THE TERRIBLE WORK OF ARTILLERY IN WAR
SEVENTY PER CENT OF CASUALTIES DUE TO ARTILLERY FIRE -- INCREASED
RANGE -- MODERN GUNS -- RAPID FIRING -- HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED --
AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS.
A full century ago, Napoleon the Great, himself an artillery officer,
had developed the fighting power of artillery of his day so as to make
its fire a dominant factor on the battle-field. In the present war its
action is even more important, since we learn from the front that
seventy per cent of the casualties are due to artillery fire. It was the
gun that took Liège and Antwerp, and it is the gun which held the
contending armies pent up within a semicircle of fire. Once massed
formations were abandoned, the gun lost its terrors to a great extent,
and did not regain its place in military estimation till the
introduction of the shrapnel shell.
This is a hollow steel projectile, packed with bullets, and containing a
charge of powder in the base. (See Fig. 1.) It is exploded by a
time-fuse, containing a ring of slowly burning composition which can be
set so as to fire the powder during the flight of the shell, when it has
traveled to within fifty yards of the enemy. The head is blown off, and
the bullets are projected forward in a sheaf, spreading outwards as
they go. The British eighteen-pounder shell covers a space of ground
some three hundred yards long by thirty-five yards wide with its 365
heavy bullets.
[Illustration: TYPES OF SHELLS
Fig. 1.--Shrapnel shell, packed with bullets that spread. Fig. 2.--A
French quick-firer shell, like an enlarged rifle cartridge. Fig. 3.--The
“Universal” shell, combining the action of shrapnel and high explosives.
Fig. 4.--A fuse-setting machine.]
INCREASED RANGE
In 1885 the British brought out the twelve-pounder high-velocity
field-gun, which remained for some years the best gun in Europe. Its
power was afterwards increased by giving it a fifteen-pounder shell,
and, as a fifteen-pounder, it did good work in South Africa. Then came
another development, the quick-firing gun now being used in the war,
with a steel shield to protect the detachment. The quick-firing gun is
badly named; its high rate of fire is only incidental, and is rarely of
use in the combat. The essential feature of the “Q.F.” gun, as it is
generally styled, is that the carriage does not move on firing, so that
the gunners can remain safely crouched behind the shield.
MODERN GUNS
The French gun as it was originally brought out has now been improved by
the addition of a steel plate which closes the gap between the shields;
and a steel shield is also provided to protect the officer standing on
the upturned ammunition-wagon.
The carriage does not move, and the men remain in their positions behind
the shield while the gun recoils between them. The carriage is prevented
from sharing the movement of recoil by the spade at the end of the
trail, which digs into the ground so as to “anchor” it.
RAPID FIRING
The gun-recoil carriage, as the new invention was called, increases the
rate of fire, since there is no delay in running up. The French were
quick to develop this new feature, and set to work to make the rate of
fire as high as possible. Up till then the ammunition fired from a
field-gun had consisted of a shell, a bag of powder, and a friction-tube
introduced through the vent to fire the charge. This was called a round
of ammunition, and its complexity was increased by the fuse, which was
carried separately and screwed into the shell when the round was
prepared for loading, and afterwards set with a key to burst the shell
at the required distance. The French combined the whole of these
separate parts into one, so that a round of “fixed” ammunition, as now
used, looks exactly like an enlarged rifle cartridge. (See Fig. 2.)
Further, they did away with the cumbrous process of setting the fuse by
hand, and introduced a machine which sets fuses as fast as the shell can
be put into it. One of these machines is shown in Fig. 4. It is of a
later pattern than that of the French service gun, being the one used by
the Servians with their new gun made by the famous firm of Schneider of
Creusot. The machine is set to the range ordered by the battery
commander, the shell is dropped into it, and a turn of the handle sets
the fuse.
HOW A BIG GUN IS AIMED
The independent line of sight is another modern device for facilitating
the service of a gun. With this the gear for giving the gun the
elevation necessary to carry a shell to the required distance is kept
entirely separate from that used for pointing the gun at the target. The
gun-layer has merely to keep his sighting telescope on the target, while
another man puts on the range-elevation ordered by the battery
commander.
The result of all these improvements is that the best quick-firing guns
(among which the French gun is still reckoned) are capable of firing
twenty-five rounds a minute. The German field-gun is hardly capable of
twenty rounds a minute, being an inferior weapon converted from the old
breech-loader.
But these high rates of fire are used only on emergency, as a gun
firing twenty-five rounds a minute would exhaust the whole of the
ammunition carried with it in the battery in three minutes.
One of the first consequences of the introduction of the shielded gun
was the reappearance of the old common shell in an improved form. The
common shell is almost as old as Agincourt, and consisted simply of a
hollow shell filled with powder, which exploded on striking the object.
When shrapnel came into use most nations abandoned the common shell. But
shrapnel proved almost ineffective against the shielded gun, and the
gunners were indifferent to the bullets pattering on the steel shield in
front of them. The answer to this was the high-explosive shell, a steel
case filled with high explosive, such as melinite, which is the same as
lyddite, shimose, or picric acid. This, when detonated upon striking a
gun, can be relied upon to disable it and to kill the gunners behind it.
AWFUL DESTRUCTIVENESS OF MODERN GUNS
Of late years a shell which combines the action of the shrapnel and the
high-explosive shell has been introduced. This is the “Universal” shell
(see Fig. 3) invented by Major van Essen, of the Dutch Artillery. It is
a shrapnel with a detachable head filled with high explosive. When burst
during flight it acts like an ordinary shrapnel, and the bullets fly
forward and sweep the ground in front of it; at the same time the head,
with its explosive burster, flies forward and acts as a small but
efficient high-explosive shell. These projectiles have been introduced
for howitzers and for anti-aircraft guns, and some of the nations with
new equipments, such as the Balkan States, have them for their
field-guns. Their introduction has, however, been delayed in Western
Europe, as they are less efficient as such than the ordinary shrapnel,
which is considered the principal field artillery projectile.