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Comment by adev_ | Hacker News Reader

I am currently born near to Verdun

> The amount of shells fired at the battle of as Verdun is so extremely high that you find layers of shells everywhere

On the first onslaught on the city, it is estimated the German fired around 2 millions shell on Verdun in two days. [1]

It is hard to imagine by today living standards the hell that people lived there.

> The land is literally filled with shells, bullets, scrapnel everywhere. Some are still live and just brought to the top of the soil by farm tractor machinery

Some forest area are still today considered the 'zone rouge'. There is still so many shell inside them that the access or activities there are forbidden [2].

Even in the area not considered 'zone rouge', it is still pretty common for farmers or forest workers to find back non-exploded shell regularly, even today.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fINsiiUZtuc [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge

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2M shells in 48 hrs is 11.5 shells a second.

(NUMBER OF BARRELS)[(SHOT SEQUENCE TIME/SECONDS)(11.5 SECONDS)]

But if you design a factory to make shells quickly, each production line can probably do 1 shell per second (they're not so different from big bullets, and those are made very rapidly).

11 of those lines and you can be keeping up that rate forever.

It's not enough to produce them, you also need to get them close to the front. The logistics of transporting millions of tons ammunition outside of normal trading routes should not be underestimated

Stockpiling those shells for a "huge burst" at the start of a battle is more than possible though.

The main issue today, is such stockpiles are easily found by recon (satellites, airplanes, drones), and then blown up by enemy artillery / rocket artillery.

Just happened to be listening to Dan Carlin's hardcore history about WWI. From memory, the Germans would build multiple railway lines to the front to supply a large offensive like this. And then they'd spend weeks stockpiling ammunition and food using those multiple railway lines. At times this conferred a large advantage to the Germans as parts of the Allies side would be supplied by a single road vs. multiple railway lines.

When you don't have to deal with boring things like permission to build, consent of landowners, keeping roads open, etc., building a railway is very quick and easy.

Building multiple railway lines is also a safety thing - you don't want to leave a whole section of your troops unsupplied just because some train is hit by a shell and wrecked blocking the tracks.

Logistics are invented during ww1. Same for canned food. Boxing material and more.

I just found out a few days ago when I have read about track gauge, that they literally built narrow train lines to transport ammunition at scale. Eg: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/light-rail-ammunition-...

I watched a documentary a little while ago which described the sound as a constant drum-roll during these barrages.

I don't have sound at the moment but think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscEoupkqv4 is something similar. The scale of these attacks is mind boggling.

> A barrage like this is referred to as "drumfire" by veterans to describe artillery that is so constant, unceasing and uninterrupted, that it sounds like drums. Others say that it sounded almost like a sea. It is agreed that it was impossible to hear individual shells, due to the sheer amount being fired.

> A video to describe the sheer scale of WW1 artillery barrages and how they may have sounded. It may also help to convey the experience of shell shock (PTSD) a WW1 soldier may have developed. Although this video pretends to be the experience of an artillery barrage, a true artillery barrage especially on this scale cannot ever be felt in the same way through a demonstration as the world would shatter, pressure and concussive forces would be felt throughout the entire body with each blast, and the noise would be so extremely violent and loud that anyone would have their ear drums ruptured.

In these days of elite, small squads as shown on television, this is a stark reminder that war is incredibly, literally unbelievably, savage thing.

Aftermath - The Remnants of War by Donovan Webster[1] is highly recommended and has a section on Zone Rouge.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Remnants-Landmines-Warfare-...

I'd second this book -- it's unforgettable in its description of the unexploded bombs left over from war, in addition to land mines and the continuing effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

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