During World War I, artillery played a key role on the battlefield. The hostilities lasted for four years, although many believed that they would be as fleeting as possible. This was primarily due to the fact that Russia was organizing the organization of its artillery on the basis of the transience of armed confrontation. Therefore, the war was supposed to be maneuverable. One of the main qualities of artillery was tactical mobility.
goal
The main goal of artillery in the First World War is the defeat of enemy forces. This was especially effective, as there were no serious fortified positions at that time. The core of the artillery that worked in the field was light cannons, the main ammunition for which was shrapnel. Then military tactics believed that due to the high velocity of the projectile it is possible to carry out all the tasks that are assigned to artillery.
In this regard, the French cannon stood out as early as 1897, which, according to its technical and tactical characteristics, was among the leaders on the battlefield. At the same time, in its initial speed, it was significantly inferior to the Russian three-inch, but compensated for this with favorable shells, which were more economically spent during the battle. Moreover, the gun was highly stable, which led to a significant rate of fire.
In the Russian artillery during the First World War, a three-inch stood out, which was especially effective during flanking. With fire, she could cover an area of up to 800 meters with a width of about 100 meters.
Many military experts noted that there were no equal to the Russian and French field guns in the struggle to destroy the Russian and French field guns.
Equipment of the Russian building
Field artillery of the First World War stood out among other armies with its powerful equipment. True, if before the war light guns were mainly used, then during the battles a shortage of heavy artillery was felt.
Basically, the organization of Russian artillery troops was the result of underestimation of machine gun and rifle fire by opponents. From artillery was required primarily to support the infantry attack, and not to carry out independent artillery fire.
German artillery organization
German artillery in the First World War was organized in a fundamentally different way. Everything here was built on an attempt to foresee the nature of the impending battle. The Germans were armed with corps and divisional artillery. Therefore, by 1914, when positional warfare was actively used, the Germans began to equip each division with howitzers and heavy guns.
This led to the fact that field maneuvering became the main means of achieving tactical successes, and the German army was superior to many of its opponents in artillery power. It was also important that the Germans took into account the increased initial velocity of the shells.
Situation during the war
Thus, during the First World War, artillery became the leading means of warfare for many powers. The main qualities that began to be presented to field tools were mobility in conditions of maneuver warfare. This trend began to determine the organization of the battle, the quantitative ratio of troops, the proportional ratio of heavy and light artillery.
So, at the very beginning of the war, the Russian forces were armed with about three and a half guns per thousand bayonets, the Germans had about 6.5. At the same time, Russia had almost 7 thousand light guns and only about 240 heavy guns. The Germans had 6.5 thousand light cannons, but nearly 2 thousand heavy guns.
These indicators clearly illustrate the views of military leaders on the use of artillery in the First World War. Also, they can give the impression of those resources with which each of the key powers entered into this confrontation. It is obvious that German artillery during World War I more closely met the requirements of modern combat.
Further, we will examine in detail the most striking examples of German and Russian artillery.
Bombomet
Russian artillery in the First World War was widely represented by Aazen system bombers. These were special stock mortars, which in 1915 were created in France by the famous designer Niels Aazen, when it became clear that the available units of military equipment did not allow the Russian army to fight on an equal footing with opponents.
Aazen himself had French citizenship, and was Norwegian by origin. His bomb was produced in Russia from 1915 to 1916, was actively used by Russian artillery in the First World War.
The bomb was very reliable, it had a steel barrel, it was charged from the side of the treasury according to a separate type. The missile projectile itself was a shell used for the Gra rifle, which was outdated by then. A large number of these rifles were transferred by France to Russian troops. This mortar had a hinged bolt, and the carriage was of a frame type, standing on four supports. The lifting mechanism was thoroughly attached to the rear of the barrel. The total weight of the gun was about 25 kilograms.
With the help of a bomb, it was possible to fire direct fire, he also had a grenade in his ammunition equipped with shrapnel.
At the same time, he had one, but a very significant drawback, because of which the shooting became unsafe for the calculation itself. The whole point was that with the upper shutter open, the firing pin was recessed to a very shallow depth. It was necessary to carefully monitor that the liner was sent out manually, and not with the help of the shutter. This was especially important when shooting was carried out at an angle of about 30 degrees.
If these rules were not respected, a premature shot occurred when the shutter was not fully closed.
76 mm anti-aircraft gun
One of the most popular guns in the artillery of the Russian army in World War I was the 76-mm anti-aircraft gun. For the first time in our country, it was made for firing at air targets.
Her project was developed by military engineer Mikhail Rosenberg. It was supposed that it would be specifically used against airplanes, but in the end such a proposal was rejected. It was believed that there was no need for special anti-aircraft artillery.
Only in 1913 the project was approved by the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Russia. The next year he was transferred to the Putilov factory. The gun turned out to be semi-automatic, by that time it had come to the realization that special artillery was necessary for firing at air targets.
Since 1915, Russian artillery in the First World War began to use this weapon. For this, a separate battery was equipped, armed with four guns, which were based on armored vehicles. They also stored spare charges.
During the war, these guns were sent to the front in 1915. In the first battle, they were able to repel the attack of 9 German aircraft, while two of them were shot down. These were the first air targets shot down by Russian artillery.
Some of the guns were not loaded onto cars, but onto railroad cars, similar batteries began to form by 1917.
The gun turned out so successful that it was also used during the years of World War II.
Serf artillery
Serf artillery was still actively used in the First World War, and after its end the need for such guns finally came to naught. The reason was that the defensive role of fortresses went by the wayside.
Moreover, in Russia there was a very ramified serf artillery. By the beginning of the war, there were four artillery serf regiments in service, which were combined into brigades, and there were 52 separate serf battalions, 15 companies and 5 so-called sortie batteries (in wartime, their number increased to 16).
In total, during the years of World War I, the Russian army used about 40 artillery systems, although most of them were very outdated by that time.
After the war, serf artillery almost completely ceased to be used.
Naval artillery
A considerable part of the battles took place at sea. The decisive role in them was played by naval artillery of the First World War.
For example, large-caliber naval guns were rightfully considered the main weapon at sea. Therefore, by the total number of heavy guns and the total weight of the fleet, it was possible to determine how strong the fleet of a country was.
By and large, all the heavy guns of that time could conditionally be divided into two types. These are English and Germanic. The first category included tools developed by Armstrong, and the second - manufactured by Krupp, which became famous for its steel during the Second World War.
The British artillery guns had a barrel, which was covered with a casing on top. In the German artillery of the First World War, special cylinders were used, which were put on each other so that the outer row completely overlapped the places of internal joints and associations.
The German design was adopted by most countries, including Russia, as it was objectively considered more progressive. English guns lasted until the 20s of the XX century, and after they also switched to German technology.
It was such weapons that were used on ships for naval battles. They were especially common during the dreadnought era, differing only in insignificant details, in particular the number of guns in the tower. For example, for the French battleship under the name "Normandy" a special four-gun tower was developed, in which there were two pairs of guns at once.
Heavy artillery
As already noted, the heavy artillery of the First World War determined the outcome of more than one battle. It was characterized by the ability to fire long distances, and was able to effectively hit the enemy from cover.
Before World War I, heavy guns were almost always part of the serf artillery, but field heavy artillery at that time was just beginning to take shape. Moreover, an acute need for it was felt even during the Russo-Japanese War.
From the very beginning, World War I had a pronounced positional character. It became apparent that without heavy guns it would not be possible to carry out a single successful offensive by troops. Indeed, for this it was necessary to effectively destroy the first line of defense of the enemy, as well as to move on, while remaining in a reliable shelter. Field heavy artillery became one of the main during the war, including siege functions.
In 1916-1917, on the initiative of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who at that time held the post of inspector general of artillery, a reserve was formed for the High Command, called heavy artillery for special purposes. It consisted of six artillery brigades.
The formation of this unit took place in conditions of increased secrecy in Tsarskoye Selo. In total, during the war more than five hundred similar batteries were created, which included more than two thousand guns.
"Big Bertha"
The most famous artillery gun of Germany during the First World War was the mortar "Big Bertha", which was also called "Fatty Bertha".
The project was developed back in 1904, but this gun was built and launched into mass production only in 1914. Work was carried out at the Krupp factories.
The main creators of "Big Bertha" were a major German designer, Professor Fritz Rauschenberger, who worked in the German concern "Krupp", as well as his colleague and predecessor by the name of Dräger. It was they who nicknamed this 420 mm gun “Fatty Berta”, dedicating it to her granddaughter Alfred Krupp, the “cannon king” of the beginning of the 20th century, who brought his enterprise to world leaders, making the company one of the most successful among other arms manufacturers.
At that time, when this mortar was launched into industrial production, its de facto owner was the granddaughter of the legendary Krupp, whose name was Bert.
Mortira "Big Bertha" was actively used in the artillery of Germany. In the First World War, it was intended to destroy the most durable fortifications of the time. At the same time, the gun itself was produced in two versions at once. The first was semi-stationary and bore the code "type Gamma", and towed was designated as "type M". The mass of guns was very large - 140 and 42 tons, respectively. Only about half of all mortars produced were towed, the rest had to be disassembled into three parts to move them from place to place using steam tractors. In order to assemble the entire unit in combat readiness, it took at least 12 hours.
The rate of fire of the gun reached one shot in 8 minutes. Moreover, his power was so great that rivals preferred not to collide with her on the battlefield.
Interestingly, different types of guns used different ammunition. For example, the so-called type M fired powerful and heavy shells, the mass of which exceeded 800 kilograms. And the range of one shot reached almost nine and a half kilometers. For the “Gamma type”, lighter shells were used, which, however, could fly 14 kilometers with a small one, and heavier ones, reaching the target at a distance of 12.5 kilometers.
The impact force of the mortar was also achieved due to the large number of fragments, each of the shells scattered into about 15 thousand pieces, many of which could be deadly. Among the defenders of the fortresses, the most terrible were armor-piercing shells, which could not stop even the overlap of steel and concrete about two meters thick.
The Russian army suffered heavy casualties from Big Bertha. This is despite the fact that its characteristics were at the disposal of intelligence even before the outbreak of World War I. In many domestic fortresses, work began on the modernization of old and the construction of fundamentally new structures for defense. They were originally designed to hit shells that were equipped with the "Big Bertha". The thickness of the overlap for this ranged from three and a half to five meters.
When the First World War began, German troops began to use Bertu effectively during the siege of Belgian and French fortresses. They sought to break the will of the enemy, forcing the garrisons to surrender one after another. As a rule, this required only two mortars, about 350 shells and no more than 24 hours, during which the siege lasted. On the Western Front, this mortar was even called the "killer of forts."
A total of 9 of these legendary guns were produced at the Krupp enterprises, which participated in the capture of Liège, the siege of Verdun. To capture the fortress, Osovets brought 4 “Big Bertas” at once, 2 of which were successfully destroyed by the defenders.
By the way, there is a very widespread opinion that the Greater Bertha was used to besiege Paris in 1918. But in reality this is not so. The French capital was bombarded by the Colossal gun. "Big Berta" still remained in the memory of many of one of the most powerful artillery pieces of the First World War.