Artillery tactics and equipment, by lt. Aurel Badescu

Browsing through my grandfather's papers a while ago I stumbled upon this article written by him in 1937 for a military magazine I presume.

Finally I have the time and mood to translate the 9 pages.

Tactica si tehnica artileristica

by lt. Aurel Badescu

In an article called The dynamic war in the defensive field, published in the Revista di Fanteria, general Valentino Bobbio says (and I quote from the abstract published in Romania Militara):

I am not qualified to ask if, generally speaking, these words shouldn't food for our thoughts as well. I will only speak about those that my status as a lower rank artillery officer allows me to.

I do not know what they teach at our Military Academy about this form of warfare. From what I read and observed at the maneuvers I participated, I believe that, from my point of view, dynamic war means: "Varied and ever changing situations", which for the artillery yis translated into frequent changes of position, with the obligation to fire fast and well, constantly adapting the fire to tactical necessities. So, besides the moving of the fire, there is moving of the equipment.

This usually disturbs many artillery calculations and I don't believe there isn't an artilleryman that won't give a very moving look to his firing tables, when he is ordering the ammo.

I am asking myself: are we learning enough to quickly redo these tables? And in the case we do not have this possibility, could we do without it?

The answer will be seen in the following pages.

The new Norme per il combattimento della Sivizione say that:

It is obvious that no matter how intelligent and vigorous are the directives of the General Staff (and nobody doubts that they aren't), no matter how good the equipment is, if the artilleryman doesn't live up to the expectations, the effects would be the same as hitting a log with a silver axe.

(to be continued later)

The main causes that contributed to the attitude of the artillerymen after the war are:
- the tyranny of the so-called scientific firing rules
- the lack of munitions, which made the few available ones be used for scientific firing
- the natural tendency for a comfortable situation, which also comes from the scientific rules born during the positional warfare and which should have died together with it
- in a smaller proportion the dependency on the firing ranges

The evolution of the artillerymen towards the dynamic war was slower than of the others. In France, the rules were updated only at the beginning of this year, when the 1932 firing rules were replaced.

In the moment that the idea was adopted by us as well, what was the essential change that happened in our training?

Did we change our way of learning how to fire?

We must not doubt that the Center for Artillery Training teaches methods different from our doctrine. The fact that we find the guns in the same place, at our visits, is, of course, due to the fact that the crews firing them change. An artilleryman passes through there once or twice and then he is under pressure from the results he must obtain at his exam, usually when going up through the ranks to those that no longer fire the guns. We, the small, but many, train only in the school and at the regiments.

I know that in two weeks time from the mobilization I will either be dead or commanding a battery and, with the right of the one who knows that tomorrow will have a great burden in his shoulders, I would like to express my fear that we are not taught how to fire in time of war.

I start from the presumption that, obviously, one learns to fire in the field and not in the classroom, because it is exactly the contrast between these two that is very surprising.

(to be continued)

I start from the presumption that, obviously, one learns to fire in the field and not in the classroom, because it is exactly the contrast between these two that is very surprising.

I know how things go: with long before the fortunate event that is the autumn firing practice (change the season and you obtain the situation in the schools), there is a recon mission in the firing range. Two or three trusted officers measure the elevations, taking care not to make an error larger than 10 meters. Required time: 4 day – one week. Another one makes the signals plan and one brings the thermometer, the barometer etc. The reconnaissance and the taking up of the positions is done thoroughly. It takes at least half a day to create the telephone network.

The first shot is waited with the hearts beating hard. Meanwhile, the officer measures the angle again ("Maybe I was wrong with 100[/1000]") and the distance ("could I actually be off with 1,000 m?"). And there it is: "Third Right long". No, it's nothing: quickly, the observation grid.
Ah, here it is the second one: "One Right, 20 meters long". The colonel seems content, someone discretely congratulates the topographic officer, the battery commander takes up the air of the bride at the altar.

And then? Then 4-5 days we take turns and measuring angles and distances on the board and we execute "scientific fire". In the end, officers congratulate each other. Only one is more distant: the guy who mistook the distance by one kilometer.

After a week we go to the maneuvers. The topographic material: a 1/100,000 map, which only sometimes has a grid, a compass and a board. Once we arrive at the destination, after a 50 km march, we occupy the positions at 1900 hours and by midnight everyone goes tired to sleep. At 0100 hours, someone is beating hard in the door. It's a courier who hands over an envelope with the following order: The Battalion will change position to the X area.. Be ready to fire by 0800 hours.

And we go to the designated area, where the forward observation officer quickly improvises the position's file. The scene is repeated every night. Only in the last day we change position at 1400 hours.

All this while, the lower ranking officers becomes an expert in topographical methods employed. Only one small detail evades him: the precision. We only have at our disposal a 1/100,000 map.

So, on one side we make preparations for an entire week and we fire the entire ammo stock at several well-located targets, but on the other side, when we have to act like we would during wartime, changing position almost every day, it is presumed that we would be capable to fire precisely. But how many of the battery commanders would maintain their commands, if they were to fire live rounds instead of blanks?

During firing practice, we are rightfully taught that a shell isn't something to play around with, since we have to weigh it 10 days before we let it go. Even in the conditions in which our infantry isn't 200 meters away from the target and the only inhabited settlements are kilometers away, we fire from the same spot for an entire week. How will I be confident enough after changing positions to fire close to our infantry without fearing that I may harm them? Won't I always ask for time to prepare like we do now?

(to be continued)

Because no one will claim that what I am able to do now in 4 hours I will do in 2 during wartime, the first days of fighting will be the most important. The problem is first of all an educational one and only then a technical skill.

There is also the maps issue. The applications in the garrison area and the maneuvers are done on the 1/100,000 map, but the firing is executed according to the special elevations and sometimes with the help of the region's director plan.

I believe that in a dynamic war, there will be two major topographical situations:
- we only have the 1:100,000 map and only a minimal time to prepare
- we only have the region's director plan and a strictly allocated time to prepare

The hypothesis that only the 1/100,000 map is available is taken into consideration in the Western armies and so could we. If during wartime it is possible to fire using only this map, why not learn how to do it now? Why not verify by firing at the coordinates we calculate during the so-called training applications that we do?

Of course, we mustn't exaggerate by minimizing the means. Thus, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have the region's director plan available at the maneuvers (it costs just 15 lei at the Army's Geographic Service).

In the case we have at our disposal the region's director plan, it is clear that the topographical preparations will be different. It would be interesting to experiment this, but it won't lead to viable conclusions, simply because the time factor wasn't taken into consideration.

The situation when we will have enough time to make the perfect topographical preparations, like we usually do for the maneuvers, will not be frequent, because it is typical of positional warfare. So:
- the time allocated for determining the elevations as we do now won't be available in a dynamic war; the topographical preparations should be progressive, they are critical hours, which we aren't currently trained to face
- the points determined in the objective area are few and, in most cases, of a lower precision (the normal case is that of an intersection from the smaller base or from a spotter in an airplane); we must not forget that the auxiliary targets aren't too numerous and that the enemy will be careful to camouflage them and that they will be indicated in the field and not on the board; against such targets, which aren't exposed for long times and can't be transformed into coordinates that easily must learn how to fire even the heavy artillery.

To some of my observations, perhaps I will receive the answer that during wartime there will be several special sections that deal with the topographical organization of the fire. Obviously, no one is against them, but it remains to be seen how efficient will they be in a dynamic war. I don't think they will intervene very much in emergency situation, which call for immediate support fire. And, after all, why would it be wrong to learn how to act without their help?

In conclusion, we are training for a dynamic war, but we learn how to fire according to the methods of the finest positional warfare. During the applications we always prepare the firing with methods that yield quick results, but we never experiment them through live fire, only the perfect and secure ones.

It is interesting that many of our instructors, who have the experience of the last campaign, regret the rapid methods that they themselves used. It is time that they take us, these enfants terribles stuffed with training manuals and articles, out of the easy life we are enjoying in front of the board and put us in situation to fire under a time limitation at objectives that aren't given by coordinates with a 10 meter precision.

The so-called scientific firing rules are good and must keep their importance, but I don't think that anyone remembers them during applications. We must make room for dynamic firing. What a young artilleryman lacks, after 5 years of school, isn't the ability to make some calculations. He must learn how to fire against visible targets, because this is the only method to eliminate the virginal timidity he has towards the live shell. We, the older ones, can measure distances and angles. As we are moving away from the school years, we no longer blush when the shell explodes, but the timidity towards the logarithm table appears.

It doesn't matter that the young artillerymen make now errors of 1,000 meters or 100/1000. They will learn to place their hits on the target. In the future war, the first salvo won't fall 20 meters from the objective.

(to be continued)

All the rules for "tuning" the fire can be applied on badly determined objectives. The exercise is more interesting when the topography isn't helping the artilleryman. The ammo consumption won't be much bigger, but the gains will.

We could fire at turns with the help of the 1/100,000 map, the director plan and with complete preparations. The colonel will make a reconaissance of several positions and objective area. One can place many targets, but only several will be determined.

For each of the three cases, we shall change positions according to orders given on the spot. The officers can be cycled through different commpand posts.

The excuse that we don't have suitable firing ranges for such a thing does not stand: Romania has 50 inhabitans/square kilometer. For such crucial exercises we can go even to 10-15 km from the garrison.

This way we can train as if we were on campaign and the entire "artillery machinery" will start to move. Especially, one can test the training of the signals troops.

The lower rank officer will learn to pay more attention to practice and less to words, to work seriously. He will earn confidence in himself and the quick methods, which I believe he will be forced to use in time of war. And this means more than we can think of.

17 November 1937

lt. Aurel Badescu
2nd Heavy Artillery Regiment