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“I do not have to tell you who won the war, you know our artillery did.” (General George S. Patton).

In World War One, the artillery arm of the US Army had fought in Europe equipped entirely with French and British weapons. There are many reasons for this; the need for standardization in Allied arms, lack of shipping space and lack of industrial capacity (in the short time available before the war ended) in the United States. Another factor was that many ordnance specialists in France and Britain felt that the indigenous US gun designs were not up to war-tested European standards. As a result, several years after the war, the US Army Chief of Staff (General Charles P. Summerall) established a board of review to examine the army’s ordnance requirements for the future. The Westervelt Board report was impartial and farsighted and it had dramatic consequences for the Artillery Branch in World War Two. The board recommended that the standard divisional artillery piece be increased in size from 75mm to 105mm, while the general support weapon was to be standardized as a 155mm howitzer. Furthermore, the 120mm corps-level general support gun was to be discarded in favor of a new 155mm gun. In addition, the board recommended that designs should be begun for heavier supporting pieces of the most modern type, suitable for rapid motorized road movement. Finally, improvements in artillery communications and fire control methodology were recommended.

The financial climate of the 1920s and 1930s delayed the development and deployment of such an improved artillery system. But innovative Artillery and Ordnance officers continued to experiment with new gun designs and doctrine. As a result, when the Army began its expansion in the late 1930s, much of the necessary background work to modernize the artillery was already complete. Designs had been completed and prototypes developed for most of the guns and howitzers that were to see service during the war.

Divisional pieces included the M-1 105mm howitzer and the M-1 155mm howitzers, both were excellent weapons, with good range and, particularly in the case of the 155mm, excellent accuracy. Other new weapons included the M-1 75mm pack howitzer and the M-3 105mm howitzer; both were lightweight and relatively short-ranged, but were ideal for use by airborne forces. The M-3 105mm howitzer also saw use in the infantry regiment’s cannon company. The armored division’s artillery was equipped with an SP version of the M-1 105mm, the M-7 Howitzer Motor Carriage “Priest”.

Non-divisional artillery included battalions equipped with these same weapons, as well as other, heavier pieces. A companion to the 155mm howitzer was the 4.5-inch gun. The tube was of British design and manufacture, the carriage was that of the 155mm howitzer. The 4.5-inch gun was not well liked by US artillerymen. The shell (also of British manufacture) was of low-grade steel, thick-walled and with a small bursting charge. Its range was insufficient to compensate for the relative ineffectiveness of its round. A the war’s end it was immediately withdrawn from service.

A much better weapon was the M-1 155mm gun. This combined long range, accuracy and hitting power with a very well designed, highly mobile carriage. It was one of the best weapons in its class in World War Two. The M-12 155mm Gun Motor Carriage was an interesting amalgam of the old and the new. This did not utilize the modern M-1 155mm gun, but rather the older, shorter-range, French-designed GPF developed during World War One. The Ordnance Department had experimentally mounted GPFs on obsolescent M-3 Lee tank chassis in 1942 and, after tests, 100 M-12s were built, only to have the AGF declare in October 1943 that there was no requirement for it. The M-12 languished in storage until early 1944, when urgent requests from England for a heavy SP gun resulted in 74 being rebuilt. Seven field artillery battalions preparing for the invasion were equipped with the M-12. Its mobility fully compensated for its shorter range. Heavier supporting pieces were the M-1 8-inch howitzer, the M-1 8-inch gun and the M-1 240mm howitzer. The 8-inch howitzer was mounted on a carriage adapted from that of the 155mm gun and was renowned for its accuracy and hitting power.

The 8-inch gun and its companion piece, the 240mm howitzer came into service in late 1943. When organized, the first 8-inch gun battalion was hastily rushed to Italy as a counter the deadly, long-ranged German 170mm gun. After a few teething troubles, the 8-inch gun proved to outrange the German piece, was as accurate, and fired a more lethal shell. The 240mm howitzer was the heaviest artillery piece fielded by the United States in World War II. Designed to batter fortifications, it proved to be invaluable in the fighting along the Westwall during the fall of 1944, but its numbers were limited.

All US field artillery battalions were organized with three firing batteries, each battery usually only having four tubes. Batteries in the armored field artillery battalions had six M-7 HMCs each. The 240mm battalions had only two tubes per battery. Divisional artillery was controlled by the division’s artillery headquarters, usually commanded by a brigadier general. Nondivisional artillery battalions were initially organized as two-battalion regiments. However, in 1943, the regiments were eliminated, the regimental headquarters battery reorganized as artillery group headquarters and the battalions became independent. Artillery Groups were normally assigned to a corps, which in turn, often attached them to divisions. Usually two to four battalions were assigned to a group, which was under the command of a colonel. Artillery Brigades were also created as headquarters formations in 1943. It was initially planned that an artillery brigade would control two or more groups, although this was rarely done in practice. Often, the brigade was used to control the heavy artillery of a field army, for example, the 32nd Field Artillery Brigade controlled all 8-inch and 240mm battalions in the First Army. An artillery brigade was usually commanded by either a colonel or a brigadier general.

Unlike German artillery, US artillery was highly mobile. The towed 105mm howitzer battalions used two-and-a-half-ton trucks as prime movers. Five-ton trucks were used to pull the 155mm howitzers. The other towed howitzer battalions were either truck drawn or, more frequently, were equipped with fully tracked M-4 (13-ton) or M-5 (18-ton) high-speed tractors as prime movers. Even the howitzers of the airborne divisions were motorized, towed by the jeep.

All in all, the US artillery arsenal was at least as well designed as, if not better than, most of its German counterparts. Adding immeasurably to the effectiveness of the US artillery was a communications and fire-control system that had no equal in the world. Forward observers of the individual artillery battalions; supported by the personnel from divisional headquarters batteries, artillery brigade and group headquarters batteries, and by the highly skilled, specialist field artillery observation battalions (which were assigned on the basis of one per corps), had access, via powerful radios or extensive telephone landlines, to a formidable array of weaponry. The highly redundant observation and signal system meant that, even when all other contact between front-line units and their headquarters was lost, the artillery communications net usually remained open.

Perhaps, most important, and making the US artillery the best in the world in World War Two, was a fire-direction system that had been developed at the US Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, between the wars. This was a highly refined development of the crude system pioneered in World War One. This sophisticated system permitted rapid engagements of targets and allowed the coordination of fires of many units from many widely separated firing positions. One of the most deadly tactics employed by the artillery was the Time-On-Target (TOT) concentration, the massing of fires from a large number of firing batteries, from several battalions, onto a selected target in which the times of flight from each battery were carefully calculated so that the shells form all landed on the target at nearly the same moment. The effect of a TOT was devastating both psychologically and physically to an unprepared enemy.

Further enhancing the deadliness of the US artillery was the deployment in December 1944 of the new proximity fuse. Also known by its code name of VT (for variable-time) or POZIT, the proximity fuse contained a tiny radar that triggered reliable detonation of the round in the air, prior to impact with the target. This significantly simplified and enhanced the lethality of “time fire” or “air bursts” by significantly augmenting the lethality of the individual round on targets on the ground. By the end of 1944, the German Army had developed a quite reasonable fear of the deadly US artillery, a fear only matched by their fear of the omnipresent Allied air forces. Germans who had faced the more numerous Soviet artillery were unanimous in declaring that US artillery, even though less numerous, was far more deadly.