January-February - Air Defense Artillery

IS THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL January-February
about 5 mph on good roads. Load No. I consisted of the punched out plug and the shelltip werefound almost
materials and tools for assembly, load No. 2 was the side by side inside. The effect against concrete was even
platform wagon, load No. 3 \Va;cradle and spade, load more devastating, but Captain Becker reported that a
No. 4 was the carriage proper and load No. 5 the gun captain of an engineer battalion voiced it as his profesproper.
In firing position "M" weighed 42.6 tons. sional opinion that the Belgian Government had been
The howitzer always disappointed visitors because it shamelessly defrauded by contractors. The quality of
looked much smaller than it actually was, having a the concrete was as poor, he stated, "as it could be and
slender barrel-the thickness of the metal was only still hold together." Similar reports have been made
three and five-tenths inches at the muzzle-and having about the concrete in the Maginot Line in the present
all the bulkier parts, the breech which measured four war.
feet in diameter, the recoil cylinders etc., hidden When the first World War started the German army
by the splinter shield. had a surprisingly small number of heavy guns. There
The maximum propelling charge was 110 pounds; were eight pieces of the old 305mm LjS, two of the
a barrel stood 2000 rounds even when every round was newer 30Smm Lj16, two of the 280mm Lj12 and
fired with the maximum charge. There is only one L/14 and one Kartaune (305mm Lj17), an unstated
case on record where a barrel burst earlier (with round number of 2lOmm Lj12, two Gcnnma batteries of two
888) except for those cases where the shells exploded guns each, one "M" battery of two guns and a one-piece
in the barrel. The frequency of faulty ammunition, "half-battery" of Gamma which was ready about two
coupled with the comparatively short range which be- weeks after the outbreak of the war. These figures,
came dangerous when the Allies produced greater from a German source of the post-war period, may be
numbers of railroad mounted naval rifles, led to the discounted as propaganda, but there was little reason for
withdrawal of the 42s in 1917. such propaganda when they were published. Rather
They had been used at Liege, Namur, Antwerp, they show that the Germans trusted the productive
Maubeuge, against quite a number of Russian for- capacity of their armament works which would protresses
and finally at Verdun, Ypres, Nieuport and vide large numbers of the latest types in a short time
Dixmuide. One "M" battery had performed more or (and probably did). The "unstated number" of 210s
less as a field howitzer battery during the crossing of seems to have been fairly large, at any event.
the Danube in the Serbian campaign. This use as a As far as Kartaunen and Dicke Berthas go the figures
field howitzer was not exceptional, the Germans used are no doubt correct; the Liege forts were smashed by
the "M" batteries very much as canon Ii tout faire the only then existing "M" battery, called Kurze Marine
after about a year of war. They were used to shell Kanonen Batterie No.3. (I don't know why "No.3,"
villages and even field fortifications. Since they were it was the only one.) Since the Germans needed more
not designed for this purpose the effect was mainly heavy guns at the Western Front in a hurry Austrian
moral, even though the heavy shells produced some Skodas were called in to help. They were of the old
15,000 splinters of an average weight of two ounces. L/l0 type. (See table.)
Penetration of heavy brick walls by these splinters at a And it is.this fact, coupled with extraordinary secrecy
distance of over 1000 feet has been observed, but the about the 42s which has caused most of the confusion.
shells, or rather their fuzes, were not built for this type The existence of the Skoda howitzers was more or les5
of fire. Even when the fuze was set at "no delay" it known. It was known that they could be transported
permitted the shell to bury itself in the ground so that on roads in sections with a speed of twelve mph and
most splinters went high. One 42cm shell did not that they could manage an incline of 16 per cent, tha1
create a bigger breach in a barbed wire entanglement their assembly took only about twenty-four minutes
than a gap of about twenty feet, filling most of the gap The "M2" and Gcnnma howitzers had been kept secret
with a big crater. If the Germans had succeeded in so secret that only a few hundred people knew abou1
producing an instantaneous fuze for these shells the them. Since their tests had been conducted so openly
howitzers would have been enormously effective as that the editor of a local newspaper had visited therr
heavy field pieces.. and produced a story accurately describing the guns
As it was they were effective only against solid for- containing all the weights and performance data, etc
tifications. Captain Becker related that he usually suc- (the secret police seized the printed paper before i1
ceeded in picking the shell up in the air with his field was distributed) it is a little miraculous that complett
glasses just before it struck and once succeeded in secrecy could be maintained, but it was the case. h
doing soin the case of a direct hit on an armored cupola. fact the higher commands did not know the perform
He saw the shell strike with a blinding flash which he ance of the pieces; even GHQ was doubtful about tht
knew to be the impact of steel upon steel. Then nothing range. Consequently the battery commanders had ,
happened for a seemingly long interval. Mter that hard time rejecting orders from high quarters. Re
the cupola "erupted," being thrown about a hundred quests for shelling of positions three times as far awa~
feet in two large sections. Mterwards it was found that as the extreme range were normal; the commander:
the shell had punched a clean hole through the armor; of the batteries were steadily afraid to be court-martiale{