Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage
angrystaffofficer.com
angrystaffofficer.com
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.
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.
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.
First one was in a purpose-built field, where we were hunkered down in a concrete hole and threw the frag-grenade onto gravel.
The second was when were having an exercise of storming a machinegun-nest on top of a small ridge in the forest. So first we move by leapfrog (a combat pair) firing, then climbed a small ridge and threw over a live frag-grenade on to the "machinegun-nest".
Third time was when we were doing a urban combat exercise. In the middle of the forest they had a roofless building with several rooms, again purpose-built for training with live grenades, with dust floors. We were given two grenades each, one which was a chock grenade ( not flash , again doing the exercise as a combat pair. Really big blasts.
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.
It is available free as a Kindle ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Over-Top-Arthur-Guy-Empey-ebook/dp/B0... (some reviews can be found here: 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.
Besides other interesting things, it contains a ton of evidence cited from soldier letters.
"The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger'. It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away."
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275833.The_Face_of_Battle
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
[1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24200511M/The_arms_of_Krupp_...
Even the telling of the stories leaves one affected.
It is uniformly excellent, and well worth the time commitment required to listen to the whole thing.
I've also enjoyed watching several episodes of "The Great War" on youtube, which seems to be of a similar quality. ( https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar )
> A new study supports what a small group of military researchers
> has suspected for decades: that modern warfare destroys the brain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd-is-m...
But it is certainly interesting that "just" being subject to such physical abuse could lead to conditions similar to that of PTSD.
> that suffer trauma without serious head injuries
The injuries they are talking about are invisible unless you put the brain under a microsocope.
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.
> I meant trauma in the sense of head injury/head trauma
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.
"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)
*Edit for caps only
Injuries are expensive to a military power.
"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....
About a year later, the battle of Messines (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messi... ) saw larger mines, some of which with over 40,000 kg of explosives.
Five of them weren't detonated. One of those exploded in 1955 after a lightning strike. Most likely, four others are still lying below ground. It's anybody's guess whether they still are dangerous and might detonate one day.
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
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Elsenborn_Ridge#Arti...
I think they would have all been set manually, although probably with reference to markings on the fuzes themselves for either time or distance. Experience and/or feedback from the artillery spotters would indicate if they were bursting too early or late (and many would have backup impact fuzes in case they were too late).
[1] http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/decouvertes/english_fus...
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.
We were told about the same. Fortunately, we didn't have parents around during the day - USSR, all parents at work :)
"The Real “No-Go Zone” of France: A Forbidden No Man’s Land Poisoned by War" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9609091 http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/26/the-real-no-go-zone...
I'd run across a good article on that a year or so back. Search doesn't turn it up, though a NatGeo piece covers it: http://nationalgeographic.org/news/red-zone/
42,000 acres, which is 170 km^2 or 65 mi^2.
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(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.
The western front was a sort of scientific experiment in organized slaughter. The cavalry charges evolved into trench systems. Set piece rolling barrages coordinated with gas were perfected, shock tactics pioneered. It was an evil thing.
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.
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.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/1...
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."
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 ...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUvcdKGD-FM
Obviously a video is nothing like physically being present, but might give some idea.
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.
Perhaps there was some Gambler's fallacy involved - like wow, stopping shelling and blowing whistles before we attack somehow isn't fooling them, lets keep shelling whilst we walk on over no-man's land, it's got to work this time for sure; can't change it now, we've nearly won!??
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.