet of studying Napoleonic warfare. They earnestly believed that elan
and offense would bring them to a decisive victory on the battlefield.
Unfortunately, the British experience in the Boer War and other conflicts
distracted from the hard lessons learned by the Americans from 1861-1865...
rifles and railroads meant that victory didn't matter in modern war, only
breaking down the enemy's ability to maintain the army.

The other thing was that while WW1 armies had many of the trappings of the
modern era (machine guns, explosives, some vehicles, limited aircraft,
railroads), they lacked good communications infrastructure. The order of
battle was driven by a pre-defined, precisely timed plan. The guns fired at
target X at time Y, and division Z needed to move as planned. If circumstances
changed, they could not react. With shock tactics and other advances, armies
were able to "win" territory at a tactical level -- but they couldn't exploit
the victories in a meaningful way.

It is a war that should always be studied and talked about, because it aptly
demonstrates the horror and futility of modern warfare without the overarching
"Good vs. Evil" narrative in WW2 or the weird political calculus of other
conflicts. Millions of lives were sacrificed for nothing.

------
rasz_pl
submarine for Battlefield

