Casualties and effects of Fire Support on the British Beaches in Normandy

GE arty is not my area, however as I understand it they were somewhat constrained. IIRC one of the constraints was having only one observer per battery. In fact I've a vague memory the battery commander was the only observer.

 

Tom,

Are you sure that an 88mm GUN sneaked out of a culvert? A tiger tank might have done so, or a Jagdtiger or Jagd Panther or some lighter armoured SP 88mm . The result would have been the same if one of the much more numerous vehicles equipped with the 75mm KwK or PaK. All could knock out the Churchill except the frontal armour of the mk VII.

The Germans themselves admitted that by 1944 the flak 36/37 had too high a silhouette and was too easy to detect and suppress. The Pak 40 was a better anti tank gun.and eahc infantry disvision had 20-30 of them, The flak guns , manned by skilled specialists in AA work were too busy trying to shoot down allied aircraft. .

 

WW2 British doctrinal publications make a distinction between destruction , neutrlaisation and interference. The aim of the fire plan supportign the D Day ;landings was to neutralise, to prevent the enemy from firing for the duration of the fire and a little while afterwards.

How long afterwards was a matter of conjecture backed by experience. In WW1 the principle was that the infantry had to be sufficiently close to the barrage that they would take some casualties from it. If the enemy had more than a matter of seconds the attack might fail. 10 minutes, as it was on the VII Corps sector of the Somme was fatal. artillery and aircraft are area weapons, but in general it was better to take some freindly fire casualties than allow an enemy to recover to set up a machine gun which would definitely stop an attack and cause a lot more. In Crete the Germans landed gliders during air attacks on the target.

The allied plans for the fireplan on d day included safety margins to prevent friendly fire casualties. The decision to involved the 8th AF was accompanied by a lot of forecasts of doom and the artillery firign the run in shoot had to stop before H Hour. .

Brigadier Parham thought that the gap between the end of the run in shoot and H Hour ghave the defenders too long to recover, which is why he championed the RMASG to thicken up the close support from H-10 through H.The account by Franbz Gockel at WN 62 gives the impression of a clear gap between the aerial bombardment and the artillery fire, during which time he had time to sort himself out and train his machine gun on the american landing craft.

During the NW Europe campaign it became evident that there was a relationship between the weight of fire and the duration for which the defence would be mentally incapacitated. the Op Goodwood aerial and artillery bombardment left the defenders dazed for at least 45 minutes. The Soviets had been carrying out similar research and had a model for how much artillery was needed to incapacitate.

In some places on D day the allied aerial bombing was accrate enough and heavy enough tp achieve this effect. The Mont Fleury Battery received the equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapon in tonnage of HE sometime just before H Hour . This may explain how WO2 Holliss was able to survive, and why what the Germans considered the most reliable Ost Battalion did not put up a fight.
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The Germans were heavily constrained by a shortage of ammunition, compounded by the variety of ordnance. The Caen sector (716 inf and 21 Pz Div deployed Czech and French [SIZE=13.63636302948px]75mm [/SIZE]guns, Czech 100m guns, Russian 122mm, French 155mm guns German 105mm and 150mm guns.

A German "Battery" had an Op section as well as a battery commander. However a German "Battery" of four guns was equivalent to a British troop, commanded by an FOO , two of which made up a battery.

A German infantry division was supported by an Artillery Regiment which had 4 battalions @ of 12 guns. 36 x 100-105mm and 1 x battalion of 150mm. (12 x Op Parties 12 x BCs 4 x bn commanders 1 x Regt commander). . . A British infantry division had three Regiments @ of thee batteries of eight = 72 field guns ([SIZE=13.63636302948px] 89mm (25 Pdr) or 105mm [/SIZE] Priest) . (18 x OP Parties, 9 x BCs (one per inf bn) 3 x Regt commanders (one per bde) and Arty cell in Div HQ. The AGRAs were overlaid on this, with their own FOOs but without usually dedicated affiliation to individual formations and units..

British artillery was better supplied with wireless communication and OPs were mounted in armoured OP vehicles. The Germans relied on telephone more. They convinced themselves that the allies had a good tactical radio intercept service. There are german accounts of German infantry being unhappy with the artillery using radios for fear of bringing down fire. .

 

Chaps,

Just a few more things to add on German Artillery on D-Day.

Re the command structure of this extract is from From “US War Department Handbook on German military Forces" (a 'handbook which is in the order of 650 pages):

Chapter II Section III Organization of Higher Headquarters

“The headquarters of all German Divisions, corps, and army groups consist of command staffs (Kommandobehörden) which are organized in a uniform manner…the headquarters of divisions are organized similarly with most of the specialist officers being simultaneously in command of the units of their arms, eg. the commanding officer of the division artillery regiment (Artillerieführer-Arfü) is also the chief artillery officer on the staff of the division commander….”

This means the CO of Artillery Regiment 1716, Oberstleutnant Helmuth Knupe , was co-located with the OC 716 Infantry Division, Generalmajor Wilhelm Richter at the Divisional HQ at La Folie on the outskirts of Caen.

The problem of having guns/howitzers of so may different types/calibres did indeed put a vast strain on the already overstrained supply system. However in the first hours they had plenty of ammo to hand - a situation which would rapidly turn to mud.

The Forward ammunition issue for the 10.5cm was 225 rds per gun not 135rds. For the 15cm it was 150 rds per gun.

On the subject of the Allies attempting to neutralise the defenders as we know a lot of the fire went sailing over the top or missed completely. On top of which the plan to have RMASG Centaurs & DDs on the beaches in the critical few minutes after the fire lifted for the most part failed. So the PBI copped it as usual.


Arty

 

Arty

Thanks for that. Even with 225 rounds per gun the 105mm batteries would have been running short on Omaha beach. Under two hours at rate 2. .

I think your last paragraph loses a little perspective. .

n Omaha Beach V Corps landed 35,000 men and 350 vehicles in the main defended position at a cost of < 10% casualties. The German defenders were beaten and lost heavily, and withdrew. . The landings on Omaha Beach were a great success. It is a similar casualty rate to that suffered by the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge On 1st July 1916 the 8000 men of the 31st British Division that went over the top lost 3,000 casualties. That is failure. . .

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Of course the PBI copped it. [/SIZE]There was no question of there not being any casualties on DD Day, or in any assault on defended positions. These battles were decided in "the battle of the last 100m". The purpose of the fireplan was to neutralise.the enemy to allow the infantry and supporting armour and engineers to get among the German positions. That is what happened on is happened an all of the beaches. on D Day.

Not everything worked exactly as planned. But the DD Tanks and the RMASG. were useful even if they did not all land at H. There was a lot more armoured fire power on the British and Canadian beaches. There were a lot more targets for the Germans to engage. More soldiers were working from behind armour, particularly engineers and gunners, which protected them from shell splinters.

 

Sheldrake,

My last paragraph was a generalisation - it wasn’t meant to be a summary of the success or failure of D-Day. The attempt at neutralisation was successful in some places and an utter failure in others.

On something more specific - that is German Artillery coms - here’s two extracts from Michael Strong’s book “Steiner’s War” (ie. regards the Merville battery.). They provide an interesting illustration of what equipment was available. Not only was there landline from Battery to OP, but radios for both the Battery Commander and the Batteries other FO (a senior NCO) as well. On top of which they had a landline to the neighbouring Division which provided fire support.

Leutnant Raimund Steiner… “I told 711 Division Artillery Regiment [by phone] to concentrate their fire onto the Battery, then I set off for the Battery with my “Beobachtungsunteroffizier” (OP NCO) and a radio operator with a patrol with Oberleutnant Rück. En route through Franceville there was a chaotic battle going on….”

Wachtmeister Peter Timpf… “A bit later I was told to take two men with radios and join an infantry patrol in Merville. We had to comb the area behind the Battery. We had no idea of what we were up against….”


Arty

 

The US int doc is incorrect. I suggest reading the US author Bruce Gudmundsson's 'On Artillery'. GE infantry divisions and corps were supposed to have an arty HQ the Artilleriekommandeur, abbreviated to Arko. But they didn't because there were not enough to go around. Infantry divs were all supposed to have an artillery observation battalion, most didn't. For example by Jun 41 there were 179 divs but only 59 Arkos. It didn't get any better.

Both these entities were used as pools and deployed to where required, normally when there was a major operation being planned. Its also my understanding that the GE arty regt HQ did not automatically co-locate with Div HQ, but this may have depended on whether or not there was an Arko.

I'd also check the battery strengths carefully, by 1944 I think you'll find batteries on the East front had been reduced to 3 guns. Some divisional regts also lacked the 15cm batteries.

 

The Germans had radios, but not quite on the same scale as the British. Their regimental structure allows for a "battery"(UK Troop) commander and an FOO per battalion - about half the establishment of the British. They did not have the elaborate network of artillery C3 that existed with the AGRAs.

The report by ARKPO II SS Corps (US post war foreign studies interview MS B666) says they were hampered by the lack of a signals platoon - a bit of a handicap for corps arty. Wire could only be relied on rare cases (Stiener from fortified positions may have had better protected wire ) Radios were big,and heavy and they had problems getting through in the rolling country and hedgerows. Antennae were hard to conceal. The Germans infantry convinced themselves that the British had a well developed tactical signals intelligence capability based on radio direction finding,. Artillery observers usign radios were not popularin the front line!.

I am not an expert on WW2 signals, but I think the Germans (and US) tended to use higher frequencies for their radios than the British. They used VHF whereas the British used HFwhich is less clear, but has fewer problems leaking a signal round corners.. Maybe someone better informed on this technology might be able to comment..

 

You're certainly correct about GE and US using VHF and UK using HF. The advantage of HF was longer range for the same power. I've always reckoned that this was critical to the effectiveness of the procedures for Uncle, Victor & Yoke targets with authorised observers. Its useful to remember that a VHF manpack giving 10km range in most conditions didn't appear until the 1960s (AN/PRC 25), with its 1950s predecessor PRC 9/10 (A41/42 in UK service) you'd be lucky to get half that, so you can imagine what WW2 sets were like. In WW2 it useful to remember that all RA signallers were trained in Morse and using the RA brevity code. That's why the Driver-Op course was something like 30 weeks, Morse gave greater range than voice.

 

Chaps,

The US army handbook reference is in fact correct. The “Arko” was a HQ above Divisional level. Bruce Gudmundsson's book refers to the early war plan to add an “Arko” to each Divisional HQ - ie. to take command of all artillery units including the Division’s organic firepower and any attached artillery units for a particular operation. The plan was not accomplished.

In France in 1944 the "Arko" was a Corps level asset. On 06June, in Normandy, the German LXXXIV Army Corps had Arko 118 - which was located at Chateau de Chiffrevast (near Valognes) - in the area of ops of the 709 Infantry Division. Another, Arko 474, was reportedly located approx 20km south west of Caen at Monts en Bessin.

Meanwhile the Arfü, the Artillery Commander of 716 Infantry Division, Oberstleutnant Helmuth Knupe (and his staff), was co-located with the OC 716 Infantry Division in Caen.

The titles of the various German Artillery commanders (ie. HQs) was as follows;

Division - Artillerieführer (Arfü)
Corps - Artilleriekommandeur (Arko)
Army - Höherer Artilleriekommandeur (Harko)
Army Group - Stabsoffizier der Artillerie (Stoart)

The specific strength of the batteries of the 716 Inf Div (et al) that were directly involved with the Allied landings comes from German and Allied documents - it is not generic information.

Bruce G’s book refers to reduction of strength of batteries on the Eastern Front. Divisional Artillery Regiments in France in 1944 had a hotch potch of guns and organisations. The 711 Inf Div on 06June (another specific example) had two Battalions, each with four batteries, each with four guns or howitzers - which were a mix of Russian 76.2’s and French 155s. 711 Div also had a self propelled battery with a few 150s.

On the subject of German field telephones (specifically the 716 Inf Div again) much of their network of line communications had been dug in quite deep - notwithstanding the fact that Allied bombing & shelling did indeed cause problems.

Arty

 

having re read this In think this is an excellent find. It is a little surprising that more use has not been made of what is quite fascinating data. It is not very often in military history that there are ever anything like "control conditions"

But the D Day beaches are almost unique. The terrain give or take the elevation at Omaha beach was very similar. It was a flat beach 200m leading to a some form of sea wall or sand dunes. The defenders were using similar equipment and emplacements. Eight assaulting brigades /RCTs launched near identical assaults two battalions up with, with each battalion two companies in each assault wave. This may not be statistically significant but the model underlying table VIII has a pretty good fit with the actual casualties.

Has the data been massaged to get to these figures? This AORG study is not reproduced as often as those quoted by Terry Copp to support the claim that the fire-plan was ineffective at Juno Beach. .

Arty is right to point out that un suppressed field artillery batteries played a bigger role than claimed in the report. However, the effect of artillery is likely to be within the figures claimed for mortars. The beaches shown in the report as "no mortars" cannot have suffered casualties from artillery fire either.