MUNITION SUPPLY
1. Sketch of the railroad organization.
2. Organization of the munition parks.
3. Divisional parks. Their organization. Their management.
4. Importance of the munition supply.
5. Replacement and repair of guns.
6. Different issues of ammunition.
In the present war the supply of munitions of all kinds is of such
great importance that we have thought proper to devote a special
chapter to this subject.
=1. Sketch of the railroad organization.= According to instructions
from General Headquarters the services at the rear forward the required
ammunition to the “distributing stations” of the different armies.
There is one of these for each army, provided with the necessary
sidings and yards where all the men and materials coming from the rear
are sorted, and distributed further ahead throughout the “terminal
zone” (_zone d’étapes_) or “war zone.” This zone extends from the
distributing station to the front of the army it supplies. The stations
within the zone at the rail-heads, just behind the front, are the “war
terminals” (_stations têtes d’étapes de guerre_).
From this brief sketch of the railroad organization that feeds the
front, we pass to a consideration of the war-freight which it carries.
=2. Organization of the munition parks.= At the rear of every
army there is a “Main Artillery Park,” located at a point of easy
communication with the distributing station and the front beyond.
Military railways connect it with the “Army-Park Depots” farther on,
which in turn are similarly connected with the “Army-Corps Parks,”
and the latter with “Divisional Parks.” The military railways thus
spread out fan-wise from the various bases to the front, through
distributing-point after distributing-point.
During the transportation of the munitions from the interior of the
country to the front, the different kinds of projectiles are never
mixed together. There are munition trains for heavy guns, others for
field guns.
The munitions are transported by rail in the following way. The 75
and 105 shells travel in wooden cases, from which they are removed
only to be placed in the supply wagons that carry them directly to the
batteries.
The shells for the big guns are transported in bulk. They are filled
with explosive, but the fulminate is not attached.
The powder lots for all sizes travel in _copper cases_, to guard
against all risks of accidental explosion. The distributing station
sends the ammunition trains to the Main Parks, where they are shunted
on to sidings.
These trains are afterwards distributed to the advance posts of the
Army Parks, where, according to circumstances, they are unloaded to
form reserves of munitions, or redistributed to the Army-Corps Parks.
Most of the time, when the parks of the front are demanding fresh
supplies, those trains are not unloaded at the Army Parks, but sent on
to the Army-Corps Parks.
There, the ammunition is taken off the cars, and piled in assorted
stacks separated by intervals of fifty metres; stacks of cases for the
field artillery, stacks of big shells, stacks of fulminate cases, and
stacks of powder-bag cases.
The Army-Corps Parks are entrusted with the supply of the Divisional
Parks, with which they are connected by small railways of 60-centimetre
gauge.
=3. Divisional parks.= As we have taken the division as a unit and
examined its component parts, we shall likewise take the Divisional
Park as a type.
It has complete autonomy, and has the means of distributing munitions
for the artillery and the infantry to the batteries and regiments of
the division. It possesses, too, reserve guns, and has the equipment
necessary for repairing wheels, wagons, gun-carriages, brakes,
motor-cars, etc.
Let us examine the part taken by a Divisional Park in the preparation
of an action.
As it is continually supplied by the Army-Corps Park, its duty is the
maintenance of a sufficient reserve for the batteries and regiments of
the division. The reserve should be complete when a battle is about to
begin.
Field artillery and infantry should be supplied with munitions by
wagon-trains. In fact, as soon as the soil has been badly ploughed
by shells, only horse-drawn vehicles can circulate. The frequent
necessity of planting new batteries has been the cause of a
considerable reduction in the number of the wagon-trains. They have
been replaced by motor-cars that drive as near the batteries as
possible. The latter then send their wagons to meet the motor-cars and
bring the shells to the points selected by the officer commanding the
batteries.
The ammunition for the heavy artillery is brought on railways
of 60-centimetre gauge to the battery supply-shelters, whence
40-centimetre gauge tracks, equipped with small hand-trucks specially
detailed to each battery, take it directly to the guns. These
supply-shelters, solid enough to resist the enemy’s shell-fire, are
constructed by each battery as soon as it has completed and occupied
its allotted emplacement.
During the preparation the transportation of supplies offers few
difficulties so long as the fire of the enemy is not very severe.
As soon as the ground begins to be torn up, construction-gangs must
be summoned for the purpose of keeping in repair all the ways of
communication. Each battery has its own organized reserve of munitions
or supply-shelter, from which to draw the necessary shells during the
first days of the operation, and the parks endeavour by all possible
means to keep on feeding these reserves.
Ammunition for the trench-guns is conveyed to the entrance of the
trenches by similar little hand-operated railways, and cartridges and
grenades for the infantry are distributed in the same manner.
It is advisable, when time and means permit, to operate these small
railways of 40-centimetre gauge in the trenches themselves, when they
are sufficiently wide for the purpose. The small trucks, pushed by
men, will bring the torpedoes and other munitions as far as possible,
but when the narrowness of the excavations prevents this, supplies
must be carried by hand to the most advanced lines. This work, which
is very laborious, should be left, whenever possible, to men drawn
from regiments in the rear which are not intended to take part in the
impending attack. For the last year North African burros have been used
for carrying the munitions through the communication trenches. They are
hardy animals, easy to drive, and they save the troops a great deal of
labour.
=4. Importance of the munition supply.= To give our readers an idea of
the enormous work involved in munition transportation, we append some
figures obtained from a field battery operating in the first lines on
the Aisne in March and April, 1917.
On the 12th of April the reserve in munitions of that four-gun battery
was 2000 shells per gun; _i. e._, 8000. From the 15th onward the
battery received 1500 shells daily. On the 19th, in the evening, there
remained only 1700 shells. The battery had therefore fired from the
12th to the 19th about 3600 shells per gun. This is a normal figure,
and explains why millions of shells are fired on a large front in a few
hours.
PRECAUTIONS. The enormous quantity of projectiles and supplies of all
kinds in the different parks prevents them from being sheltered or even
concealed, and, in order to limit the accidents caused by explosions,
the stacks of ammunition are far from one another. In an effort to
hide them from the enemy aviation, painted cloths, or green or brown
coloured grasses, are thrown over them, so as to deceive the eye.
For some reason or other the aviation of the enemy has not caused
very great damage to our various ammunition stores. The damage, as a
rule, has been confined to the explosion of the stacks directly hit,
although, at the beginning of the operations on the Somme, a German
aviator succeeded in destroying completely in the rear of the English
lines a large park of all sorts and sizes of shells.
The Allies also have often caused the explosion of German munition
depots, but the damage done, to all appearances, has always been
limited.
=5. Replacing the guns.= We have just seen that some field guns fire as
many as 3600 shots in a few days. This, added to the rapidity of the
firing (at times fifteen shots a minute, during barrages), explains the
rapid wear of the guns, whose metal becomes decomposed by the heat.
In spite of the quality of the steel, the guns wear out and finally
burst. It is of the utmost importance to replace those put out of
service by wear, or by the fire of the enemy.
This duty rests with the Divisional Park, which must have a reserve
sufficient for all needs. The park must also be prepared to repair all
the guns which are not so badly injured as to require shipment back to
the Army Park.
The battery to whose consumption of munitions we have previously
referred had, from the 12th to the 19th of April, to make the
following changes:
Two guns were put out of service by the fire of the enemy;
One gun exploded;
Seven guns had to be sent to the parks for repairs to their mechanism
or their carriages, which had been put out of service.
When the mechanism, the wheels, or a part of the carriage only have
been damaged, repair is rapidly made, but when the guns have exploded
or have been smashed by the enemy’s fire, they have to be recast.
In short, a battery of four guns, used ten guns in seven days; but it
should be noted that out of these ten guns only three were entirely put
out of service (two of the carriages could be used again) and two of
the guns merely needed a change of tubes.
Nevertheless, these figures emphasize the need for the parks to keep on
hand a large stock of reserve guns and to maintain workshops for the
immediate repair of slightly damaged pieces.
The retubing of the guns is a work that can only be done in the
factories of the army. The interior rifled tube, while white-heated,
is removed and replaced by a new tube which is re-rifled. The gun is
then as good as new, but, if the outside tube, which is the resisting
part of the cannon, has been broken by projectiles, the gun is beyond
repairing and has to be sent to the rear to be recast.
Under the most severe bombardment the replacement of the guns, thus put
out of service, did not take more than two hours.
The study of the above details will show the necessity, in case intense
and constant firing is needed, of accumulating the largest possible
reserve of field batteries at the points requiring a great effort.
When, as will often happen, several batteries are temporarily out of
action, the surrounding batteries will have to intensify their fire.
Barrage fires, almost exclusively the work of the field artillery, must
be rapid, continuous, accurate, and concentrated.
=6. Different issues of ammunition.= In order to avoid delay in the
aiming and firing, it is indispensable to see that the ammunition
brought to the batteries, of all sizes, belongs, as much as possible,
to the same issue, from the same loading factories. This rule is
strictly adhered to, except in case of material impossibility.
In France, parks generally receive lots of 5000 shells, all loaded in
the same factory and with labels enabling the gunners to ascertain that
the projectiles belong to the same lot; loaded at a specified date and
at a specified factory.
After a few trial shots, the battery commanders will see the effects of
a given lot of shells and point their guns accordingly.
We cannot enter here into the details of artillery practice. The study
of it must be begun in schools under the direction of specialists;
practical application must be made in the camps. This detailed
instruction is now being given in the camps of France and America to
the new recruits by Allied officers, who all have acquired at the Front
a large experience in all that concerns the artillery.
Guns play a preponderating part in the present war, and the combatants
are improving them unceasingly.
At the present time, the French field artillery undoubtedly stands
first for the accuracy and efficiency of its guns and projectiles, the
models of which have been adopted by the United States.
The French and English heavy artilleries are now decidedly and in
every respect superior in quality to the German and are more cleverly
handled.
The English heavy artillery, at all times seconded by numerous aviators
of great daring, can develop its concentration fires to a very great
degree of intensity and efficiency, and we can assert on personal
information that there never has been on any front during this war such
a formidable drumfire as that executed by the French artillery between
the 18th and 22d days of October, 1917, north-east of Soissons.
The Germans, who at the beginning of the war were rather bad gunners,
have improved their material and especially their firing methods by
frankly adopting those of the French artillery. They possess a heavy
artillery, as numerous as powerful and varied, and when they succeed in
systematizing their fire, its effects are cruel.
For this reason we shall end this chapter by repeating:
Let us have still more cannon, still more ammunition, and still more
airplanes to second our artillery.