The Work of the Royal Field Artillery.

This article comes from The Great War in a Different Light.

Entitled 'The Insatiable Hunger of the Guns' by Major George W. Redway (the Marvellous Organisation of our Artillery)., it describes the work of the Royal Field Artillery.

It looks at the process of firing 18 pounder guns and the ammunition it takes.

"Nowadays the brigade, not the battery, is the tactical unit, and like the battalion of infantry and regiment of cavalry, it is commanded by a lieutenant-colonel, who is assisted by an adjutant. The battery in our regular service consists of six guns, the brigade of eighteen guns; but a brigade is not merely three batteries, for it comprises what is called an ammunition column— that is, a reserve of everything likely to be required by the three batteries in action— ammunition, of course, in the first place, but also men, horses, waggons, and spare parts, to repair or renew whatever may be lacking in the batteries in the course of a duel with the enemy.

Artillerymen's Three Rules

The battery par excellence is the field battery, which works with infantry, the gunners riding on the limbers and waggons. The horse battery works with cavalry, and in order to go the pace it must lighten the weight behind the teams, and, therefore, the gunners ride on horses. The "horse" guns, too, are lighter. But the brigade organization is adopted both for Royal Field Artillery and Royal Horse Artillery, and how this unit would look upon a road in Flanders may be imagined if the reader will conceive a procession of eighteen 18-pounder quick-firing guns.

Each gun proceeded by its limber and followed by two wagons; every pair of guns (a section) is in charge of a subaltern, and every three sections (a battery) is commanded by a major, who is assisted by a captain. Following the third battery come half a dozen baggage, store, and supply waggons, called the train, and then a collection of thirty-four waggons which form the brigade ammunition column, the entire cavalcade filling about one and a quarter miles of road space, and taking about nine minutes to pass at the trot. Including bicycles and water-carts, cooks'-waggons, and medical carts, there might be counted one hundred and seven vehicles drawn by five hundred and sixty-eight horses. Add one hundred and ninety-eight riding horses and seven hundred and ninety-five officers and men, half of whom are drivers, and you may realise what a prodigious quantity of machinery is needed to get even eighteen guns to the front.

The 18-pounder; the gun limber contains twenty-four rounds, and the two waggons seventy-six rounds each—total per gun with battery, one hundred and seventy-six rounds. Another waggon-load per gun is with the brigade ammunition column. Some miles in rear is the divisional ammunition column, conveying another one hundred and twenty-six rounds per gun. Thus with the division are three hundred and seventy-eight rounds, the whole of which could be fired away in twenty minutes. From the advanced base another one hundred and fifty rounds per gun could be brought up by motor-lorries, and from an ordnance depot another four hundred and seventy-two rounds might be forwarded at a day's notice by rail to complete 1,000 rounds per gun.

Now, curiosity has been excited by discussions about the supply of shells as to how many projectiles a gun or a battery will consume in a day's fighting. Fabulous stories have been told of the consumption of ammunition, some of which may be true in the sense that on special occasions a large number of guns had to fire as rapidly as possible for a short period. But we must be on our guard against exaggeration in this matter. The first rule of the artillery is to find what is called a "remunerative" target, and this is not so easy in days when the art of tactics so largely depends on concealment by every artifice that ingenuity can suggest. The second rule is to hit, and that implies ranging—a tedious process when the target is a moving one. The third rule is to keep the reserve of ammunition under cover and well to the rear of the guns, which involves bringing up supplies by hand over ground that is not altogether immune from shrapnel bullets and splinters from high-explosive shells. All these factors being considered, you would have found, if serving with a field battery, less activity than might be expected from the unofficial reports that reached us.

The British field-gun is capable of discharging twenty aimed rounds a minute and a certain Krupp gun with complete automatic action can double this rate of fire. But needless to say, artillery is not taken into the field to give a pyrotechnic display, and economy in the use of ammunition is only second in importance to accuracy of fire. "