The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-30
BIG FIELD PIECES IN THE WAR
(Army and Navy Journal.)

The French army IS now uSlng now l itZers of the 370-millmeter 04.6- inch type) against the Germans for the first time since the war began, ac- cording to the War College Division of the General Staff of the United States Army, six or eight having been recently completed ready to be sent into the field. A recent memorandum of the War College Division describes the new weapons and those pitted against it belonging to the artillery of the Central Powers, with some lessons drawn from the use of big field pieces thus far in the course of the war. The French 370-millimeter howitzer, it is stated, was under study when the war broke out, and is comparatively sim- pie in construction. The trials have given most satisfactory results. At the outbreak of the war the mobile artillery of France consisted substan- tially of the 65-millimeter (2.65-inch) mountain, 75-millimeter (2.92-inch) field gun, and the 155-millimeter (6.1- inch) rapid fire Rimailho gun. About one month before the outbreak of the war six regiments of 1O5-millimeter (4.14-inch) guns were authorized, but the guns were not ready for issue at
 
 these regiments have been furnished these, and other calibers have been introduced: 150-millimeter (6-inch) Schneider rapid fire howitzers; 260- millimeter GO.5-inch) howitzers; 3O5- -millimeter G2-inch) navy gun, mounted on railway carriage; 340- millimeter (13.S-inch) navy gun, mounted on railway carriage.
 
 fectiveness of the German 42-centi- meter guns, and adds that cit is claim ed that the Krupp Company has now perfected the 54-centimeter (21.26- | inch) gun, with a range of 3S miles, The Austrians, according to reort quoted in the War College document, are using their large guns up to the 45-centimeter type against field works, | field guns, storage depots, railway | stations and villages where troops are quartered, and to destroy entangle- ments. '"These uses,' says the report, "are made because the guns are avail ble. The writer has seen the effect of fire of the S0.5 centimeter and 45- centimeter mortars on semi-perma- nent earthworks- The craters on the hill in the rear of the line of works | ameter.'
 The War College memorandum goes on: "The successes of the Ger man army for the first four months of the war can be attributed, in a great measure, to- the heavy field ar tillery with which they were equipped, and to it's proper handling. Our ob- servers all state that the moral effect |
 ing battles of the war by the heavy German field artillery was tremendous and came to most of the Frenchmen, who had been taught and had believ- ed that the 75-millimeter gun was the ruler of the artillery world, as terrific shock. At the commencement of the war the French did not take | the trouble to intrench nor conceal their artillery the way they do now; the result was that the heavy German batteries, when used as counter bat teries and assisted by aeroplanes, had a clear field and managed to destroy whole batteries of the light 75-milli- meter French guns without the latter being able to do them any harm. After the opening battles of the war the French realized that they l must have heavy field artillery, and made every effort to obtain 1t as soon as possible. The result was that be- 1 tween August, 1914, and March, 1915, l they had sent a number of four-gun ! batteries of 1O.5 centimeter guns to the front and had adopted and issued to the service a considerable number of new 15-centimeter rapid fire how itzers, and had started to construct 1 14-inch mortars. In other words, few months after the war started the 1 French school of artillery thought had completely veered around and adopted the German artillery idea. 1 From the artillery point of view the lesson to be learned from the war is the same lesson that has been aughttaught by every war since the | discovery of cannon, namely that everything being equal. the side hav- I ing the heaviest gun and the best am- munition supply system is the one | that is best to give the proper support to it's infantry, and, therefore, has the greatest chance of success. Before | the present war started most of our artillery officers believed that the heaviest field gun or howitzer which | would be needed by an army was the 6-1nch hOW1tZer nr1nS a 1ZU-pOund projectile, and in justice to them S> must be stated that, with the ecep- i ton of the German and Austrian armies, this belief was general. They also believed that the function of the heavy field guns of more than 6-inch l caliber, which it was known Ger many and Austria possessed, was to destroy field forts of steel and con- crete, and that it would not be possi- ble to transport either of these guns | or the ammunition they required with the field armies. How wrong this as- sumption was is shown by the present war, in which the Germans and Aus | trians have actually transported with their field armies, 11-inch howitzers, | 12-inch howitzers, 16-inch howitzers and 17.7-inch howitzers. All reports now indicate that the great successes ] obtained by the German and Austrian | armies on the eastern front were due in no small measure to the use of these enormous field pieces, which must hereafter be considered as ssen- | tial to success in war;
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