Alternative Artillery of the 20th Century

[Sheldrake]

...
c. The German success in tactical manoeuvre and the contact battle led them to favour decentralisation. Hence e.g. 240 STuG parceled out to the infantry in penny packets rather than large numbers of field artillery tubes that could be massed as 240 gun batteries against any point on the Army front. One often overlooked aspect is that the debate about German reserves prior to D Day almost totally ignored artillery. Because there was no agreement on how the panzer divisions were to be used, few if any provision has been made for artillery contingencies. So when 1st SS Panzer Corps deployed to Normandy after D Day there had been no prior survey of gun positions or even 1:25,000 maps, even though Normandy was always one of the possible battlefields.

Hypothetically the 12th Pz Div artillery could have picked up survey & other at least initial occupation requirements from the already established artillery of the corps & divisions in place. The ability to do so would speak to the capabilities of the internal support of the artillery & how robust it may or may not have been at division, corps and army. The numerous description of the ARKOS strongly suggest it was anemic.

The source was FMS B832 interview with Staudinger the ARKO I SS Corps
"unfortunately nothing had been done, all through the years of German occupation ,to survey and stake out artillery positions. Apparently this had been neglected as a consequence of the tactical theory, allegedly by Rommel himself, that the guns should be stationed immediately at the waters edge in the hopes that by doing so enemy troops could be prevented from gaining a footing." FMS 832 P13-14

Yup the artillery dispositions seem to have been neglected as a consequence of the Rommel's Longest day theory.

Staudinger went on to mention that artillery reserves for Seventh army had been stored in uncamouflaged dumps in the Caen area partially guarded by civilians. I SS Corps was ordered to move the dumps but lacked the men or transport to do so. This took place just before the invasion and the dumps were destroyed by allied air attacks.

[Sheldrake]

Re `1. Nope the Germans did not have a "Huge artillery park" compared to Britain,. France and
the Soviet Union which had huge stocks from WW1.

(10)You didn't say 'compared to these powers who never disarmed from WW1' you said they neglected their artillery arm, which they did not they just had to start from a very limited pool of artillery left over and needed to build up their industry before they could produce more. As it was they were planning on being fully rearmed as of 1942 so when the war came in 1939 they were still in the process of rebuilding their artillery stockpiles.

However the Germans did not invest in the motor transport to bring ammunition to the front line at 20 mph rather than 2 mph
Re 2 No the Germans did not invest in motor transport. They had an acute shortage of motor transport and needed to use French Czech and later Italian vehicles to support Op Barbarossa.

Schell Plan?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schell-Plan
Again the war came years before anyone in Germany had planned, so they had not completed the program yet. Having shortages doesn't mean they didn't invest in motor transport, it means they were caught in the middle of rearmament. For someone who claims to know so much about WW2 how do you not know that??? (11)

Re 3 Why did the anti tank elements of the non motorised infantry formations did need more mobility than that of the infantry it accompanied.

Because tanks are motorized and will be able to advance more quickly than horses, so there is a need for rapid movement of AT guns around the front. Besides as of 1941 the average non-motorized infantry division had something like 900 motor vehicles, so it was far from just the AT guns that were motorized in a 'foot' infantry division. (12)

Re 4 The Sk 10.5 cm and Flak 88 were only a minor part of the artillery park compared to the fH 18 and 15 cm sFH 18 which were horse drawn.
https://www.wwiidaybyday.com/kstn/kstn4331mar44.htm
https://www.wwiidaybyday.com/kstn/kstn433n1mai44.htm

Sure, they were heavy specialist pieces that needed more mobility than the standard division guns, which only had to keep pace with foot bound infantry. Fact was the heavier guns were all motorized and it was the standard division pieces in non-motorized divisions that were horse drawn...and kept pace with infantry on foot. So why motorize them so they could be faster than the guys they were following?

Re 5. If the Germans had a large gun park why not use this? The British made use of lots of foreign artillery pieces in 1940-41 but only because they had lost most of their artillery at Dunkirk.

They did use what they had been able to produce. I'm not sure where you're getting that they didn't use artillery fire. 65% of casualties were caused by artillery after all. So what is your point?
(13)

Re 6 Show me where artillery was transferred to the Ukraine from, or diverted from Normandy.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... ode=fslv20

Re 7 Nope. my remarks are based on the FMS interview with ARKO 1 SS Corps who had some inside knowledge.

Ok, can you link a copy for the rest of us to evaluate or are you planning on hiding the exact words of the guy in question?

Re 8 Really? I think we are referring to shades of meaning.

You said:

German re-armament skimped on artillery.

And:

Yup the Germans did invest in artillery in the run up to the Second World War.

Feel free to clarify your meaning.
(14)

Re 9 My knowledge of artillery in Normandy makes it an obvious source of examples, including the shortcomings of German horse drawn transport in that campaign.

It is one isolated campaign and when combined with the article linked above that shows how the situation in Ukraine diverted major resources and reserves away from Normandy, especially motor vehicles after the 1st Panzer Army lost most of their equipment in Hube's Pocket.

Here is the article link again:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... ode=fslv20
(15)

Re 10, 11 and 14. So WW2 happened to start before the Germans were ready? Don't you mean "Hitler started a war before he had equipped his army with the artillery and transport it would need." That rather supports the argument that Hitler rather skimped on artillery and transport.

RE 12 There is some logic missing here. Sure the Germans needed mobile anti tank troops as army troops, but what was the point of motorised anti tank guns within an non motorised formation travelling at marching pace.


Re 13 I think you will find the 65% figure s from artillery and mortars. Against the western allies German artillery was hampered by a lack of ammunition. Horse drawn artillery trains were sooo First World War and could only operate within a short distance of a railhead.

Re 15 I think someone else has already answered this point.

[stg 44]

Re 10, 11 and 14. So WW2 happened to start before the Germans were ready? Don't you mean "Hitler started a war before he had equipped his army with the artillery and transport it would need." That rather supports the argument that Hitler rather skimped on artillery and transport.

Again, not sure how that means he/they skimped on artillery. Hitler blundered into war thinking the MR Pact would keep the Allies from declaring war over Poland and was badly mistaken. That doesn't mean they skimped on artillery, they just had yet to build as much as they planned on.

RE 12 There is some logic missing here. Sure the Germans needed mobile anti tank troops as army troops, but what was the point of motorised anti tank guns within an non motorised formation travelling at marching pace.

Need to rapidly deploy/redeploy quickly against armor threats. Plus being a relatively short ranged direct fire piece would mean it would likely need to redeploy much more often than artillery.

Re 13 I think you will find the 65% figure s from artillery and mortars. Against the western allies German artillery was hampered by a lack of ammunition. Horse drawn artillery trains were sooo First World War and could only operate within a short distance of a railhead.

Ok, fact of the matter is they still caused 2/3rds of casualties and I highly doubt 50% of that 65% is mortar related, especially given the number of claims about facing '88mm fire', which was much more often than not 105mm howitzer fire. Infantry gun use by the German military was a factor as well and still is artillery and probably a decent part of what was called mortars by Allied infantry. Despite all their disadvantages in terms of supply and need to disperse due to Allied airpower the fact is the artillery arm still functioned and inflicted pretty heavy losses on the Wallies despite their limited number of infantry relative to other arms and lack of replacements. Artillery largely did its job and it was more than lack of replacements and equipment that did in the German army in the west than use of horses for supply.

Re 15 I think someone else has already answered this point.

Not really. Someone responded to it, but didn't read the article or even know what it was claiming.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Read the paper because you're missing the entire argument and arguing off of serious misconceptions.

I just read the article, thanks. Liedtke's argument is air tight: the crushing material losses in Western Ukraine forced production to flow east when it was needed West for any chance of an effective counter to D-Day. Material shortages delayed or prevented deployment of most mechanized units that fought in Normandy or feasibly might have. Liedtke is an excellent researcher capable of connecting the dots across strategic theaters and between economics and battlefield outcomes. A rarity in his field.

The problem is you're asking someone to do the simplest of counterfactual reasoning (what if production flowed West instead of East?), as Liedtke does with alacrity in his article. Certain folks lack the programming or bandwidth for this mental task. They short-circuit when confronting it, spurting out various non-sequiturs.

[stg 44]

Read the paper because you're missing the entire argument and arguing off of serious misconceptions.

I just read the article, thanks. Liedtke's argument is air tight: the crushing material losses in Western Ukraine forced production to flow east when it was needed West for any chance of an effective counter to D-Day. Material shortages delayed or prevented deployment of most mechanized units that fought in Normandy or feasibly might have. Liedtke is an excellent researcher capable of connecting the dots across strategic theaters and between economics and battlefield outcomes. A rarity in his field.

The problem is you're asking someone to do the simplest of counterfactual reasoning (what if production flowed West instead of East?), as Liedtke does with alacrity in his article. Certain folks lack the programming or bandwidth for this mental task. They short-circuit when confronting it, spurting out various non-sequiturs.

Agree, Greg does excellent work from what I've seen of his writing. Articles like the one cited are indeed quite rare and incredibly valuable to making sense of the war. Glad to hear someone actually read it and appreciated its value.

As to the behavior of certain posters in this subsection...yes I've noticed. Seems like an issue getting worse over the last 7-10 years.

[Michael Kenny]

I just read the article, thanks. Liedtke's argument is air tight:

Does not read that way to me. It is just 'What-Iffery' where hindsight is used to work out how to best rob Peter to pay Paul and gain the Germans an extra month or two of survival. An extra Tiger Abteilung here, a fresh Panzer Division there and perhaps they could have lasted until the Haunebu entered service.

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[Richard Anderson]

Does not read that way to me. It is just 'What-Iffery' where hindsight is used to work out how to best rob Peter to pay Paul and gain the Germans an extra month or two of survival. An extra Tiger Abteilung here, a fresh Panzer Division there and perhaps they could have lasted until the Haunebu entered service.

So you went beyond the paywall to find that? Glad I didn't waste $45 on it.

Anyway, I'll respond to the game of shifting goalposts later.

[Carl Schwamberger]

... Staudinger went on to mention that artillery reserves for Seventh army had been stored in uncamouflaged dumps in the Caen area partially guarded by civilians. I SS Corps was ordered to move the dumps but lacked the men or transport to do so. This took place just before the invasion and the dumps were destroyed by allied air attacks.

The versions I've seen describe additional ammunition dumped at the battery positions, where the labor was not available to hastily dig revetments for it, or camouflage the extra. After the results of air attacks there came a order to move it to camouflaged depots away from the batteries. This offered as a explanation why the German artillery fires June 6th were not as intense as I'd expected. The guns had only one or two loads of ammo at hand & ran low in a couple hours. It is entirely possible both narratives are correct. Different locations and units, decisions.

[Carl Schwamberger]

The source was FMS B832 interview with Staudinger the ARKO I SS Corps
"unfortunately nothing had been done, all through the years of German occupation ,to survey and stake out artillery positions. Apparently this had been neglected as a consequence of the tactical theory, allegedly by Rommel himself, that the guns should be stationed immediately at the waters edge in the hopes that by doing so enemy troops could be prevented from gaining a footing." FMS 832 P13-14

Yup the artillery dispositions seem to have been neglected as a consequence of the Rommel's Longest day theory.

Pre Rommel it appears there would be no artillery near the beaches. The earlier concept was to make the fight a mobile battle a bit inland.

Either way the bulk of the artillery, rocket or cannon, were positioned a few km inland. Their set op looks like a conventional artillery deployment to me. LXXXIV Corps had how many field artillery and rocket batteries? 70? 80? Im not seeing evidence they were all overlooking the beaches. & since they did engage the Allied assault with indirect fires across the coastal battlefield they did have artillery positions staked out. This smells more like Marcks corps artillery officer lacked the ability to rapidly integrate the reinforcing SS Division into the corps fire plan.

Another thought is Staudinger was a fan of the mobile counter attack & is dising Rommels doctrine in this interview.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Don't have the numbers at hand...

You're looking at what was carried; the issue is who carried what (horses or trucks?).

Try this
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2017/07/0 ... -russia-i/
and the section headed "The impossible equation - Logistics and the supply of Barbarossa" in David Sahel's Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East.

Not a word about the horse vs. truck logistical distribution in either place.

-----------------------------------------------

Conceptual clarity, guys. It saves lots of wasted time.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Don't have the numbers at hand...

You're looking at what was carried; the issue is who carried what (horses or trucks?).

& the data for a answer is in my post. You are welcome.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Don't have the numbers at hand...

You're looking at what was carried; the issue is who carried what (horses or trucks?).

& the data for a answer is in my post. You are welcome.

Carl.

Show where you even mention the horse vs. truck share of German logistics in your post. I'll repost it below for convenience, all you have to do is highlight the requested portions:

Horse drawn transport was inadequate for ammunition resupply and tied to railheads.

Does anybody have insight into the actual logistical ton-km carried by ID's organic horse vs. truck supply columns?

Don't have the numbers at hand. From memory the standard load of the 10.5cm howitzer was 60 projectiles per cannon. Allowing 12.5 kg each thats 3000 kg in the battery train. Adding in a minimum of 33% for fuzes, propellant package, & dunnage = 4000kg. The 15cm battery would be @ 40 rounds per gun 9,576kg for the battery. With 36 10.5cm & 12 15cm howitzers the weight in the div artillery regiment load might be 65,000kg. This was as a rule of thumb a minimum days expenedenture. A slightly larger quantity was in theory carried in the division artillery supply train as a reserve. So in simplistic terms the army logistics officer would have to plan on moving 65 long tons from the railhead or depot to the firing batteries daily. At a minimum during combat operations. In sustained firing the 10.5 cm howitzer can average 2-3 rounds a minute indefinitely. Or at the low side 7,980kg in a four hour engagement. At ten rounds per minute of relatively rapid fire the battery could expend its at hand load in one hour of brief ten round bursts. Note that the loads for the 24 Light Infantry Howitzers in each regiment are not included in this rough estimate. I don't recall at all what the weight & numbers for their at hand ammo was.

A first-wave ID had 1,189 horse teams, 516 trucks, and 237 light transports in 1941. Motorizing the AT (72 guns) and some of the engineering elements (45 squads) leaves "spare" trucks for organic logistical lift. We all agree that trucks carry more than horses... In Supplying War, van Creveld says that the ID's organic truck columns (Kleincolonnenraum) were underutilized, resulting in anecdotes such as one division sending trucks back to Germany to retrieve sausage-making equipment.

If ID's had insufficient organic transport for the artillery supply from railheads, we'd have seen shells piling up at German railheads. I have never seen evidence of this happening and I've read through much of Ostheer's supply reports in NARA.

The averages and 'Units of Fire' the senior artillery planners and logistics officers use as their base line is a starting point for their planning. The reality is consumption and delivery comes in surges which they try to accommodate by stockpiling in depots. ie: Rundsteadt made a effort to stockpile over a months worth of anticipated consumption in the ammo depots of OB West. To deal with these surges the transport units of the corps and army are used.

Another reality was the delivery of ammunition fell below requirement. In the case of OB West in 1944 the previous years of looting the French railways, and the cumulative effects of Allied air attacks dropped the delivery capacity drastically. In March 1944 Rundsteadt reviewed the numbers with his staff and was pondering a estimate the capacity would be effectively reduced to below 10% of the 1940 value. Or the implication deliveries would be effectively reduced to below 50% of of supply requirements for the projected battle with the Allied invasion. That is the ammunition was not offloading at the railheads fast enough to exceed the capacity of the artillery and army transport units.

[Richard Anderson]

Several thousand pieces 7 years later is rather large for a country that only had equipment for 20 divisions in 1932 and a very limited military industry relative to rivals.

The exact same could be said of Great Britain and the United States, which began at a lower level. However, this is not about "several thousand pieces" more, it is about how those could be used and what capability they gave to the Heer. In this case, the coin of the realm is the number of field pieces per division, because, well, the division was the coin of the realm for maneuver. Now of course you can busily shift the goalpost again and say that not all German divisions were the same, or that some divisions were more maneuver divisions than others, but that does not change the metric, rather it simply raises the question why Germany created so many nominal maneuver units that were incapable of maneuver and only diluted the pool of artillery?

So, anyway, as a contrast we can look at the U.S. Army in 1932, which had a stock of 4,236 75mm guns, 973 155mm field guns, 2,971 155mm howitzers, 475 8inch howitzers, and 320 240mm howitzers, but it was ineffective, antiquated, mostly in storage, and with few active Army units to man them. And yet, as of 8 May 1945, there were 2,832 non-divisional pieces in the ETOUSA, supporting the 61 Infantry, Armored, and Airborne divisions there, so each division, in addition to its 48-54 organic FA pieces, had another 46 on average in support...roughly 96 pieces per division versus the 67.4 polyglot of the Heer.

Are you factoring in all the massive losses in equipment between 1941-45?

Why should I, other than as an exercise in chasing your moving goalposts?

Or the impact of bombing on production as well as the loss of raw material sources? Since you're obviously not it is a pointless comparison you're making.

No, I was simply pointing out that you were - and still are - expressing your feelings on the subject rather than contributing actual data. You described a "huge" German artillery park, but it wasn't in the most critical sense, which was in its ability to provide fire support to the German divisions. The German field artillery may have been numerically large, but its size was not a measure of its effectiveness. In a sense, its size actually reduced its effectiveness, given the multiplicity of weapons, lack of ammunition, and lack of growth in the technical services supporting the field artillery.

Clearly the use of captured artillery by this point was driven by all of the above constraining factors rather than the choice to skimp on artillery production.

Clearly the Germans used captured artillery because they had insufficient numbers of their own production to make up the numbers they required. That did not make the German artillery more efficient though, it made it less efficient.

By your logic we can also claim that the Germans didn't focus on aircraft production because they had a massive reduction in number of airframes by 1945 compared to 1940.

Given I made no claims about production I think I can safely dismiss this as a red herring on your part.

[Richard Anderson]

Would you mind letting me get to respond to your first post before you start going off on a post I addressed to another poster?

Since I have you on ignore, you're lucky you get any response at all.

Did you bother to read the paper? The material wasn't taken from Ob. West, all available replacements/production was shifted to rebuild the units smashed in the East which meant Ob. West was not only deprived of several units, but a bunch of new production that should have been sent to them to build up their units to TOE.

Oh, so there was some other meaning to "the situation in Ukraine diverted major resources and reserves away from Normandy, especially motor vehicles after the 1st Panzer Army lost most of their equipment in Hube's Pocket" that I misunderstood? Now you're saying the argument is that some stuff from somewhere went to the East instead of the West...is that correct?

Well then, let's look at specifics. Let's narrow it down to PKW and LKW, which are the most important resource in this case. So the Ostheer actually lost 9,693 PKW in April and 1366 in May, ending with a shortfall on 1 June of 21,274, after receiving 9,038 as replacements in those two months and was spread over about 155 divisions. BTW, that is with monthly production January-May averaging just 2451.

OB.West meanwhile, the villain in this story, lost 691 PKW in April and May, ending with a shortfall of 3535 on 1 June, after receiving 3532...for roughly 60 divisions.

Have I mentioned that there was no actually combat going on in Ob.West in April and May 1944? So what we have is the notion that the threat of an Allied landing should have resulted in fewer replacements going to the Ostheer and more to Ob.West. I don't quite follow that logic.

Maybe you should read the paper before you comment then.

After reading the snippet posted by MK I am even more glad I did not spend the $45 on it.

Okay, the divisions of II. SS-Panzerkorps. Yep, wasted effort because they did jack all by the time they got to Ukraine and simply turned around and went back to Normandy...but they weren't both in Normandy to start with. 9. SS was with 19. AOK in Southern France, while 10. SS was between the Seine and Dives...and was also the least ready for combat. Would it have made a difference on D-Day or soon after? Doubful.

349. Inf-Div...so it was wrong to send it to the Ostheer from Calais in April? Why? The primary function of Ob.West was to defend the coast and train replacements for the Ostheer. 349. Inf-Div was organized in France from fragments of the 217. Inf-Div, which was destroyed in the East.I doubt there was ever a question that it would not go East when rebuilt.

507. sPz-Abtl? Yes, it completed organizing in the Netherlands, but was on its way to Poland on 15 March. It too was likely never considered for Ob.West, especially given the perilous state of the Ostfront. Chekassy-Korsun was in the past and the Kamenets–Podolsky battle was just beginning. Why would the Germans retain such a battalion in Ob.West to guard against a potential threat when there was a real calamity occurring?

Ditto 311. and 312. StuG Brigaden...they were newly formed, in Germany, and were never assigned to Ob.West.

So these three divisions, plus five others, could have been in France and might have contained the Allied bridgehead is the argument?

It is immaterial I suppose that 5. SS was ground into hamburger at Kovel in April and it was rebuilding at Heidelager from May into July?

57. Inf-Div? It was in such bad shape that when it was ordered to began rebuilding 28 February, it was expected it would not be ready until 1 June, but then its building was abruptly ended 13 April so it could be placed in reserve at Mogilev, where it was destroyed. It was never available for Ob.West.

And so on. These are imagined possibilities for imaginary reserves that rival Hitler's.

[Michael Kenny]

So you went beyond the paywall to find that? Glad I didn't waste $45 on it.

It is online for free but you have to dig. I can send a copy to anyone who wants one.

This link will be active for one week

https://we.tl/t-68nNAYtEOR