Barrage (artillery) - World War II

World War II

The barrage remained in use in World War II, but was no longer the dominant artillery plan. In the absence of the huge set-piece infantry assaults of World War I, barrages were on a smaller scale. For the opening of the battle of El Alamein, for example, a barrage was considered by Montgomery's planners, but rejected in favour of fierce concentrations on known or suspected targets in turn. Along a 12,000 yard front, 456 guns were considered insufficient for a true creeping barrage (at Neuve Chapelle there had been one gun for every four yards of front). But creeping and rolling barrages were used in some divisional sectors and in later phases of the Alamein battle. For Operation Supercharge on 1–2 November 1942, the attack in the 2nd New Zealand Division sector was preceded by a creeping barrage of 192 guns along a 4,000 yard front, firing on three lines. There was almost one 25-pounder for every 20 yards of front, plus two medium regiments thickening the barrage.

While artillery tactics had been subjected to considerable evolution between the Wars, the British Gunnery School at Larkhill developed the most significant techniques for rapidly controlling and coordinating artillery fire. The impact of this was first felt in the Western Desert campaign. In World War I it had become essential to plot the location of all guns accurately, but the British would now survey in all their guns to one reference point; that made it possible for every artillery piece within range to join a fireplan in a very few minutes (provided they were in communications), rather than over several hours or days.

By the fighting in Tunisia, more guns were available and the defenders were more concentrated than in the Western Desert. The artillery plan for the British attack at Wadi Akarit in April 1943 involved eight barrages in three phases ahead of the advances of 50th and 51st Divisions. They included a standing barrage to mark the start line in the dark and enable the infantry to form up in the right alignment; a barrage that wheeled left during the advance; and an on-call creeping barrage. Nevertheless, attacks rarely relied solely on a barrage for artillery support: at Wadi Akarit pre-arranged concentrations on likely targets were called down by observers in the course of the assault.

Nevertheless, it remained in use in the Italian Campaign. In the assault on the Hitler Line on 23 May 1944, 810 guns were amassed for the attack of I Canadian Corps. Three hundred of them fired on the first line of a 3,200 yard wide barrage, beginning three minutes before the infantry moved off and lifting at a rate of 100 yards in five minutes. It was due to pause for an hour at the first objective, then lift at 100 yards per three minutes to the further objectives, but the timing was disrupted by heavy resistance and defensive artillery fire. The operation was later criticised for concentrating on too narrow a front, constrained by the need for enough guns to produce a dense barrage.

In the assault crossing of the Senio in 1945, dummy barrages were used to confuse the enemy, either misleading them as to the line of attack or drawing them out of shelters as the barrage passed, expecting an infantry assault, only to catch them with a renewed barrage or air attacks. On Monte Sole, US artillery fired probably its heaviest barrage of the war, 75,000 shells in a half hour to clear the advance of the South Africans.

In Normandy, a creeping barrage fired from 344 guns preceded the opening attacks of 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division in Operation Epsom on 26 June 1944.

For the opening of Operation Veritable, the push to the Rhine, the fire of 1,050 field and heavy guns was supplemented by 850 barrels of pepper-pot barrage: other weapons – mortars, machine guns, tanks, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns and rockets – supplementing the field guns. The true barrage of the British XXX Corps began at 09.20, building in intensity over the next hour, 500 guns shooting at a line 500 yards deep. The barrage included smoke shells to screen the attackers forming up behind the barrage. From 10.30 the barrage was pure high explosive and began to roll forward. A 300 yard lift was made every 12 minutes, the lifts being signalled to the infantry by yellow smoke shells, and the barrage paused for ½ hour at each defensive line. 2,500 shells were fired per km2 per hour until the barrage stopped at 16.30.

The barrage remained in Soviet doctrine in World War II, where the creeping barrage by massed guns was the standard accompaniment to an infantry assault. The Soviet artillery lacked the sophisticated communications nets necessary for more subtle tactics, but had plenty of guns. Some 7,000 guns and mortars were massed for the counterattack at Stalingrad, and huge bombardments remained standard for the rest of the war.