The weapon that started World War I. Field artillery before World War I Giants from Austria-Hungary

21.09.2019

The First World War gave birth to super-heavy guns, one shell of which weighed a ton, and the firing range reached 15 kilometers. The weight of these giants reached 100 tons.

deficit

Everyone knows the famous army joke about "crocodiles that fly, but low." However, the military was far from always erudite and far-sighted in the past. For example, General Dragomirov generally believed that the First World War would last four months. But the French military completely adopted the concept of "one gun and a single projectile", intending to use it to defeat Germany in the coming European war.

Russia, which followed the military policy of France, also paid tribute to this doctrine. But when the war soon turned into a positional war, the troops dug into the trenches, protected by many rows of barbed wire, it turned out that the Entente allies were sorely lacking heavy guns capable of operating in these conditions.

No, a certain number of relative large-caliber guns troops had: Austria-Hungary and Germany had 100-mm and 105-mm howitzers, England and Russia had 114-mm and 122-mm howitzers. Finally, all the warring countries used 150/152 or 155-mm howitzers and mortars, but even their power was clearly not enough. “Our dugout in three rolls” covered with sandbags on top protected from any shells of light howitzers, and concrete was used against heavier ones.

However, Russia did not even have enough of them, and she had to buy 114-mm, 152-mm and 203-mm and 234-mm howitzers in England. In addition to them, the heavier guns of the Russian army were the 280-mm mortar (developed by the French company Schneider, as well as the entire line of 122-152-mm howitzers and cannons) and the 305-mm howitzer 1915 of the Obukhov plant, produced during the war years in only 50 units!

"Big Bertha"

But the Germans, preparing for offensive battles in Europe, very carefully approached the experience of the Anglo-Boer and Russian-Japanese wars and in advance created not just a heavy, but a super-heavy gun - a 420-mm mortar called "Big Bertha" (named after the then owner of the Krupp concern), the most there is no real “hammer of witches”.

The projectile of this super-weapon had a weight of 810 kg, and it fired for as much as 14 km. A high-explosive projectile during the explosion gave a funnel 4.25 meters deep and 10.5 meters in diameter. Fragmentation shattered into 15 thousand pieces of deadly metal, which retained lethal force at a distance of up to two kilometers. However, the defenders of the same, for example, Belgian fortresses considered the most terrible armor-piercing shells, from which even two-meter ceilings made of steel and concrete did not save.

During the First World War, the Germans successfully used the Berthas to bombard well-fortified French and Belgian forts, and the Verdun fortress. At the same time, it was noted that in order to break the will to resist and force the fort's garrison of a thousand people to surrender, all it took was only two such mortars, a day of time and 360 shells. Not without reason, our allies on the Western Front called the 420-mm mortar "fort killer".

In the modern Russian television series The Fall of the Empire, during the siege of the Kovno fortress, the Germans fire at it from the Big Bertha. In any case, that's what it says on the screen. In fact, the "Big Bertha" was "played" by the Soviet 305-mm artillery mount TM-3-12 on a railway track, which was radically different from the "Berta" in all respects.

A total of nine such guns were built, they participated in the capture of Liege in August 1914, and in the battle for Verdun in the winter of 1916. Under the Osovets fortress, four guns were delivered on February 3, 1915, so shooting scenes of its use on the Russian-German front should have been in winter, not in summer!

Giants from Austria-Hungary

But on the Eastern Front, Russian troops more often had to deal with another 420-mm monster gun - not a German, but an Austro-Hungarian howitzer of the same caliber M14, created in 1916. And yielding German gun in the firing range (12700 m), it surpassed it in terms of the weight of the projectile, which weighed one ton!

Fortunately, this monster was much less transportable than a wheeled German howitzer. Tu, albeit slowly, but it was possible to tow. The Austro-Hungarian, every time you change position, had to be disassembled and transported using 32 trucks and trailers, and it took from 12 to 40 hours to assemble it.

It should be noted that in addition to the terrible destructive action, these guns also had a relatively high rate of fire. So, "Bertha" fired one shell in eight minutes, and the Austro-Hungarian - 6-8 shells per hour!

Less powerful was another Austro-Hungarian howitzer "Barbara", caliber 380 mm, which fired 12 rounds per hour and sent its 740-kilogram shells to a distance of 15 km! However, both this gun and the 305-mm and 240-mm mortars were stationary installations that were transported in parts and installed in special positions, which required time and a lot of work to equip. In addition, the 240-mm mortar fired only at 6500 m, that is, it was in the kill zone even of our Russian 76.2-mm field gun! Nevertheless, all these guns fought and fired, but we obviously did not have enough guns to answer them.

Entente response

How did the Allies in the Entente respond to all this? Well, Russia didn't have much choice: they were mostly the already mentioned 305-mm howitzers, with a projectile weighing 376 kg and a range of 13448 m, firing one shot in three minutes.

But the British released a whole series of such stationary guns of ever-increasing caliber, starting with 234-mm and up to 15-inch - 381-mm siege howitzers. Winston Churchill himself was actively involved in the latter, having achieved their release in 1916. Although this gun turned out to be not very impressive with the British, they released only twelve of them.

It threw a projectile weighing 635 kg to a distance of only 9.87 km, while the installation itself weighed 94 tons. And it was a net weight, without ballast. The fact is that in order to give this gun greater stability (and all other guns of this type), they had a steel box under the barrel, which had to be filled with 20.3 tons of ballast, that is, simply put, fill it with earth and stones.

Therefore, the 234-mm installations Mk I and Mk II became the most massive in the British army (a total of 512 guns of both types were fired). At the same time, they fired a 290-kilogram projectile at 12,740 m. But ... they also needed this very 20-ton box of earth, and just imagine the amount of earthwork that was required to install just a few of these guns in positions! By the way, today you can see it “live” in London at the Imperial War Museum, just like the 203-mm English howitzer exhibited in the courtyard Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg!

The French, on the other hand, responded to the German challenge by creating a 400-mm howitzer M 1915/16 on a railway transporter. The tool was developed by Saint-Chamon and already at the first combat use October 21-23, 1916 showed its high efficiency. Howitzer could shoot as "light" high-explosive shells weighing 641–652 kg, containing about 180 kg of explosives, respectively, and heavy from 890 to 900 kg. At the same time, the firing range reached 16 km. Before the end of the First World War, eight 400-mm such installations were made, two more installations were assembled after the war.

More than a hundred years ago, Europe and America were convinced that big war impossible. The Chicago Tribune, in its issue of January 1, 1901, wrote: “The twentieth century will be the century of humanity and the brotherhood of all people.” The "age of humanity" turned into an unprecedented massacre.

The First World War, which began on July 28, 1914, brought a lot of technological, scientific and social innovations. Military aviation, tanks, machine guns, hand grenades, mortars and other weapons of murder during the First World War.

Warplanes, long-range artillery, tanks, machine guns, hand grenades and mortars - all these novelties appeared during the First World War. And before the war, German politicians and generals rejected many ideas that were implemented during the war. The flamethrower was patented by the Berlin engineer Richard Fiedler in 1901. But production was organized only during the war. It was launched during the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. A jet of flame hit 35 meters ... For more information about the new murder weapons that appeared during the First World War, we will read in the material "Ogonyok" by Leonid Mlechin.

Among the technological innovations that began to be used regularly during the First World War and changed the battlefield forever were machine guns. The Russian army at the beginning of the war had three models of machine guns "Maxim" / In the photo: 37-mm automatic cannon, "machine gun"

65 million people participated in the First World War. One in six died. Millions returned home injured or disabled. Western Europeans suffered in the First World War the biggest losses in their history, and it is this war that is called the "great". In World War I, twice as many British, three times as many Belgians and four times as many French died as in World War II.

During the First World War, women were officially enrolled in the ranks of the US military. The US Navy created a reserve force that allowed women to serve as radio operators, nurses, and other auxiliary military positions / Pictured: Rear Admiral Victor Blue (center left), head of the US Bureau of Shipping, 1918

They were afraid of each other

The more you read memoirs and books about the First World War, the more clearly you understand that none of the leading men understood where they were leading their country. They, so to speak, slipped into the war, or, to put it another way, stumbling like sleepwalkers, collapsed into it - stupidly! However, perhaps not only out of stupidity. I wanted a war - not so terrible, of course, but small, glorious and victorious.

German Kaiser Wilhelm, British King George V and Czar Nicholas II were cousins. They met at family celebrations, for example, at the wedding of the Kaiser's daughter in Berlin in 1913. So to some extent it was a fratricidal war...

At the beginning of the war, aircraft were used only for reconnaissance. 1915 changed fate military aviation. The French pilot Roland Garros was the first to install a machine gun on his Moran-Salnier monoplane. In response, the Germans developed the Fokker fighter, in which the rotation of the propeller was synchronized with firing from the onboard machine gun, which made it possible to conduct aimed fire. The appearance of the Fokkers in the summer of 1915 allowed German aviation to seize dominance in the sky

The fate of Europe that summer depended on several hundred people - monarchs, ministers, generals and diplomats. Very old people, they lived by old ideas. They could not imagine that the game was going according to new rules and that the new war would in no way resemble the conflicts of the bygone century.

All the great powers contributed to the outbreak of the First World War. Because they mainly cared about their own prestige, they were afraid of losing influence and political weight. France saw that it was losing the arms race with Germany and wanted to enlist the support of Russia. Germany was afraid of the rapid industrial growth of Russia and was in a hurry to deliver a preemptive strike. Nicholas II was worried: what if England switches sides? London feared that the development of the German Reich threatened the very existence of the British Empire. Germany supported Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, while Britain considered them adversaries. This was the tragedy of Europe: every action gave birth to reaction. You acquire an ally, an irreconcilable enemy is immediately revealed. And small states, like Serbia, pitted the great powers against each other and acted as a detonator.

"Flying team" of Siberians. Archive "Spark", 1914

Kaiser wrote a check

The Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph I, of course, was aware of the danger of Russian intervention on the side of the Slavic brothers in the event of an Austrian attack on Serbia. And he asked Germany for help. On July 5, 1914, the Austrian ambassador visited Kaiser Wilhelm in his new palace in Potsdam.

The traditional scenario of world politics was being played out: a weaker country, Austria-Hungary, draws a strong ally, Germany, into a regional conflict. Vienna has made such attempts more than once. But the Germans had put on the brakes before.

But what about the summer of 1914?

In 1906, Emperor Franz Joseph I called useless an armored car with a rotating turret developed by Austro-Daimler (it was equipped with a coaxial Maxim machine gun). After 10 years, the British were the first to throw tanks into battle. British heavy tanks "Mark IV" (pictured), first participated in the battle on June 7, 1917, had a crew of 8 people. The armor thickness of the tank ranged from 8 to 16 mm, and was armed with a 2 × 57-mm (6-lb) Hotchkiss L / 23 gun and 4 × 7.7-mm Lewis machine guns

German generals preferred to strike quickly until Russia completed its rearmament program. "Better now than later" is the slogan of Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke. To quickly defeat France and Russia, and to agree with England - this is how the scenario was drawn by the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. Berlin assumed that London would remain neutral. And the British allowed the Germans to remain in a pleasant delusion for a long time.

The Kaiser perceived the world as a stage on which he could prove himself in his favorite attire - a military uniform. Otto von Bismarck called him hot air balloon, which must be held tightly on a string, otherwise it will be carried away to no one knows where. But the Kaiser got rid of the iron chancellor. And there was no one else to restrain Wilhelm.

Dining with the Austrian ambassador, the Kaiser wrote him a check for any amount - he said that Vienna could count on the "full support" of Germany, and even advised Franz Joseph I not to hesitate to attack Serbia.

French President Raymond Poincare rushed to St. Petersburg. It seemed to him that Nicholas II was not determined enough. The president insisted: one should be firmer with the Germans.

Everyone understood that they were playing with fire, but they tried to extract some benefits from this dangerous situation. On July 29, the Austrian flotilla on the Danube opened fire on Belgrade. In response, Nicholas II announced a general mobilization.

First rank convoy. Archive "Spark", 1915

Forces were equal

Many wars have been fought in history for various reasons. The war that broke out in Europe in the summer of 1914 was pointless; to justify it, the opposing sides immediately gave it an ideological dimension. The First World War is a time of unlimited myth-making: about the atrocities committed by sadistic enemies, and about the nobility of our own miraculous heroes in army overcoats.

Allied propaganda resented the heinous crimes of the "Huns". In the Entente countries, shops and restaurants owned by the Germans were smashed. A British publicist urged his readers: "If you, sitting in a restaurant, find that the waiter serving you is German, throw the soup right into his dirty face."

World War I was the first large-scale war during which most of the combat losses were caused by artillery. According to experts, three out of five died from shell explosions. Many could not withstand the shelling, jumped out of the trench and fell under destructive fire / In the photo: 75-mm gun in the service of the US military, 1918

The young writer Ilya Ehrenburg wrote from France to the poet Maximilian Voloshin on July 19, 1915: "I am reading Petit Nicois. Yesterday there was an editorial on the topic of German smells. the Germans were imprisoned, they have to be burned."

The famous American journalist Garrison Salisbury was then a boy:

"I believed all the stories invented by the British about the cruelties of the Germans - about nuns who were tied to bells instead of tongues, about the severed hands of little girls - for throwing stones at German soldiers ... A letter from Aunt Sue from Paris reported poisoned chocolates, and I was told never to take chocolate from strangers on the street."

No one expected that the war would drag on. But all the plans carefully developed by the General Staffs collapsed in the very first months. The forces of the opposing blocs turned out to be approximately the same. The flourishing of new military equipment multiplied the number of victims, but did not allow crushing the enemy and moving forward. Both sides fought to win, but neither offensive led to nothing.

The First World War was the debut of chemical weapons: in the spring of 1915, the German army staged the first gas attack on the Western Front. April 22 at half past five in the evening near the Flemish city of Ypres in Belgium, a cloud of asphyxiating gas covered enemy positions. Taking advantage of the wind that blew towards the enemy, they released 150 tons of chlorine gas from cylinders. The French soldiers did not understand what kind of cloud was approaching them. As a result, 1.2 thousand people died.

The Battle of the Somme lasted four and a half months. Having paid with the lives of 600 thousand soldiers and officers, France and England won back 10 kilometers. 300 thousand died near Verdun, and the front line remained practically unchanged. Almost half a million Russian soldiers died, were wounded or captured in the summer of 1916 during the Brusilov breakthrough east of Lvov, and won back no more than 100 kilometers.

Near Verdun, German artillerymen fired 2 million shells in the first eight hours of the battle. But when German soldiers went on the offensive, they ran into the resistance of the French infantry, who survived the artillery preparation and fought desperately. From a strategic point of view, it made no sense to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of their soldiers to capture the fortifications around Verdun. But it was equally not worth putting so many people to keep them ...

In 1916, the war exceeded the demographic and economic possibilities of countries to continue it. In Germany, France and Austria-Hungary, 80 percent of the men fit for military service. An entire generation was sent to the battlefields.

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Russian soldiers try on French helmets at the Mailly camp near Chalons in France. Archive "Spark", 1916

New murder weapons

Warplanes, long-range artillery, tanks, machine guns, hand grenades and mortars - all these novelties appeared during the First World War.

And before the war, German politicians and generals rejected many ideas that were implemented during the war. The flamethrower was patented by the Berlin engineer Richard Fiedler in 1901. But production was organized only during the war. It was launched during the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. The jet of flame hit 35 meters.

In 1906, Emperor Franz Joseph I called useless the armored car with a rotating turret developed by Austro-Daimler (it was equipped with a coaxial machine gun "Maxim"). After 10 years, the British were the first to throw tanks into battle.

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Germany was the first to receive chemical weapons, since it had a more developed chemical industry. Great Britain, thanks to the colonies, did not need artificial dyes, and her industry fell behind. But a year after the attack on Ypres, the British caught up with the Germans. The beginning of the use of chemical weapons quickly led to the creation of protective measures, including the first gas masks.

The telephone has become the main means of communication. By 1917 german army stretched 920 thousand kilometers of telephone cable. But since it was easy to cut, army radio appeared. First " mobile phones Weighed 50 kilograms.

At the beginning of the war, aircraft were used only for reconnaissance. 1915 changed the fate of military aviation. The French pilot Roland Garros was the first to install a machine gun on his Moran-Salnier monoplane. In response, the Germans developed the Fokker fighter, in which the rotation of the propeller was synchronized with firing from the onboard machine gun, which made it possible to conduct aimed fire. The appearance of the Fokkers in the summer of 1915 allowed German aviation to seize dominance in the sky.

Submarines also presented a surprise. The First World War turned the food question into a political one. The blockade of Imperial Germany by the French and British fleets left the Germans almost starving. It is believed that about 600 thousand Germans and Austrians died from hunger in the First World War. The Allies did not expect that it was the submarine fleet that would be able to disrupt the British blockade of Germany.

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For the first time at this time, medical blood banks were established. Their author was US Army Captain Oswald Robertson, who showed that blood can be stored for future use and stored using sodium citrate to prevent clotting.

When the war began, the Kaiser had only 28 submarines - nothing compared to the huge fleet of the Entente. In Berlin, they did not understand how useful this novelty would be. Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had a low opinion of the submarine fleet, calling submarines "second-class weapons."

The operational order, signed by the Kaiser on July 30, 1914, left the submarines with an auxiliary role. But when the U-boats sank three British cruisers, the new method of naval warfare sparked enthusiasm. Germany inflicted considerable damage on England as the British merchant fleet ships sank one after another, hit by German torpedoes.

Many volunteers wished to become submariners. Then it was almost a suicide mission. The sailing conditions were difficult: tiny compartments and terrifying stuffiness. The crews died if the torpedo turned out to be faulty and exploded right on board the boat. And the speed of the submarines was small. If they were discovered, they became an easy target. In World War I, 187 out of 380 German boats were lost.

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Submarines played a key role in naval strategy during World War I. Initially, Berlin did not understand how useful this novelty would be. German Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had a low opinion of the submarine fleet, calling submarines "second-class weapons." But when the U-boats sank three British cruisers, the new method of naval warfare sparked enthusiasm. Germany inflicted considerable damage on England as the British merchant fleet ships sank one after another, hit by German torpedoes.

Gas debut

Germany owes its arsenal of poisonous gases to Fritz Haber, head of the Berlin Institute of Physical Chemistry. Kaiser Wilhelm. He was ahead of colleagues from other countries, which allowed the German army in the spring of 1915 to arrange the first gas attack on the Western Front.

April 22 at half past five in the evening near the Flemish city of Ypres in Belgium, a cloud of asphyxiating gas covered enemy positions. Taking advantage of the wind that blew towards the enemy, they released 150 tons of chlorine gas from cylinders. The French soldiers did not understand what kind of cloud was approaching them. 1,200 people died, 3,000 ended up in a hospital bed.

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Before the beginning mass application steel helmets, most of the soldiers of the First World War were forced to wear cloth headdresses / In the photo: the US military in France, 1918

Fritz Haber observed the action of the gas from a safe distance. Three weeks earlier, on April 2, the creator of chemical weapons tested it on himself. Fritz Haber passed through a yellow-green cloud of chlorine - at the training ground where military maneuvers were held. The experiment confirmed the effectiveness of a new way to destroy people. Haber became ill. He coughed, turned white, and had to be carried away on a stretcher.

The Germans underestimated their success, did not try to develop it immediately and missed the time. In the Entente countries, they quickly launched the production of a gas mask, which used activated charcoal. When the Germans again staged a gas attack, the Allies were already more or less ready. But people still died.

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Similar observation balloons were used for reconnaissance from the air along with aircraft.

Chemical weapon launched late in the evening or before dawn, when atmospheric conditions were favorable for this and it was impossible to notice in the dark that gas attack started. The soldiers in the trenches, who did not have time to put on gas masks, were completely defenseless and died in terrible agony.

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For the first time during the First World War, aircraft carriers were also used. The first true aircraft carrier was the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, which entered service in 1915. The ship carried out bombardment of Turkish positions / In the photo: the British aircraft carrier HMS Argus

The Entente countries marked chemical munitions with colored stars. "Red star" - chlorine, "yellow star" - a combination of chlorine and chloropicrin. Often used "white star" - chlorine and phosgene. The most terrible were paralyzing gases - hydrocyanic acid and sulfide. These gases acted directly on the nervous system, resulting in death in a few seconds. Mustard gas was the last to enter the Allied arsenal. The Germans called him " yellow cross", because shells with this gas were marked with a Lorraine cross. Mustard gas is also known as mustard gas - its smell resembles mustard or garlic.

In the last weeks of the First World War, from October 1 to November 11, 1918, the Entente countries constantly used mustard gas. 19 thousand German soldiers and officers became victims. During the entire war, 112 thousand tons of poisonous substances were used.

The use of poison gases meant the birth of weapons of mass destruction. Fritz Haber received captain's epaulettes for the attack on Ypres. They say he met the news of the title with tears of joy.

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The flamethrower was patented by the Berlin engineer Richard Fiedler in 1901. But production was organized only during the war. It was launched during the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. The jet of flame hit 35 meters.

neurosis and hysteria

When the war was just beginning, they went to the front as if for a walk. But the enthusiasm and enthusiasm quickly evaporated. It turned out that war is not a thrilling, exciting adventure, but death and mutilation. Blood-drenched land, corpses rotting on the battlefield, poisonous gases from which there is no escape ... The armies are bogged down in a positional war. Rats, lice and bedbugs ate the soldiers who had taken refuge in trenches, trenches and dugouts flooded with water.

Artillery shelling continued for hours. According to experts, three out of five died from shell explosions. Many could not withstand the shelling, jumped out of the trench and fell under destructive fire. Doctors saw that war destroys not only the bodies, but also the nerves of the soldiers. The paralyzed, the uncoordinated, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the tic-tremor-ridden, streamed through the psychiatrists' offices.

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The First World War contributed to the emergence of fighter pilots, one of the most successful of which was the American Eddie Rickenbacker (pictured)

German doctors considered it a sacred duty to return as many of their patients to the battlefield as possible. The order of the Prussian Ministry of War, issued in 1917, read: "The main consideration from which one should proceed in the treatment of nervous patients is the need to help them give all their strength to the front."

Doctors argued that artillery bombardments, explosions of bombs, mines and grenades lead to invisible damage to the brain and nerve endings. This explanation was readily accepted by the military authorities, who liked to believe that the soldiers were suffering from invisible wounds, and not at all from weakness of the nerves.

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Mobile x-rays were developed during the First World War to help doctors operate on the battlefield / Photo: Renault truck with x-ray equipment

Neurasthenia was placed on a par with decadence, masturbation and the emancipation of women. Soldiers diagnosed with hysteria were viewed as inferior creatures with degenerative brains. Weak nerves are evidence not only of the lack of moral qualities of a soldier, but also of a lack of patriotism.

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British heavy tank Mark IV models during the Battle of Cambrai, France

German psychiatrists called willpower "the highest achievement of health and strength." Stoicism, calmness, self-discipline and self-control are mandatory for a true German. Not best place to strengthen the nerves and cure nervous weakness than the front. They talked enthusiastically about the healing power of combat, that war would cure the entire nation of neuroses.

Kaiser Wilhelm told the cadets of the naval school in Flensburg: "War will require healthy nerves from you. Strong nerves will decide the outcome of the war."

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For the first time, field telephones and wireless connection. By 1917, the German army had laid 920,000 kilometers of telephone cable. But since it was easy to cut, an army radio appeared / Pictured: German soldiers use telephone

But the doctors could not strengthen the spirit of the army in the field. Fear of death from artillery shelling and suffocating gases gave rise to a passionate desire to escape from the trenches. Since 1916, on both sides of the front line, people in overcoats have been talking about only one thing: when will the war end?

Not a single capital dared to admit that victory could not be won. Three emperors and one sultan were afraid that if they did not defeat the enemy, a revolution would break out. And so it happened. Four empires - Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman - collapsed.

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German Emperor Wilhelm II and Emperor Franz Joseph. Signature under the card - "Security in fidelity"

Perhaps Germany was not such a threat to Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, historians today say. The aggressive speeches of Berlin politicians and generals, the cock-like manners that unnerved the neighbors, were rather an attempt to warn the stronger powers against the intention to expand their empires, neglecting the interests of Berlin. The Kaiser and his entourage were morbidly afraid of appearing weak and indecisive. They acted brazenly, masking the weakness of their positions. In Berlin, they wanted to weaken their rivals and guarantee their economy European resources and the European market, they were more afraid of losing than expected to win.

However, 100 years ago, no one noticed these nuances.

Leonid Mlechin
Ogonyok, No. 27, p. 22, July 14, 2014 and Kommersant, July 28, 2015

German artillery in the First World War.

As already noted, it was large-caliber artillery and the well-organized MANAGEMENT and ORGANIZATION of its firing that became a kind of "lifesaver" of the German army during the First World War.
The German artillery of large calibers played a particularly important role on the Eastern Front, against the Russian army. The Germans drew the right conclusions from the experience of the Russo-Japanese War, realizing WHAT the strongest psychological impact on the combat capability of the enemy is exerted by intensive shelling of his positions with fire heavy artillery.

Siege artillery.

The command of the Russian army knew that Germany and Austria-Hungary had powerful and numerous heavy artillery. Here is what our general E.I. wrote about this later. Badgers:

“... according to information received in 1913 from military agents and from other sources, in Germany and Austria-Hungary, artillery was armed with very powerful heavy siege-type guns.

The German 21-cm steel mortar was adopted by heavy field artillery and was intended to destroy strong fortifications, it worked well on earthen closures, on brick and even on concrete vaults, but if several shells hit one place, it was also intended to poison the enemy picric gases of the explosive charge of a projectile with an impressive weight of 119 kg.
The German 28-cm (11-inch) mortar was wheeled, transported by two cars, fired without a platform with a powerful projectile weighing 340 kg; the mortar was intended for the destruction of concrete vaulted and the latest armored buildings.
There was information that mortars with a caliber of 32-cm, 34.5-cm and 42-cm (16.5-dm) were also tested in the German army, but Artkom did not know detailed data on the properties of these guns.
In Austria-Hungary, a powerful 30.5-cm howitzer was introduced in 1913, transported on three vehicles (on one - a gun, on the other - a carriage, on the third - a platform). The projectile of this mortar (howitzer) weighing 390 kg had a strong bursting charge of 30 kg. The mortar was intended to arm the advanced echelon of the siege park, following directly behind field army to support it in a timely manner when attacking heavily fortified positions. The firing range of a 30.5-cm mortar is, according to some sources, about 7 1/2 km, according to others - up to 9 1/2 km (according to the latest data - up to 11 km).
The Austrian 24-cm mortar was transported, like the 30.5-cm, on road trains ... "
The Germans conducted a thorough analysis combat use their powerful siege weapons and, if necessary, upgraded them.
“The main striking force of the German fire hammer was the notorious Big Berts. These mortars with a caliber of 420 mm and a weight of 42.6 tons, produced in 1909, were one of the largest siege weapons at the beginning of the war. The length of their barrel was 12 calibers, the firing range was 14 km, the mass of the projectile was 900 kg. The best designers of Krupp sought to combine the impressive dimensions of the guns with their rather high mobility, which allowed the Germans to transfer them, if necessary, to different sectors of the front.
Due to the enormous gravity of the system, transportation was carried out by broad gauge railway to the very position, installation and bringing into position for battle required a lot of time, up to 36 hours. In order to facilitate and achieve faster readiness for combat, a different design of the gun was developed (42-cm mortar L-12 "); the length of the gun of the second design was 16 calibers, the reach did not exceed 9,300 m, i.e., it was reduced by almost 5 km ".

All these powerful guns, by the beginning of the First World War, had already been put into service and entered the enemy troops Russian Empire. We didn't have anything like that.

Russian industry did not produce guns with a caliber of 42 cm (16.5 dm) at all (and was never able to do this during all the years of the world war). Guns of caliber 12 dm were produced in extremely limited quantities on orders from the naval department. We had quite numerous fortress guns with a caliber of 9 to 12 dm, but they were all inactive, requiring special machines and conditions for firing. For shooting in the field, most of them were unsuitable.
“In the Russian fortresses there were about 1,200 obsolete guns that came there from the disbanded siege artillery regiments. These guns are 42-lin. (107-mm) gun mod. 1877, 6-dm. (152 mm) guns of 120 and 190 pounds. also arr. 1877, 6-dm. (152-mm) guns in 200 pounds. arr. 1904, like some other guns of fortress artillery, for example, 11-dm. (280-mm) coastal mortars arr. 1877 - served during the war, due to the lack of guns of the latest models, in heavy field and siege artillery, ”said General E.I. Barsukov.
Of course, most of these guns by 1914 were outdated both morally and physically. When they tried (under the influence of the example of the German army) to use in the field, it turned out that neither the gunners nor the guns themselves were completely unprepared for this. It even came to refusals to use these guns at the front. Here is what E.I. Barsukov about this:
“Cases of refusal from field heavy batteries armed with 152-mm cannons 120 pounds. and 107-mm guns of 1877, have been repeatedly. So, for example, the commander-in-chief of the Western Front asked the leader (in April 1916) not to transfer the 12th field heavy artillery brigade to the front, since 152-mm guns weighed 120 pounds. and 107-mm cannons of 1877, with which this brigade was armed, “have limited shelling and a hard-to-replenish supply of shells, and 152-mm cannons are 120 pounds. generally unsuitable for offensive operations”

Coastal 11-dm. (280-mm) mortars meant to allocate with personnel for the siege of enemy fortresses ...
For the purpose of using 11-dm. coastal mortars arr. In 1877, as a siege member of the GAU Art Committee, Durlyakhov developed a special device in the carriage of this mortar (11-inch coastal mortars with carriages converted according to the Durlyakhov project were used during the second siege of Przemysl).

According to the armament table of Russian fortresses, it was supposed to have 4,998 serfs and coastal guns 16 different newer systems, which included and ordered 2813 guns by February 1913, that is, about 40% of the guns were missing; if we take into account that far from all of the ordered guns were made, then by the beginning of the war the real shortage of fortress and coastal guns was expressed in a much larger percentage.

The commandant of the Ivangorod fortress, General A.V. Schwartz:
““... the war found Ivangorod in the most miserable state - armament - 8 fortress cannons, four of which did not fire ...
There were two powder magazines in the citadel, both made of concrete, but with very thin vaults. When in 1911 the disarmament of the fortresses of Warsaw, Zegrze
and Dubno, it was ordered to send all the old black powder from there to Ivangorod, where it was loaded into these powder magazines. There were about 20 thousand poods of it.”
The fact is that some Russian guns were created for firing old black powder. He was COMPLETELY unnecessary in the conditions modern war, but its huge stocks were stored in Ivangorod and could, when fired upon by the enemy, explode.
A. V. Schwartz writes:
“There was only one thing left: to destroy the gunpowder. So I did. Ordered to leave in one cellar not a large number of necessary for engineering work, and drown everything else in the Vistula. And so it was done. After the end of hostilities near Ivangorod, I was asked by the Main Artillery Directorate, on what basis was gunpowder sunk? I explained and that was the end of it."
Back in Port Arthur, Schwartz noticed how old samples of our fortress artillery were of little use for the successful defense of the fortress. The reason for this was their complete immobility.
“Then the enormous role of mobile fortress artillery, that is, guns that can fire without platforms, without requiring the construction of special batteries, and are easily moved from place to place, became completely clear. After Port Arthur, as a professor at the Nikolaev Engineering Academy and the Officers' Artillery School, I strongly promoted this idea.
In 1910 in Artillery Directorate an excellent example of such guns was developed in the form of 6 dm. fortress howitzer, and by the beginning of the war in the warehouse of Brest there were already about sixty of these howitzers. That is why I used every effort in Ivangorod to get as many of these guns as possible for the fortress. I managed to get them - 36 pieces. To make them quite mobile, I ordered to form 9 batteries from them, 4 guns in each, I took horses for transportation from the convoys of infantry regiments, bought a harness, and appointed officers and soldiers from fortress artillery.
It is good that in the Ivangorod fortress during the war, such a highly trained artilleryman as General Schwartz turned out to be the commandant. He managed to “knock out” 36 new howitzers from the rear of Brest and ORGANIZE their effective use in the defense of the fortress.
Alas, this was a positive isolated example, against the background of the general deplorable state of affairs with Russian heavy artillery ...

However, this huge lag in the quantity and quality of siege artillery did not particularly concern our generals. It was assumed that the war would be maneuverable and transient. By the end of autumn it was supposed to be already in Berlin (which was only 300 versts across the plain). Many officers of the guard even took parade uniforms with them on a campaign in order to look proper there, at the victory ceremonies ...
The fact that before this parade of the Russian army would inevitably have to besiege and storm powerful German fortresses (Königsberg, Breslau, Pozern, etc.), our military leaders did not really think about it.
It is no coincidence that the 1st Army of Rennenkampf in August 1914 tried to begin the imposition of the Königsberg fortress simply without having ANY siege artillery in its composition.
The same thing happened with the attempted siege of our 2nd Army Corps on the small German fortress of Lötzen in East Prussia. On August 24, units of the 26th and 43rd Russian infantry. divisions surrounded Lötzen, in which there was a Bosse detachment consisting of 4.5 battalions. At 0540 hours, the commandant of the fortress was sent a proposal to surrender the fortress of Lötzen.

The commandant of the fortress, Colonel Bosse, responded to the offer to surrender that it was rejected. Fortress Lötzen will only surrender in the form of a pile of ruins...
The capitulation of Lötzen did not take place, as well as its destruction, which was threatened by the Russians. The fortress withstood the siege, having no effect on the course of the battle of Samsonov's 2nd Army, except for the fact that the Russians diverted the 1st brigade of the 43rd infantry to the blockade. divisions. The remaining troops of the 2nd arm. corps, having captured the area north of the Masurian Lakes and Johannisburg, from August 23 they attached themselves to the left flank of the 1st Army and from the same date were transferred to the 1st Army of the gene. Rennenkampf. The latter, having received this corps to reinforce the army, extended his entire decision to it, according to which two corps were to block Konigsberg, and the other troops of the army at that time were to contribute to the operation to tax the fortress.
As a result, these two of our divisions, during the death of Samsonov's 2nd Army, were engaged in a strange siege of the small German fortress of Lötzen, the alleged capture of which had absolutely NO significance for the outcome of the entire battle. At first, as many as TWO full-blooded Russian divisions (32 battalions) attracted 4.5 German battalions located in the fortress to the blockade. Then only one brigade (8 battalions) was left for this purpose. However, having no siege weapons, these troops only wasted their time on the outskirts of the fortress. Our troops failed to take it or destroy it.

And here is how the German troops, armed with the latest siege weapons, acted in the capture of powerful Belgian fortresses:
“... the Liege forts from August 6 to August 12 did not stop firing at German troops passing within the firing range of guns (12 cm, 15 cm cannon and 21 cm howitzer), but 12 On the 1st, around noon, the attacker began a fierce bombardment with large-caliber guns: 30.5 cm with Austrian howitzers and 42 cm with new German mortars, and thereby showed a clear intention to capture the fortress, which impeded the freedom of movement of the German masses, for Liège covered 10 bridges. On the forts of Liège, built according to the Brialmont type, this bombardment produced an all-destroying effect, which nothing prevented. The artillery of the Germans, who surrounded the forts with troops, each individually ... could even be located against the Gorge, very weakly armed, faces and act concentrically and concentrated. A small number of powerful guns made it necessary to bombard one fort after another, and only on August 17 did the last one, namely Fort Lonsin, fall due to the explosion of a powder magazine. Under the ruins of the fort, the entire garrison perished: out of 500 people. - 350 were killed, the rest were seriously wounded.

Fortress commander, Gen. Leman, crushed by debris and poisoned by asphyxiating gases, was taken prisoner. During the 2 days of the bombardment, the garrison behaved with selflessness and, despite losses and suffering from suffocating gases, was ready to repel the assault, but the indicated explosion decided the matter.
Thus, the complete capture of Liege required, from August 5 to August 17, only 12 days, however, German sources reduce this period to 6, i.e. they consider the 12th to have already decided the matter, and further bombardments to complete the destruction of the forts.
Under these conditions, this bombardment was more likely to be in the nature of firing ranges ”(Afonasenko I.M., Bakhurin Yu.A. Novogeorgievsk Fortress during the First World War).

Information about total German heavy artillery is very contradictory and inaccurate (the data of Russian and French intelligence on this differ significantly).
General E.I. Barsukov noted:
“According to the information of the Russian General Staff, received by the beginning of 1914, the German heavy artillery consisted of 381 batteries with 1,396 guns, including 400 heavy field guns and 996 heavy siege guns.
According to the headquarters of the former Western Russian Front, during the mobilization of 1914, the German heavy artillery consisted, counting field, reserve, landwehr, spare, landshturmenny and supernumerary units, of a total of 815 batteries with 3,260 guns; including 100 field heavy batteries with 400 heavy 15 cm howitzers and 36 batteries with 144 heavy mortars of 21 cm (8.2 dm.) caliber.
According to French sources, German heavy artillery was available with corps - 16 heavy 150-mm howitzers per corps and with armies - a different number of groups armed with partly 210-mm mortars and 150-mm howitzers, partly with long 10-cm and 15-cm guns. In total, according to the French, the German army at the beginning of the war consisted of approximately 1,000 heavy 150-mm howitzers, up to 1,000 heavy 210-mm mortars and long guns suitable for field war, 1,500 light 105-mm howitzers for divisions, that is, about 3,500 heavy guns and light howitzers. This number exceeds the number of guns according to the Russian General Staff: 1,396 heavy guns and 900 light howitzers, and comes closer to the number of 3,260 guns determined by the headquarters of the Western Russian Front.
Moreover, the Germans had a significant number of heavy siege-type guns, for the most part obsolete.
Meanwhile, by the beginning of the war, the Russian army was armed with only 512 light 122-mm howitzers, that is, three times less than in the German army, and 240 heavy field guns (107-mm 76 guns and 152-mm howitzers 164), t That is, two or even four times less, and heavy siege-type artillery, which could have been used in a field war, was not at all provided for in the Russian army according to the 1910 mobilization schedule.
After the sensational fall of the powerful Belgian fortresses, a large number of reports appeared about the latest German guns and their combat use.
E.I. Barsukov gives the following example:
“... the answer of the GUGSH about 42-cm guns. The GUGSH reports that, according to information received from military agents, during the siege of Antwerp, the Germans had three 42-cm guns and, in addition, 21-cm, 28-cm, 30.5-cm Austrian guns, in total from 200 to 400 guns. The firing distance is 9 - 12 km, but a 28-cm projectile tube was found, placed at 15 km 200 m. The newest forts withstood no more than 7 - 8 hours. until complete destruction, but after one successful hit, the 42-cm projectile was half destroyed.
According to the GUGSH, the tactics of the Germans are: the simultaneous concentration of all fire on one fort; after its destruction, the fire is transferred to another fort. In the first line, 7 forts were destroyed and all the gaps were bombarded with shells, so that the wire and land mines had no effect. According to all reports, the Germans had little infantry, and the fortress was taken by one artillery ...

According to reports, the German and Austrian batteries were out of range of fire from the forts. The forts were destroyed by 28-cm German and 30.5-cm Austrian howitzers from a distance of 10-12 versts (about 12 km). main reason the rapid fall of the fortifications is recognized as the device of the German heavy grenade with a slowdown, which breaks only after penetrating into the concrete and causes widespread destruction.

Here, the considerable nervousness of the compiler of this information and its presumptive nature are obvious. Agree that the data that the Germans used "from 200 to 400 guns" during the siege of Antwerp can hardly be considered even approximate in terms of their reliability.
In fact, the fate of Liege - one of the strongest fortresses in Europe - was decided by only two 420-mm mortars of the Krupp group and several 305-mm guns of the Austrian company Skoda; they appeared under the walls of the fortress on August 12, and already on August 16 the last two forts, Ollon and Flemal, surrendered.
A year later, in the summer of 1915, to capture the most powerful Russian fortress of Novogeorgievsk, the Germans created a siege army under the command of General Bezeler.
This siege army had only 84 heavy artillery pieces - 6 420 mm, 9 305 mm howitzers, 1 long-barreled 150 mm cannon, 2 210 mm mortar batteries, 11 batteries of heavy field howitzers, 2 batteries of 100 mm caliber and 1 120 and 150 millimeters.
However, even such a powerful shelling did not cause significant harm to the casemated fortifications of Novogeorgievsk. The fortress was surrendered to the Germans due to the betrayal of its commandant (General Bobyr) and the general demoralization of the garrison.
Significantly exaggerated in this document is the damaging effect of heavy shells on concrete fortifications.
In August 1914, the German army tried to capture the small Russian fortress of Osovets by bombarding it with large caliber guns.

“The opinion of one of the officers of the General Staff, who was sent in September 1914 from the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief to the fortress of Osovets, is interesting to clarify the action of the German artillery on the fortifications. He came to the following conclusion:
1. 8 in. (203-mm) and smaller calibers cause negligible material damage to fortifications.
2. The great morale effect of the artillery fire in the early days of the bombardment could only be exploited "only by an energetic" infantry offensive. Assault on the fortress, with a weak qualitatively and unfired garrison, under cover of 6-inch fire. (152 mm) and 8 in. (203-mm) howitzers, has a great chance of success. In Osovets, where the German infantry remained 5 versts from the fortress, on the last 4th day of the bombardment, signs of calming the garrison were already found, and the shells thrown by the Germans were wasted.
For 4 days, the Germans bombarded Osovets (16 152-mm howitzers, 8 203-mm mortars and 16 107-mm guns, in total 40 heavy and several field guns) and fired, according to a conservative estimate, about 20,000 shells.
3. Dugouts of two rows of rails and two rows of sand-filled logs withstood hits of 152-mm bombs. The four-foot concrete barracks withstood heavy shells without damage. At direct hit in the concrete of a 203-mm projectile, only in one place there was a recess of half an arshin (about 36 cm) ...

The small Osovets fortress withstood the German artillery bombardment twice.
During the second bombardment of Osovets, the Germans already had 74 heavy guns: 4 howitzers 42 cm, up to 20 guns 275 - 305 mm, 16 guns 203 mm, 34 guns 152 mm and 107 mm. Within 10 days, the Germans fired up to 200,000 shells, but only about 30,000 shells from hits were counted in the fortress. As a result of the bombardment, many earthen ramparts, brick buildings, iron bars, wire networks, etc. were destroyed; concrete buildings of small thickness (no more than 2.5 m for concrete and less than 1.75 m for reinforced concrete) were destroyed quite easily; large concrete masses, armored towers and domes resisted well. In general, the forts more or less survived. The relative safety of the Osovets forts was explained by: a) insufficient use by the Germans of the strength of their siege artillery - only 30 large 42-cm shells were fired and only one "Central" fort of the fortress (mainly one of its gorge barracks); b) firing by the enemy with breaks in the dark and at night, using which the defenders at night (with 1,000 workers) managed to repair almost all the damage caused by enemy fire during the past day.
The war confirmed the conclusion of the Russian artillery commission, which tested large-caliber shells on the island of Berezan in 1912, about the insufficient power of 11-dm. and 12-dm. (280-mm and 305-mm) calibers for the destruction of fortifications of that time from concrete and reinforced concrete, as a result of which at the same time it was ordered from the Schneider plant in France 16-dm. (400 mm) howitzer (see Part I) which was not delivered to Russia. During the war, Russian artillery had to limit itself to 12-inch. (305 mm) caliber. However, she did not have to bombard the German fortresses, against which a caliber larger than 305 mm was needed.
The experience of the bombing of Verdun showed, as Schwarte writes, that even the 42-cm caliber does not have the necessary power to destroy modern fortifications built from special grades of concrete with thickened reinforced concrete mattresses.

The Germans used large-caliber guns (up to 300 mm) even in maneuver warfare. For the first time, shells of such calibers appeared on the Russian front in the autumn of 1914, and then in the spring of 1915 they were widely used by the Austro-Germans in Galicia during the Mackensen offensive and the Russian withdrawal from the Carpathians. The moral effect during the flight of 30-cm bombs and a strong high-explosive effect (craters up to 3 m deep and up to 10 m in diameter) made a very strong impression; but the damage from a 30-cm bomb due to the steepness of the walls of the funnel, low accuracy and slowness of fire (5 - 10 minutes per shot), was much less than. from 152 mm caliber.

It is about her, the German field artillery of large calibers, that will be discussed further.

As you know, the First World War was one of the largest and bloodiest in the entire First World War, it was very diverse. Almost all were used in combat existing species weapons, including new ones.

Aviation

Aviation was widely used - at first it was used for reconnaissance, and then it was used to bombard the army at the front and in the rear, as well as to attack civilian villages and cities. For raids on the cities of England and France, in particular Paris, Germany used airships (often used weapons of the First World War, they were also called "zeppelins" - in honor of the designer F. Zeppelin).

Heavy artillery

The British in 1916 for the first time began to use a small number of armored vehicles (i.e. tanks) at the front. By the end of the war, they were already doing a lot of damage. The army from France was armed with a tank called the Renault FT-17, which was used to support the infantry. Armored cars (armored vehicles equipped with machine guns or cannons) were also used in those years. During the First World War, as you know, almost all powers were armed with artillery for combat operations (close combat) easel machine guns. The Russian army had at its disposal 2 models of such machine guns (modifications of the H.S. Maxim system, an American designer) and during the war years the number of used light machine guns(another common weapon of the First World War).

Chemical weapon

Back in January 1915, chemical weapons were used for the first time on the Russian front. In pursuit of success, the participants in the hostilities did not stop at the violation of customs and laws - the First World War was so unprincipled. Chemical weapons were used on the Western Front in April 1915 by the German command (poison gases) - a new means of mass extermination. Chlorine gas was released from the cylinders. Heavy greenish-yellow clouds, creeping along the very ground, rushed towards the Anglo-French troops. Those who were in the infection radius began to suffocate. As a countermeasure, about 200 chemical plants were rapidly created in Russia. world war required modernization. To ensure the success of operations, artillery was used - simultaneously with the release of gases, artillery fire was opened. Photos of weapons of the First World War can be seen in our article.

Soon after both sides began using poison gases at the front, the famous Russian academician and chemist N.D. Zelinsky invented a coal gas mask that saved the lives of many thousands of people.

Navy weapons

The war, in addition to land, was also fought on the seas. In March 1915, the whole world learned the terrible news: a submarine from Germany sank a huge passenger ship"Lusitania". More than a thousand civilian passengers died. And in 1917, the so-called unlimited submarine war German submarines. The Germans openly declared their intention to sink not only the ships of opponents, but also neutral countries in order to deprive England of access to allies and colonies, thereby leaving her without bread and industrial raw materials. German submarines many hundreds of passenger and merchant ships of England and neutral countries were sunk.

Automobile transport

It should be noted that the Russian army at that time was poorly provided for. In total, at the beginning of hostilities there were 679 vehicles. By 1916, the army already had 5.3 thousand cars, and this year another 6.8 thousand were produced, because this was required by the First World War. Weapons and troops needed to be transported. These are quite impressive figures, however, for example, the French army, which was twice as small in size, had 90,000 vehicles by the end of the war.

Small arms of the First World War

Officer's pistol "Parabellum", 1908 The capacity of the magazine "Parabellum" according to the standard was 8 rounds. For the needs of the fleet, it was lengthened to 200 mm, and the naval version of the weapon also had a fixed sight. "Parabellum" was the main regular officer's model. All Kaiser officers were armed with this weapon.
"Mauser" - a pistol of horse rangers. The magazine capacity was 10 rounds and the weight was 1.2 kg. The maximum range of the shot was 2000 m.
Pistol officer "Mauser" (application - World War I). The weapon was a small pocket type. Advantages - good accuracy of fire.
Soldier's pistol "Dreyze" (1912). Barrel length - 126 mm, weight - 1050 g without cartridges, drum capacity - 8, caliber - 9 mm. These weapons were quite heavy and complex, but powerful enough to provide the soldiers with the necessary self-defense in hand-to-hand trench combat.
Self-loading (1908) The caliber of this weapon is 7 mm, the weight is 4.1 kg, the magazine capacity was 10 rounds, and effective range- 2000 m. It was the first self-loading rifle in history used in battles. Oddly enough, the weapon was developed in Mexico, and the level of technical capabilities in this country was extremely low. The main disadvantage is the extreme sensitivity to pollution.
9 mm MP-18 submachine gun (1918). The magazine capacity was 32 cartridges, caliber - 9 mm, weight without cartridges - 4.18 kg, with cartridges - 5.3 kg, automatic fire only. This weapon was designed to increase the firepower of the infantry, to wage war in new conditions. It gave delays when firing and was sensitive to pollution, but showed a large combat effectiveness and density of fire.

In the workshop for the manufacture of heavy shells. Illustration from the book "The Great War in Images and Pictures". Issue 9. - M., 1916

The unforeseen intensity of the battles and, as a result, the huge consumption of artillery shells, coupled with the rate of fire of field artillery, already two or three months after the start of the war, led to the first crisis in the supply of artillery ammunition. Already in November 1914, the troops of the Russian active army began to receive official insistent demands to limit the consumption of shells, and five months after that, this circumstance was of paramount importance for the fighting in the Carpathians. Orders for the troops of the Southwestern Front ordered to open fire only when the enemy approached at minimum distances.

THE SITUATION IS IMPROVING

By the spring of 1916 (the period of the Brusilov offensive), the situation had changed for the better. So, during the breakthrough of the enemy’s fortified zone near Sopanova, one of the batteries of the Russian strike group fired over 3,000 shells in two battles (May 22-23). Russian batteries have long lost the habit of such, although, in essence, an insignificant scale of ammunition consumption. But already on May 25, in the course of the development of hostilities to seize the neighboring sector, artillery was again limited in the consumption of ammunition. As a result, the artillery group, consisting of two light and one mountain batteries, was obliged to conduct ineffective methodical artillery preparation. The result was heavy casualties in the advancing units of the 35th Infantry Division.

Nevertheless, the situation gradually improved in the second half of 1916 and in 1917 became satisfactory. When breaking through the enemy front during the June offensive of the Southwestern Front of 1917, the Russian army was able to carry out continuous three-day artillery preparation, and with guns of almost all calibers (up to 11-inch inclusive). With regard to howitzer artillery, the lack of shells was cured at an even slower pace, which affected the actions of the small Russian heavy artillery and light howitzer batteries. While the Germans were constantly firing heavy artillery, the Russian heavy artillery only opened fire immediately before the operation. Even light howitzers opened fire only in accordance with the permission of the command (which also indicated the number of shells determined for this).

A qualitative disadvantage in supplying Russian artillery with ammunition is the insufficient range of 3-inch shrapnel, equipped mainly with a 22-second remote tube, while German shrapnel had a range of up to 7 km, having a double-action remote tube. At the end of 1915, this shortcoming was neutralized by the receipt by Russian gunners of batches of remote tubes of other types - 28-, 34- and 36-second with ranges up to 8 km. But shooting at moving targets was still carried out with shrapnel only up to 5.2 km. Note that the range of fire of the 75-mm French shrapnel was almost identical to the Russian one.

GRENADES WERE IN DEMAND

The other main type of projectile, the so-called high-explosive grenades equipped with TNT, first appeared in Russian artillery in 1914. Field batteries entered the war with 1520 shrapnels and 176 grenades in sets, that is, a ratio of 9 to 1. After the batteries switched from 8 to 6 guns in October 1914, the ratio changed in favor of grenades and became 1096 and 176, that is, 6 to 1. With the transition from mobile warfare to positional warfare, the demand for grenades increased significantly, and already from the end of 1915, the presence of an equal number of grenades and shrapnels in artillery kits was provided.

The main, most justified types of grenades were TNT, Schneiderite and melinite. Of the most reliable fuses, one can note the fuse of the 3 GT, 4 GT and 6 GT brands, the French fuses with delay (black) and without delay (white), as well as the Schneider fuse.

The destruction of various defensive structures that did not require significant penetration of the projectile into the depths of the target, as well as the destruction of wire obstacles, was most successfully carried out by Moscow-made melinite grenades with a French fuse without a moderator. This grenade was the best. Next came a Schneiderite grenade with a Schneider fuse, and in third place - a TNT grenade and a bomb with fuses of types 3 GT, 4 GT and 6 GT.

At the same time, the action of melinite grenades when firing at wire obstacles did not justify the hopes of the infantry - bursting from a ricochet (at short distances) in the air, they cut through the wire obstacles with fragments and not so much cleared as confusing them, making it difficult for people to pass. Practice has shown that the most rational type of ammunition for destroying obstacles was a high-explosive impact projectile that destroyed stakes and, accordingly, wire. A Moscow-made melinite grenade with a moderator was an excellent tool for destroying living targets at short distances (no more than 2.5–3 km). Its shrapnel effect, combined with the morale effect, gave excellent results when firing at live targets and was effective tool in order to raise enemy fighters who lay down under shrapnel fire.

For firing at any (not only short) distances, due to the lack of remote double-action tubes, artillery could not use grenades to the full extent to destroy living targets. At the end of 1916 and in 1917, small batches of grenades with a 28-second remote tube began to be received at the front - they began to be used for firing at air targets. In France, this problem was solved only by 1918 - with the adoption of a new long-range blasting grenade with a range of fire up to 7500 m. "Ultra-sensitive fuses" were also adopted for grenades. In Germany, attention was paid to increasing the range of remote fire from the very beginning of the war, as a result of which the range of fire of the 77-mm gun increased to 7100 m already in 1915 (compared to 5500 m in 1914). A powerful blasting bomb of the 150-mm Krupp heavy howitzer had a similar range of fire (up to 8 km).

PLANTS WORKED FOR WEAR

The quantitative shortage of shells, which immediately manifested itself in France, was quickly replenished due to the high productivity of its industry - this made it possible already from 1915 to carry out military operations associated with a huge consumption of ammunition. So, in the first months of the war, French factories produced 20 thousand shells per day, and at the end of the war the daily output exceeded 250 thousand. From the spring of 1917, the French could afford to conduct artillery preparations on great depth, as well as open powerful barrage fire.

The general picture of the combat supply of the Russian army with artillery shells looked as follows.

By the beginning of the war, the active army had 6.5 million 3-inch shells and about 600 thousand shells for medium-caliber guns.

In 1915, the artillery received 11 million 3-inch and about 1 million 250 thousand other shells.

In 1916, 3-inch guns received about 27.5 million shells, and 4- and 6-inch guns - about 5.5 million shells. This year the army received 56,000 shells for heavy artillery (only 25% of them were created by the efforts of domestic industry).

And in 1917, Russia was coping with the difficulties of meeting the needs of its army in terms of light and medium-caliber shells, gradually freeing itself from foreign dependence. More than 14 million shells of the first type are supplied this year (of which about 23% are from abroad), and over 4 million for medium-caliber guns (with the same percentage of foreign procurement). In relation to the shells for the guns of the TAON corps (heavy artillery for special purposes), the amount of ammunition ordered from outside was 3.5 times higher than the productivity of the domestic industry. In 1917, the army received about 110,000 shells for 8-12-inch guns.

The production of remote tubes was carried out in Russia, while fuses, especially of a safe type, were mainly ordered abroad.

Thus, the combat needs of the Russian army in artillery ammunition small and medium caliber were gradually satisfied, and the shell shortage of late 1914 and 1915 was eliminated, but the lack of large caliber shells, although not so acute, was felt until the end of Russia's participation in the First World War.