Talk:Barrage (artillery)

Page creation

My first attempt at a full page so go gently on me!

This page is intended to replace the existing box barrage and rolling barrage pages once I get round to checking all the links.

Now done, for all substantive articles with links.

The article relies heavily on Ian Hogg's book and other UK sources. Although excellent, Hogg's book is very Anglo-centric and the information generally availble on the web focuses on British use and practice. There is very little information on the use of the barrage by nations other than the British. Information about and sources for other nations' use of the barrage would be welcome.

Added some references to other nations to at least give some balance, if not much detail.

According to the German Wikipedia article Feuerwalze the creeping barrage was first used by the French in the Champagne battles of 1915: rough translation "used for the first time during the First World War by the French artillery in the second Champagne battle from 25 September to 6 November 1915 on the Western front. Coined/shaped by French general Robert Nivelle." No other source seems to corroborate. Cyclopaedic 17:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The source books are largely about WWII and stop there, so there is little information about any later use of the barrage.

Cyclopaedic 22:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Found some information on Korea and Vietnam elsewhere on WP, added it.

Cyclopaedic 00:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

B-class assessment

I am giving the article a B-class rating, but I am being generous here. The article meets the criteria on paper, but in reality still needs work. More refernces are required than are currently given,

Subsequently downgraded back to Start-class by another reviewer who left no comments here, but seems to be on grounds of lack of references. Cyclopaedic (talk • contribs) 09:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Many further references added, with more details from other sources. Cyclopaedic (talk) 11:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

and the structure needs work - in many places it sounds like the article can;t decide whether it wants to be in an encyclopedia or in a dictionary (this could be remadied by placing all definitions in one section, or reqorking the section headers to discuss each of the differnt barrages within the article).

Done: restructured the article with sections on development of the creeping barrage, explanation of standing and box barrages, and the benefits and drawbacks of the barrage. Cyclopaedic 22:57, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

More structure and history added from other sources Cyclopaedic (talk) 11:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not check the spelling or grammar becuase my s&g suck, hence the reason why that figure remains unassessed. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Some additional points to consider

Fratricide was a very real consideration when barrages were used along with troop movement. One of the values of GPS is that it gives both precise time and position references that were not available in WWI. Start with Special reconnaissance#Offset GOLIS, and further content in that article, to see some of the methods where we still are trying to solve the fratricide problem. I think Special reconnaissance itself is relevant to the project

It might be of interest to look at countermeasures to artillery, starting with WWI techniques. If anyone looks at any of the MASINT articles, I'd like opinions if they and other intelligence articles are related to MilHist -- possibly the science subproject. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if countermeasures are relevant, but

Adrianople

Ispor added unreferenced assertions that the barrage was developed during the Balkan Wars and used at the Battle of Adrianople. This has appeared on this page before, but is not mentioned in any of the sources I have read, and it seems fundamentally unlikely given the sophistication of the artillery techniques and communications required for a creeping barrage. The Wikipedia page on the Battle of Adrianople (1913) repeats the assertion but references only two webpages, which are themselves unreferenced, seem to contain common material and contain a number of other errors, not least regarding "barrage" as synonymous with "artillery fire".

Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:03, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

military library N 14 - gen I. Rusev -"8th tundzha inf divizion during the war against turks 1912-1913" SOFIA 1923

http://www.boinaslava.net/dibo/Rusev_8a_Pehotna_Divisiya_1912-13.pdf

Unfortunately its written in Bulgarian.I tried to translate a small part of this book -only one order. page 330/175pdf

"the assault will start after powerfull artilery support - expect addittinal orders. acording this order,the comander of the brigade ordered at 10:00 - 10th inf. "rodopski" Regiment(3 detachments) and 1st detachment from 53th Regiment,Lt.Colonel Yankov,comander of 10th inf. "rodopski" Regiment to attack fort "Aidzi-olu,and Artillery battery N 41 and 42 -23th inf "shipchenski" regiment and 2 detacments from 10th inf. "rodopski" Regiment(a total of 7 detachments) colonel Pashinov,comander of 23th inf. "shipchenski" regiment will attack fort Aivaz baba and battery N41 extremely. Brigade artilery support - from 53th inf,regiment 1 detachment-north east from Kusha tepe. - 2nd detachment 8 artilery regiment 1 detacment 5 artilery regiment and one howicer detachment will fire the targets of 10th inf. "rodopski" Regiment,and the siege artilery - the targets of 23th inf. "shipchenski" regiment. when the infatry reach its targets,the artilery will move its fire in the rear - to prevent approaching of any turkish support units..."

During the Balkan wars the term "barrage" was uncnown.Bulgarians call it "artilery steam-roller" or "fire wall" sorry about my bad english.

Ispor (talk) 16:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting - thanks Ispor for the contribution. I obviously can't read the Bulgarian source, but the passage you translated is not particularly convincing: it refers to the artillery moving its fire after the infantry reach their targets, not a creeping curtain of fire in front of the infantry advance. A barrage is an indirect fire technique, so it requires communications if the orders are to be conditional in this way - the gunners would not know that the infantry had reached their objectives unless either they could see it for themselves (which suggests they are using direct fire over open sights) or they had some form of signalling, such as telephones. The extract suggests that the artillery units were assigned in direct support of attacking infantry units. This could well have been extremely effective, but it does not make it a creeping barrage. Also, the number of guns included in these orders (three detachments of field artillery - I'm guessing 6-12 guns and howitzers - plus "the siege artillery")is not enough to mount a barrage along a two-battalion frontage. Siege guns would not normally fire in a creeping barrage - their rate of fire would be too slow to maintain a continuous curtain of fire.

There is no doubt the Bulgarian achievements at Adrianople were considerable, but I am not convinced they included a true creeping barrage. I would be delighted to consider other English-language sources, but the article as it is is based on a good number of histories of artillery, none of which mention a creeping barrage being used at Adrianople. Cyclopaedic (talk) 21:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Points

The first picture is almost certainly not a barrage. The assertion that a 'barrage' was used in FI is nonsence, probably misuse of the term by someone who doesn't know what a barrage is, and as explained in this article. UK doctrine abandoned barrages in the 1960s (and its doubtful that one was used in training for the decade before that), and the computing devices used in FI did not support barrages. They may have used a linear with the observer ordering corrections to move it but this is complicated and slow and its more likely simple concentrations were used and moved. Nfe (talk) 07:54, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It's also extremely unlikely that the picture of a WW1 8-in How has anything to do with a barrage. In a WW1 operation where a barrage was used, the role of the siege batteries (6-in and larger) was the preparatory bombardment and then counter-battery fire against active enemy batteries. The picture should be removed because it is irrelevant and misleading.Nfe (talk) 01:11, 7 March 2015 (UTC)