Question on logistics and artillery

[Delvestius]

For worldbuilding purposes..

1.What is a good percent of military manpower to divert towards procurement, allocation, communication and transport?

2. As for artillery.. My standard 75mm field gun has three gunners and a gun commander to relay commands from the observation and ballistics crew attached to battery. For larger weapons I imagine there would be larger crews, but I'm having a hard time finding some examples or figuring out specifically why more crew would potentially be needed.

Also, I was under the impression the majority of artillery was horsedrawn at the start of WWI with about a third being pulled by tractors; Was it about half-and-half by the end, before taking horses out completely by WWII? (unless you're Russians) Thanks for any help

 

[Matt]

For worldbuilding purposes..

1.What is a good percent of military manpower to divert towards procurement, allocation, communication and transport?

Modern armies lean towards 80 to 90% of personal in combat support and combat service support roles. An industrial era army would have probably around one half to 60%. A rule of thumb is the most sophisticated the equipment the bigger the "tail."

2. As for artillery.. My standard 75mm field gun has three gunners and a gun commander to relay commands from the observation and ballistics crew attached to battery. For larger weapons I imagine there would be larger crews, but I'm having a hard time finding some examples or figuring out specifically why more crew would potentially be needed.

The French 75 had a crew of 6. The WW2 US 75mm pack howitzer had a crew of 6, while the Long Tom had a crew of 14. The bigger the gun, the bigger the crew. They'd be involved in the process of servicing the ammo and the setting and laying of the gun.

Also, I was under the impression the majority of artillery was horsedrawn at the start of WWI with about a third being pulled by tractors; Was it about half-and-half by the end, before taking horses out completely by WWII? (unless you're Russians) Thanks for any help

Most armies still employed horses to pull their arty even in World War 2. The US Army was really the only major combatant not to use the horse at all in logistical functions during the war. In particular the Germans and the Soviets were heavily reliant on the horse throughout the conflict.

 

[Gunnarnz]

2. As for artillery.. My standard 75mm field gun has three gunners and a gun commander to relay commands from the observation and ballistics crew attached to battery. For larger weapons I imagine there would be larger crews, but I'm having a hard time finding some examples or figuring out specifically why more crew would potentially be needed.

The L118 105mm gun has a crew of 6 gunners and a gun captain, the British 5.5in needed 11 crew. With the L118, in a normal gun position the crew are all busy when the gun is firing. 1 person is aiming and firing the gun, 1 is operating the breech block, 1 is loading, 1 or 2 are carrying shells back and forth and 1 or 2 are at the ammo supply making sure the fuses and propellant charges are set correctly for the current fire mission. The gun captain oversees all this, of course. Heavier or less well-designed weapons might need more people for aiming and loading the piece, and of course heavier ammunition is harder to carry.

 

[Delvestius]

Modern armies lean towards 80 to 90% of personal in combat support and combat service support roles. An industrial era army would have probably around one half to 60%. A rule of thumb is the most sophisticated the equipment the bigger the "tail."

Word. I think I'll put the advanced Zoth Imperium at 65% while the Aurelian Theocracy is less advanced with a much higher population will have around 50% since much of the logistics in the domain of the priesthood.

Most armies still employed horses to pull their arty even in World War 2. The US Army was really the only major combatant not to use the horse at all in logistical functions during the war. In particular the Germans and the Soviets were heavily reliant on the horse throughout the conflict.

How mechanized was artillery transport then at the beginning of WWI, and how did it grow over the war and interwar?

The French 75 had a crew of 6. The WW2 US 75mm pack howitzer had a crew of 6, while the Long Tom had a crew of 14. The bigger the gun, the bigger the crew. They'd be involved in the process of servicing the ammo and the setting and laying of the gun.

The L118 105mm gun has a crew of 6 gunners and a gun captain, the British 5.5in needed 11 crew. With the L118, in a normal gun position the crew are all busy when the gun is firing. 1 person is aiming and firing the gun, 1 is operating the breech block, 1 is loading, 1 or 2 are carrying shells back and forth and 1 or 2 are at the ammo supply making sure the fuses and propellant charges are set correctly for the current fire mission. The gun captain oversees all this, of course. Heavier or less well-designed weapons might need more people for aiming and loading the piece, and of course heavier ammunition is harder to carry.

Great examples, thank you Gunnarnz for the breakdown of gunner responsibilities.

 

[RodentRevolution]

For worldbuilding purposes..

1.What is a good percent of military manpower to divert towards procurement, allocation, communication and transport?

2. As for artillery.. My standard 75mm field gun has three gunners and a gun commander to relay commands from the observation and ballistics crew attached to battery. For larger weapons I imagine there would be larger crews, but I'm having a hard time finding some examples or figuring out specifically why more crew would potentially be needed.

Also, I was under the impression the majority of artillery was horsedrawn at the start of WWI with about a third being pulled by tractors; Was it about half-and-half by the end, before taking horses out completely by WWII? (unless you're Russians) Thanks for any help

75mm what? By which I mean are we talking muzzle-loading rifle, breech loading rifle (without recoil system) or quick-firing meaning it has a recoil system and thus does not need to be wheeled back into battery every time you take a shot.

The kind of transportation method will also make a difference and you are going to need crews to support your pieces above and beyond those on the pieces themselves.

Motor vehicles and quick fire reduce the number of crew you need on the piece, prior to quick fire nine crew on the weapon was not atypical of field and horse pieces of the kind of calibre you are talking about.

That said many armies had very light weight pieces with truncated barrels for various roles where disassembly and/or manhandling might be expected means of moving the gun around.

 

[Delvestius]

75mm what? By which I mean are we talking muzzle-loading rifle, breech loading rifle (without recoil system) or quick-firing meaning it has a recoil system and thus does not need to be wheeled back into battery every time you take a shot.

Great question; both forces use breech-loading pieces but about a third of Zoth guns are fitted with a recoil system. Were recoil systems first used for larger guns or was it a generally even distribution during their introduction and increase?

The kind of transportation method will also make a difference and you are going to need crews to support your pieces above and beyond those on the pieces themselves.

Motor vehicles and quick fire reduce the number of crew you need on the piece, prior to quick fire nine crew on the weapon was not atypical of field and horse pieces of the kind of calibre you are talking about.

That said many armies had very light weight pieces with truncated barrels for various roles where disassembly and/or manhandling might be expected means of moving the gun around.

Both forces will have some artillery tractors, especially for siege guns, but most guns remain horse-pulled. The 40mm infantry gun and 60mm team mortar comprise the light artillery of the Zoth army. Infantry gun operators are apart of infantry support batteries while team mortars are infantry with special training, rather than graduates/trainees of the artillery school.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

How mechanized was artillery transport then at the beginning of WWI, and how did it grow over the war and interwar

As far as I know, the only country with a 100% motorized standing army (excluding colonial garrisons) at the start of the war was Britain, although the US rapidly joined them in that category as part of it's pre-war build-up. They had to demotorize some of their army to operate in Burma, but they produced in excess of a million trucks during the war on their own along with those they received from the US. With an exception of a brief period in 1940 when they had to replace their losses from France, they also remained fully motorized throughout the war.

For the Germans... the peak of their motor pool was in mid-1941, where they had some ~500,000 trucks. Quite notably, 300,000 of those trucks were captured Anglo-French vehicles. After that, the German army actually underwent steady and accelerating de-motorization due to losses and the inability of production to keep up. By mid-1943, that number was down too 250,000.

The Soviets started out with a chronic truck shortage which was partly deliberate: they planned to mobilize civilian vehicles for wartime use (in fact, all of their trucks were designed to military specifications) to the tune of ~240,000 and assumed they would have enough time to mobilize said vehicles. In reality, they were taken by surprise and pretty much lost those vehicles as fast as they were able to mobilize them. The huge losses in industrial resources in 1941-1942 also contracted their truck production drastically: between at least 1938 to 1940 they had produced roughly 140,000 trucks a year but only just under 240,000 in the four years between 1941-1945. These losses were made more then good by lend-lease in 1943-1945. As to the size of their truck pool: ~170,000 trucks in June 1941 (410,000 if we count those slated to be mobilized), 242,000 in June 1942, 410,000 in June 1943, and 490,000 in June 1944.

I don't know about Italy. I'm willing to bet they were the second (or third if you count China) least motorized of the major powers. Smaller industrial base then Japan but with greater pressure for a more powerful land force with a mechanized contingent and smaller demand for a navy with globe spanning reach.

The Japanese were likely the least motorized of the major powers (unless you count China at this time as a major power), although I don't have any numbers on hand for them. They had a slightly larger industrial base then Italy, but being an island nation with a pre-dominantly light infantry army left them with a much smaller need for trucks.

 

[Hashoosh]

Nuker, he was asking about the First World War

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Nuker, he was asking about the First World War

Oops...

 

[RodentRevolution]

Great question; both forces use breech-loading pieces but about a third of Zoth guns are fitted with a recoil system. Were recoil systems first used for larger guns or was it a generally even distribution during their introduction and increase?



Both forces will have some artillery tractors, especially for siege guns, but most guns remain horse-pulled. The 40mm infantry gun and 60mm team mortar comprise the light artillery of the Zoth army. Infantry gun operators are apart of infantry support batteries while team mortars are infantry with special training, rather than graduates/trainees of the artillery school.

Well the first gun in your calibre range to use quick-fire was the French 75mmm 1897 model I believe. Recoil systems rapidly become pretty much standard on all new equipment and were even added on to older pieces where work arounds could be be devised. In many ways the bigger the gun the bigger the advantage.

Now I have no idea of the nature of the POD or exact tech paradigm so when you say artillery tractors are we talking motor vehicles with internal combustion engines or steam trucks say?

To give you a rough idea a square division of the early C20th typically had four battalions (in continental/US terminology) each of three batteries of six pieces. Now it varies from army to army but you might have three battalions of guns and one of howitzers in a heavier calibre.

These supported two brigades of infantry each of two regiments (2+ battalions each normally 3) and a regiment of cavalry which meant in most European armies a unit of 3-4 squadrons of from 120-250 men so typically not more than thousand cavalry per div (more in separate formations possibly)

Later on the triangular division has 3-4 battalions of artillery supporting three regiments of infantry. The trend was for the amount of artillery and automatic weapons relative to riflemen to go up as the war progressed, may not apply to you but this was the model that held good post-WWI.

 

[marathag]

The Japanese were likely the least motorized of the major powers (unless you count China at this time as a major power), although I don't have any numbers on hand for them. They had a slightly larger industrial base then Italy, but being an island nation with a pre-dominantly light infantry army left them with a much smaller need for trucks.

Somewhere I recall having a factoid that the Japanese had about twice as many trucks as the Italians did, who built 83,000 thru 1943.

For comparison, the Canadians built ten times as many, all by themselves, and were nearly all standardized

 

[Delvestius]

Well the first gun in your calibre range to use quick-fire was the French 75mmm 1897 model I believe. Recoil systems rapidly become pretty much standard on all new equipment and were even added on to older pieces where work arounds could be be devised. In many ways the bigger the gun the bigger the advantage.

Knowing this, all artillery whether Zoth or Aurelian will be quick-fire.

Now I have no idea of the nature of the POD or exact tech paradigm so when you say artillery tractors are we talking motor vehicles with internal combustion engines or steam trucks say?

I describe it as magical teslapunk, obviously fantasy but I want to make the world as detailed and believable as I can.

To give you a rough idea a square division of the early C20th typically had four battalions (in continental/US terminology) each of three batteries of six pieces. Now it varies from army to army but you might have three battalions of guns and one of howitzers in a heavier calibre.

These supported two brigades of infantry each of two regiments (2+ battalions each normally 3) and a regiment of cavalry which meant in most European armies a unit of 3-4 squadrons of from 120-250 men so typically not more than thousand cavalry per div (more in separate formations possibly)

Later on the triangular division has 3-4 battalions of artillery supporting three regiments of infantry. The trend was for the amount of artillery and automatic weapons relative to riflemen to go up as the war progressed, may not apply to you but this was the model that held good post-WWI.

Thanks, these numbers are a huge help!

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Somewhere I recall having a factoid that the Japanese had about twice as many trucks as the Italians did, who built 83,000 thru 1943.

Hmm, checking wikipedia you do appear to be right.

 

[riggerrob]

Also consider the amount of manpower required to dig-in guns. Assume that batteries lack indigenous bull-dozers or back-hoes. Each gun crew needs to dig latrines, gun pits, get spare ammo under ground and finally dig slit trenches for the gun crew. All this shoveling can easily take 20 hours in farm land, much longer in rocky soil.

 

[Simon]

Somewhere I recall having a factoid that the Japanese had about twice as many trucks as the Italians did, who built 83,000 thru 1943.

For comparison, the Canadians built ten times as many, all by themselves, and were nearly all standardized

Yeah, when Canada alone builds more lorries than the European Axis countries by a fairly wide margin IIRC you know that the Germans had started something they really shouldn't of have done. Throw in the US and it just gets ridiculously one-sided. From what I've been given to understand one of Canada's main contributions, aside from the billion dollar gift and loans, was their production capacity. The standardisation mentioned would also have been a god-send, unlike the collection of assorted British vehicle makes and models that I'm currently trying to pick through.

 

[Gunnarnz]

Also consider the amount of manpower required to dig-in guns. Assume that batteries lack indigenous bull-dozers or back-hoes. Each gun crew needs to dig latrines, gun pits, get spare ammo under ground and finally dig slit trenches for the gun crew. All this shoveling can easily take 20 hours in farm land, much longer in rocky soil.

Agreed. Digging in a 105mm battery is a huge amount of labour for everyone, and is definitely a job best left to the engineers. It isn't just the guns that need to be dug in, the command post needs to be below ground level as well. Then there's the comm wires, to stop some idiot in a truck driving over them and putting the unit out of contact. And then you need to find somewhere for the radio antennae, and run wires to them... if you're using phones for everything instead, it gets even more complex.
I've been thinking about writing up a detailed example of what an artillery battery in action needs in terms of manpower, vehicles, supplies, etc - maybe this is a good time to go back to work on that.

 

[Delta Force]

The first Steam Age rifled breech loading artillery pieces were the Armstrong guns. They were used for a period by both the British Army and the Royal Navy, but both soon reverted to muzzleloaders because the Armstrong technology failed to fully seal the breech, allowing gas to escape and making the technology unsuitable for use with larger caliber weapons. However, Armstrong guns and related designs produced in France and Germany proved popular in Continental Europe and the export market.

Quick-firing artillery was developed in the 1880s, starting with smaller guns intended for use defending larger ships against torpedo boats. The 1 inch Nordenfelt gun entered Royal Navy service in 1881, with the 3 pounder Hotchkiss gun entering service with the French Navy in 1886. It expanded to larger naval cannons with the QF 4.7 inch gun MK. I in 1889, followed by the QF 6 inch/40 in 1891. Some QF 4.7 inch guns were assigned to coastal defense batteries, but it wasn't until 1897 that the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 entered service with the French Army, incorporating both QF and modern recoil control technology. There were recoil control systems before that, but they weren't as effective. They lowered recoil to a few feet, making it easier to move pieces back into battery after firing. In contrast, the French 75 mm piece lowered recoil to only an inch per round fired, enabling accurate rapid fire bursts.

 

[Saphroneth]

Most armies still employed horses to pull their arty even in World War 2. The US Army was really the only major combatant not to use the horse at all in logistical functions during the war. In particular the Germans and the Soviets were heavily reliant on the horse throughout the conflict.

I thought the Brits used full mechanization?

 

[Simon]

I thought the Brits used full mechanization?

In WWII they certainly did, they were one of the few fully mechanised forces of the war. The one exception that I can think of was the 1st Cavalry Division out in the Levant where there was less developed infrastructure, and they were converted to become the 10th Armoured Division using tanks in mid-1941. Ironically when they made the major push to switch over the bulk of the remaining units in the 1930s I think it was they ended up selling most of the surplus horses and equipment to the Germans. For all that everyone gets fixated on Blitzkrieg and the armoured/mechanised formations, which were admittedly very effective, the bulk of the Wehrmacht marched on foot with logistics being horse-drawn carts. Webster's mini-rant, there's swearing, from Band of Brothers kind of makes that point.

 

[Matt]

Hmm, checking wikipedia you do appear to be right.

Poor, poor Italy.

Agreed. Digging in a 105mm battery is a huge amount of labour for everyone, and is definitely a job best left to the engineers. It isn't just the guns that need to be dug in, the command post needs to be below ground level as well. Then there's the comm wires, to stop some idiot in a truck driving over them and putting the unit out of contact. And then you need to find somewhere for the radio antennae, and run wires to them... if you're using phones for everything instead, it gets even more complex.
I've been thinking about writing up a detailed example of what an artillery battery in action needs in terms of manpower, vehicles, supplies, etc - maybe this is a good time to go back to work on that.

Now I'm even more glad that I spent all my Field Artillery days on the FO side of the house.

I thought the Brits used full mechanization?

Now, it's bit out of my area of expertise- I'm more familiar with American forces, but I recall reading before that the British brought a significant number of horses with them with the BEF. It was a matter of proper industrialization, but being being organized to fight the wrong type of war. As they were prepared to refight World War 1 they decided to use the trucks else where, as rapid deployment of artillery wasn't a priority in static warfare. It has been years since I've read about the Battle of France, so I could be getting my facts wrong.