Musing on Artillery

AWB has been doing some casual research into the multi model joy that is WW1 era artillery, and, as a result, has been musing on just what a significant development the French 75 actually was. The Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897, to give the weapon it's official name, can probably safely be called the first of the 'Modern Artillery' systems to go into service anywhere in the world, yet it's significance is probably mostly ignored by most casual students of history.
The evolution of tube artillery broadly went something like this;
- Muzzle loading smoothbore
- Muzzle loading rifled
- Breech loading
- 'Modern' weapons with recoil systems.
The progression wasn't smooth of course. Breech loading cannons of various forms date back to the beginning of gunpowder. Smoothbore cannons had some advantages over rifled cannons so both existed on the 19th Century battlefield for many years and even when breech loading had finally come up for consideration again, it was years before it managed to replace muzzle loading with some nations. The Royal Navy, having embraced the Armstrong breech loader in about 1860, decided the technology could go with a bit longer in the oven and went back to muzzle loading rifles. They stuck with such weapons probably a little longer then they needed to, eventually peaking with the RML 16 inch 80 ton weapons fitted to HMS Inflexible.
(Armstrong made an even bigger 17.7inch 100 ton weapon but even the RN decided enough was enough at that stage. The weapons were sold to Italy for some of her battleships or used on coast defence batteries in Malta and Gibraltar.)
The 75 however was a massive leap in weaponry. The key feature was of course the recoil system, a hydro-pneumatic system so advanced that it had taken designers nearly 15 years to get the idea to work successfully. This smooth and reliable system allowed the other advanced features of the gun; the automatic fuse setter and a rapid to operate breech system, to be used to their full effect. The gun could literally be fired at a rate of 30 shots per minute, a speed that was the physical upper limit based on the 2 second cycle time of the recoil system.
What is more, since unlike other guns of that period, the gun would not need to be significantly re-aimed after each shot and each of those 30 shots could be expected to go pretty much where they were intended.
Was this significant?
You better believe it.
Terence Zuber in his (cough) 'interesting' book* 'The Real Schlieffen Plan' goes as far as to claim that the German discovery of this weapon when they saw it in action during the Boxer Rebellion was enough to make them tear up their current strategic war plans and start again. Other nations, well aware of the massive rate of fire advantage this weapon had, rapidly developed or purchased their own equivalent weapons and, perhaps most significantly, the French effectively redesigned their entire battlefield tactics around it.
As we mentioned, the 75 had a very high rate of fire and a battery firing shrapnel shells was well equipped to place large areas of open ground under deadly barrages. A 1914 French Infantry division had no other artillery then this weapon and indeed a French Corps, unlike other nations which might be expected to have heavy field or howitzers, had more batteries of this gun.
However, while it was definitely a major milestone in artillery, it has also been argued that the French love affair with this weapon may have been a little unwise. Paul Strong and Sanders Marble in 'Artillery in the Great War' make the observation that in the opening battles of WW1 the superior French field artillery made a mess of the German infantry, right up to the time when the superior German HEAVY artillery suppressed and silenced the batteries.The go on to claim that a prime reason of the Allied success in the Battle of Marne was that the over extended Germans had finally advanced faster then their heavy artillery could follow and the French 75s were finally allowed to do what they were intended unopposed.
However, digressing as per usual, the point AWB really wants to muse over is how do we show these sort of technical advances on the wargames table. By the time we get to WW1 most armies, at least for their first line divisions, had quick firing field weapons. However, due to the rapid need to expand and find heavy artillery, a lot of obsolete guns were brought back into service or dragged out of distant fortresses for use on the front. The Germans were possibly an exception to this rule, but the British for example sent many 5inch Howitzers to France and used them all through 1915. These older weapons lacked recoil systems and had a practical max rate of fire of 2 shots per minute - slightly slower then the 15 or so shots most more modern guns can get off.
This brings us back to our gaming. How do our favourite rules show it, or more importantly, do we need to show it at all?
If we are modelling the slow grind of a bombardment, then probably not. While modern guns could fire faster, most work was conducted at a more sedate 1 or 2 shots per minute. There is also the very real consideration of the 'Shell Shortage' and the fact that many batteries simply didn't have enough shells to do rapid firing even if they needed to.
The really simple solution is to just ignore it totally and abstract indirect fire into an abstract where who or what fires it is not of importance. The slightly more detailed is to rationalise that shells fired x shell size = damage factor and roll against that. A simple enough concept but ignores the fact that the difference between a relatively small 'field' gun shell of say 5-6kg and the 23kg of the 5inch BL we mentioned earlier.
A field gun in many cases often completely lacked the ability to destroy entrenchments, where a heavy shell was going to collapse trenchwalls and smash firing positions. This was significant and part of the reason armies were willing to field and maintain so many different artillery types. Some guns were just better at some roles.
Each wargame system and indeed each wargamer has their own views on what makes a fun night pushing lead or counters, and each has their own view on what is worth including in a rule system. The point that AWB is trying to make is that a bigger gun/howitzer isn't just a stand with more firepower, it is a stand with DIFFERENT firepower. Field artillery can, will and did butcher troops in the open. It also can't, wont and didn't damage troops dug in. So, while your personally gaming experience is always your own, AWB would like to see games that note the difference between field and heavy shelling.
Of course AWB would also like to see game with a few less rubbish dice rolls so maybe we can't have everything...

* Interesting? Is AWB implying that they didn't really like 'The Real Schlieffen Plan'? Short answer? Yes. Zuber is an American who was posted for many years in Germany as part of his US Army service and does appear to have gone, as we say, 'native'**. While AWB has no doubt that Zuber has done a lot of research, reading his text did give the impression his book was one edit away from using the phrase 'gentle peaceloving Germans'. Zuber seems to have gone to great length to point out that Germany was forced into a defencive war against the overly aggressive Allied powers that tends to distract from his overall argument. The argument itself, namely that there was NOT actually a Schlieffen plan ends up becoming a bit moot. We all know and accept that Germany marched through Belgium so arguing if the plan existed or not unfortunately ends up a bit like claiming in your murder trial that you didn't stab the victim to death, you slashed his throat instead.

** Not that there is anything wrong with going native. AWB are big fans of Germany *** and German culture and happily pay credit to the success over the centuries of these people in both peace and war.

*** Except Hamburg