Battle of Albert (1916) - Limited Effectiveness of The British Preparatory Bombardment

Limited Effectiveness of The British Preparatory Bombardment

The British concentrated and deployed artillery on a scale unprecedented up until then. On 24th June they commenced a weeklong bombardment of the German trenches, known artillery batteries and lines of communication, intended to destroy German defences prior to the infantry attack :
Field artillery:

• 808 18-pounder guns (3.3-inch): for cutting barbed wire with shrapnel and attacking enemy troops repairing damage
• 202 4.5-inch howitzers

Heavy artillery:

• 32 4.7-inch guns: for counter-battery fire
• 128 60-pounder guns (5-inch): for counter-battery fire
• 20 6-inch guns: cutting barbed wire, and counter-battery fire
• 1 9.2-inch railway gun
• 1 12-inch railway gun
• 104 6-inch howitzers
• 64 8-inch howitzers
• 60 9.2-inch howitzers
• 11 12-inch railway howitzers
• 6 15-inch howitzers

Mortars:

• 2-inch medium mortars: for cutting barbed wire

The French supplied the following artillery to assist the British bombardment:

• 60 75-mm guns (gas only)
• 24 120-mm guns
• 16 220-mm howitzers

This total of 1,537 guns provided one field gun per 20 yards of front, and one heavy gun per fifty-eight yards. It was employed against a total of 22,000 yards of front, but to this must be added 300,000 yards of support trenches. If one considers that 1 million out of 1.5 million of the shells fired in the preliminary bombardment were shrapnel which could blow aside barbed wire but not harm enemy soldiers under cover, and that many of the remaining high-explosive shells failed to explode due to poor quality of mass-produced fuses, it is evident in hindsight compared to later battles that the bombardment had little chance of destroying a significant percentage of defenders.

In any event, the 1.7 million shells fired in the 7-day preparatory barrage and first day of the battle and the 17 mines fired just prior to the assault failed to destroy the German defenders on most parts of the front. Most German defenders survived the barrage in shell-proof observation posts and bunkers and were able to man frontline defences when the assault began. This would later lead to a reevaluation of the British artillery doctrine with a change of emphasis from destructive to neutralising fire i.e. a realization that a determined enemy and his arms could not be simply destroyed by artillery but his ability to fight back at the crucial moment could be severely limited if correctly targeted.