Why 518 Men for 12 Field Guns?
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- čas přidán 31. 10. 2016
- Why do you need 518 Men for 12 Field Guns?
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Table of Organization and Equipment No. 6-335
www.militaryresearch.org/6-335...
Table of Organization and Equipment No. 6-337
www.militaryresearch.org/6-337...
TM 9-350 155-mm Gun M2, Carriage M1 and M1A1, Gun Mount M13, Heavy Carriage Limber M2 and M5, and Firing Platform M1
archive.org/details/TM9-350-nsia
Niehorster - Organization Charts
niehorster.org/013_usa/44_org/...
niehorster.org/013_usa/44_org/...
Field Artillery - Tactical Employment
archive.org/details/Fm6-20
www.custermen.com/328FA/Batter...
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Military History Park Pivka, Slovenia
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Bunkermuseum Wurzenpass, Austria
www.bunkermuseum.at/
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15.5 men per Howitzer. 155mm Howitzer. Therefore 0.1 man per mm of calibre. /solved
0.9 men per 9mm pistol
@@hobomeak69 haha I owe a 9 mm and constantly question my life
1 man per cm
It is always quite surprising how huge and complicated things truly are "behind the scenes"
Yeah, logistics is fun.
There's a reason we have something like 10 support personnel for every combat arms person(infantry, cavalry, etc.). You have entire brigades devoted to one main job(logistics, communications, medical, etc.) and you still have an entire platoon in each company and a company within each battalion plus another company assigned to support the brigade command team and each level of command above that.
It's complicated as all hell, but that's what it takes to organize a unit so that things run smoothly.
modern Armies are not as support heavy as they were in WW2 though.
yep, same thought
I'm in the military, and from what i heard/seen only 20% of jobs in the US military are actually combat jobs. Logistics, engineers, technicians, health services, communications, administrative, financial, personnel management, recruiters, public relations, even religious workers (yes, you can join the military and end up working in a chapel). I would say over half of the people in the military sit at a desk all day. It was a surprise to me when i first joined.
sucks to be that .5 man
midgets need a place to work, you know
Who else are they going to stick down the barrel to inspect it?
the imp was needed to inspect the barrel from the inside. Someone had to do it
He's a beta male.
I was half the man I used to be
My grandfather commanded a armored field artillery battalion. He had 16 guns at full strength. His unit had 1000 men. They were Long Toms with M7 tractors.
Really cool video.
When I posted this I forgot, he also had 2 spotter aircraft attached. He said they were Piper Cubs, but all little planes get that label.
cool guy
....no, i won't pick up that wrench....it's not my designated job
jethro035181 truth about all officers.
Reminds me of a funny scene in Wing commander 3
Christopher (Colonel): "Who I choose as my wingman is my prerogative, It's a privilege of rank."
Todd (Major): "I'll bet you stay up late nights just polishing it."
Chris: "No, as a matter of fact, I have majors who do that for me."
As an ex FA officer I just wanted to say THANK YOU!!! My only request, please try to communicate in a later video just how complicated fire direction is. There is a reason Field Artillery Officer school is considered the most mentally challenging professional course in the US Army.
Would you say people who graduate the school are mentally challenged?
fml. That killed me
you are welcome! Can you point to any Field Manuals or books that give me some basics (or more) on fire direction, because well, I don't know anything yet about this topic... although I consider it is full of math, various diagrams and data on wind, weather, etc.
no, but people with nothing better to do than make smart ass remarks at random on the internet are.
The books I have, even though now retired, I am not legally allowed so share. BUT they are out there...search FA field manuals. I can't link, but the info is out there!
As a former Paladin crewmember, 155mm SPG, I can tell you that the crews for heavy are now much smaller. 4 men per SPG. Crew chief, Gunner (aiming [degraded] and propellant loading plus double checking crew chief to see if gun is within acceptable parameters. No always overrides yes. Always.) A driver, and a #1 man. There is more to the section, however for US army heavy, it is 4 per operable SPG. Medium on the other hand has more men. 777 is just a modern Long-Tom.
Sounds like nearly everyone was sitting in HQ!
The sharp end in any army always has a long pole behind it...
Traditionally it's considered that the efforts of one hundred men are required to keep one Infantryman effective in the field. But that's a generalization, and actually often an underestimation.
But I think that number might only be the forces actually deployed in Vietnam. Add to it logistics all the way back to the US, training and rotating/recuperating of troops , military bureaucracy at home, you might easily get that 100 number.
Well, that HQ includes like 32 truck drivers and the maintenance for those trucks, plus a about 20 jeeps to move the HQ staff/forward observers/battalion communications around the battlefield, plus the guys that service those vehicles, plus the security section that protects the HQ in the event it comes under fire. It's not like the whole HQ was brass.
Add a platoon for physical security, a platoon for communication
I love your videos. We've watched a few In my world history class. Keep up the amazing work!
will you do a breakdown of other batallion-types' compositions as well?
I thought that this breakdown of the numbers was quite interesting.
And in Sweden we use 2 guys for the gun... and 2 guys for the logistics...
The gun is divided up in the following way.
1 person supervising.
1 person pressing the buttons.
The logistic:
1 person supervising
1 person loading and driving
Maintanece: You don´t get any, they guy pressing the buttons have to do it him self
Battery detail... you don´t get any
Battery headquarter: There are already a guy supervising the only gun in the battery
Medical: hahaha.. that was a good one, you better not get hurt.... tho there is Armour on the gun
Service battery...... no
Head quarter: Yea, a general, and a guy making coffie bossing around all the 12 people under him
Food: You get your own camping kitchen..
This is party a joke... partly not
Its pretty much how it is in Norway too
VonGrav Yea.. Norway was suppose to buy the Archer system.. but the Swedish politics f-ed it up.
matsv201 Seems we might get the Korean system now :I
VonGrav Give my regards to Kim Jon Un.... ;)
matsv201 *cough* South.
I served 24 years in an Artillery battery (M198, 155MM) towed and self propelled, and would like to say well done, you researched this nicely. It is extremely labor intensive but with a well trained crew its amazing what you can accomplish with these "beasts".
The sourcing for your information is incredible, keep up the good work
damn the pictures of those howitzers are amazing. imagine if some civil war artillery men saw that!
Great video as always, MHV! Really gives a sense of how many men in support it takes to "simply" operate 12 howitzers.
I love your videos, finally a place to go to for history 😃
awesome work as always
Really detailed video on the Artillery regiment. I. would definitely like to see more of this kind of in-depth videos.
As always clear concise and easy to understand explanation. Thanks again!
love these videos. great info
Fantastic video! Sourcing looks pretty reliable too.
Your channel is great. Keep up the good work!
This was an excellent explanation, thank you so much! I subbed immediately!
keep up the good work. nice graphics.
That was very informative thank you.
They need one man per two howitzers to do the Superman pose each time they fire.
Excellent video, even I would have loved more details!
Great video! There are so many people dealing with ammo on the battallion, battery, firing battery and the single howitzer level, that it seems to me, that they were giving the shells hand-to-hand.
I've wondered about this, so thanks for enlightening me
Really like the improvements to your style. You could also try a more abstract texture (like brush strokes) for the back ground, nice improvement though. And you are using the screen estate better than ever before in my opinion (though sometimes you could still "zoom out" a bit more).
Content was great too. Would you be interested in telling us about how the division behaved in combat and how the decisions and calculations were made and communicated?
Thx for your content!
Thank you! Since I wasn't bothered searching this in the Internet or books, luckily you made a video.
Fantastic!!.....thank you for posting!!
Awesome video!
If you check out some of the fire mission videos on CZcams of 155's in Afghanistan, you can definitely see why 12 guys are needed to actually load and fire one of these beasts. This video is excellent to explain the rest of the people in the battalion.
Nice vid. I was an airborne artilleryman during my time in the US Army. I was a gunner on both the M198 and M777 pieces (both 155mm). Your numbers overall stay true to even todays equipment, our sections always ran between 7 to 12 men.
While I was deployed we had 2 gun sections per platoon with 3 platoons in our battery (2 gun, 1 support/HQ). I still have my technical and field manuals on my hard drive if you're interested, or if you would like to know anything about airborne operations with 155mm howitzers.
I always learn something new on this channel
a short but interesting video!
Ahh.. so that explains why whenever I see video of artillery units in action there's always a dozen or two dozen guys just standing around doing nothing. =)
:D
Such a lot of men. No wonder the cemeteries are huge.
Great job. There is allot more to a fighting unit than " trigger pullers". Keep up the great work.
this channel is the dogs balls .. best thing ive ever found for my research into all things war !!
It would be great to have a video about the genious and innovative tape system used by American artillery during WW2. After all, quoting General Patton: "...it was our artillery who won the war...".
excellent video. had never analyzed heavy arty battery orbats.
good video thanks for making it .
I am a retired artilleryman. I must say that was a great video. Good job.
Love your videos. Scheisse, it will take me forever to go back and watch all that I have missed!
I recall a French stand up artist and rpg enthusiast solving this exercise with his audience: "how many dwarves do you need to dig a tunnel through an X miles thick mountain ?" Turned out you needed diggers, soil carriers, machinists, medics, cooks, bar men..
A very good and accurate breakdown of manpower.
nice vid i understand the concept now
Very intersting :) thanks
Very informative. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Great video. Could you have included even more detail like ranks and thing like how many trucks etc.?
/
Sir... Do you mind doing one video about the the german 80 cm Railway Gun "Schwerer Gustav"?
i'm pretty sure it took so many men it wasn't just a Battalion, it was the entire division all by itself!!
Thanks for the video. I learned or verified a few things about these guns that's helpful. Just finished writing a book where a couple of these things took a prominent place, and it's good to know I got it right.
Don't suppose you've got a video regarding the older artillery battalions? Mid-19th century, perhaps?
Presumably they needed less men since their guns were usually smaller, and their logistics and coordination were simpeler. Still wouldve needed a lot more than the 3-6 guys needed for operating the gun though.
When you consider the civilian back end which manufactures the shells and replacement parts for the guns, food, fuel and other supplies for the battalion and the transport needed to get those resources to the front the amount of manpower is staggering.
I'd love to know what specific jobs those 12 guys did. I can imagine some, but I still don't get to 12. I imagine it's a bit like a pit crew, where you could very reasonably do it with less manpower, but speed and mitigating exhaustion is important.
Comparing land and naval artillery really puts into perspective how big naval ships were in the Big Gun Era. The Mogami class cruisers from Japan had 15x 155mm guns, and the barrels were 31 feet long, compared to the Long Tom's 21 feet barrel. The Cleveland class cruisers had 12X 150mm guns with a barrel length of 22 feet. So a light cruiser essentially carried the firepower of an entire land artillery battalion.
I'm a medic in a HHB unit for a HIMARS Brigade. These kind of numbers are still pretty much the same today. It's crazy how many people are needed to shuffle the paperwork and direct the shots. I came from a medical company and thought that I was used to working with brass due to the docs and nurses, but Headquarters brings topheavy to a whole new level.
This is one of the best and most fascinating yet. The "teeth" are cool, but without the logistic "tail" they are no more effective than the memorialised relics that kids climb on in city parks. I love games like Cossacks and EW4: Napoleon, but games like Hearts of Iron which rapidly decrease your units' effectiveness once they are surrounded are significantly more realistic for that reason, and I wish more games would pay even lip service to this. (EW4 has a morale drop with hit point consequences when you are surrounded, but assumes that you have enough ammo to go on fighting until destroyed; it takes quite a while before a strong surrounded unit is completely paralysed and utterly helpless. Cossacks paid no heed to logistics at all, except at source, where it was excellent.)
Sehr interessantes Video. :)
I remember this scene in Windtalkers! One guy put in the pill and another stocked it up, then four dudes picked up the giant effing shell and loaded it in, then there were spotters for aiming and the guys that actually did the firing! This is why I want to smack people when they say the movie is one of the elast realistic ones out there because it actually displays the intricacies of artillery warfare.
No movie with Nicolas Cage can be subject to enough derision. If the producers wanted people to take their movie seriously, they should have taken the job of casting seriously.
Yet again highlighting the old adage: Amateurs talk tactics, while professionals talk logistics.........................
This reminds me of a record of the Spanish American war in which colonial troops were moving 2 field guns and had a crew of over 40 individuals and a dozen horses. You only need 5 people per gun, but you also have lieutenants, cooks, etc.
i just like the video b4 i even watch it because i know it will be a great info vid. yuhhhh
I love your channel.
I have one request if it can be fulfilled.
I've not come across any documentary that details the German offensive in Kharkov in the beginning of 1943. Would it be possible for you to make one which would detail:
1. Troop composition for Germans and Soviets
2. Movement of units (and battle-lines)
3. Tactics used by the Germans and Soviets
4. Reasons for German victory
5. Strategic consequences of the battle.
Thanks in advance.
Keep up the great and unique work :)
What nation's military is this artillery unit suppose to be part of?
US
Just to amplify the answer to your question, our (United States Army) standard divisional artillery piece was the 105mm Gun/Howitzer M101
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M101_howitzer
And, to help maintain the speed of advance, our Armored Divisions (as opposed to our infantry divisions) had no heavier artillery piece in their T,O & E.
The heavier, 155mm, Guns and Gun/Howitzers, were issued as Corps level Artillery and often used for counterbattery fire. Since unlimbering and emplacement of these very large weapons were time consuming operations, they were not sent forward with the most mobile (i.e.: Armored) divisions. They were, however, issued to some infantry divisions.
Within an infantry division, there were four artillery battalions, three M2A1 105mm howitzer battalions and one 155mm battalion.
82nd Airborne seemed to like their M777's. Fairly lightweight(9800 pounds), easy to set up or tear down(2 min 10 seconds and 2 min 23 seconds respectively), accurate, and able to be transported nearly anywhere.
William, please check the description for my various sources on the validity of my statement. This wasn't for an Armor division.
While a battery has over a 100 personnel on paper, in reality - as a former 155mm artilleryman myself - even a battery of 30 men could be combat effective. It would just take longer to set up and prepare everything before firing, and also your rate of fire would diminish much faster without fresh hands to take turns picking up ammo.
The Germans were amazed at the flexibility and volume of artillery response at the Ardennes, which the Americans call something else, because Ardennes is tough to spell.
It's great fun when wargaming that and seeing your volksgrenadier formations literally melt away the moment they broke cover from any treeline.
Assuming these guys work 24-hour shifts, you need to work 12 hours on 12 off.
My grandad used to command 12 of these in the Dutch army
better than Crash Course History
Tad Halpin Well it depends on what you want really. If you want facts and numbers, Crash Course is for you. If you how to know, say, how the German army functioned in World War 2, this is for you.
Yeah I kinda got turned off from Crash Course after John made the American Civil War Battles video, which is basically criticisizing people who enjoy military history. It ticked me off, my 4 Greats Grandfather got wounded during the Siege of Petersburg serving the Army of Northern Virginia, when my Grandmother told me stories about him I became obsessed with the war and history in general, so when I John's video claiming that studying battles teaches us nothing, I just got turned off from the show. But you're right, both shows have very good information in them, just on different topics.
Tad Halpin Fair enough. I mean I can understand why something like that would make you mad and such. I am a fan of the show, but I also like this show as well. It's always cool looking at different takes on history, you know? The only real complaint about this show I have is that his accent is thick and it's hard to understand him.
I absolutely love different types of history. Besides Military History, geography is always great. There's a great channel called Geography Now, I recommend to anyone who's interested
Tad Halpin That's funny. I watch that too. Great stuff. The guy on there works hard and you can tell. There is a channel called Knowledge Hub that covers geography, and other things as well.
the American 155mm longtom and M115 8" were the best Artillery guns in their class.
they were extremely powerful and accurate but with a relatively high level of Elevation and Traverse with percise controls but still being relatively light and easy to move around (14,000kg).
the German equivalents the 17cm Kannone 18 and 21cm Morser (aside from that impressive 29km on the 17cm) were little to no more capable ballistically but were 9,000kg heavier at 23,000kg!
they had to be traveled in 2 pieces and took about 3 times aslong to set up with unnecessary features such as a 360 degree turret and Double recoil mechanism adding to the weight.
the Russian equivalents the Br-2 and B-4 were no more capable balistically while both weighing alot more still at 19,000kg, but the real bad thing was they were on unpowered tracks and they only had a traverse of 4 degrees left or right. but since they were on tracks they were immensly difficult to turn past that narrow view, infact it could take about 25 minutes to turn 30 degrees.
the M115 8" and M1 155mm had a decent 30 degrees of traverse either way.
the British had the 7.2" Howitzer which had a fairly bag carriage and craddle system in the beginning of the war but by the end with the 7.2" Howitzer Mk6 they used the same carriage and craddle system on the US guns so it was pretty much a british copy of the M115 8".
It's not just the Artillery either. very few people in any given army are the tip of the spear there is an enormous amount of support needed if they are to be successful.
French Army in late WW1 also used so many men for guns.%40 of entire French Army on Western Front was opereting some 10.000 artillery guns in late 1918.
PERFECT
Know I'm very late to the party, but i have a suggestion. If you'd have included the prime movers, trucks and jeeps included to move the men, ammo, supplies & the Long Toms visually the amount of men needed would have made more sense. That said, I loved this vid.
The _"Long Tom"_ wasn't a howitzer, but a field gun! Only the 203 mm on the same gun carriage did be a howitzer. There was a 155 mm howitzer, but it looked completely different...
great videao , could it be a video with the same quality , how was organised a fieldartillerie regiment in ww1 german army to understand how they were built and organised
what a battey means in terms of number of guns and men ?
thanks in advance
What not a lot of people may know about artillery is that is has claimed more lives and been used as the primary means of destruction and death than all other weapons in the history of mankind's warfare. Artillery is quite literally king. It has also been around much longer than you may have thought previously. There are records of artillery pieces being used by Chinese in warfare well back in antiquity.
well you have to protect them.. move them.. supply them and 100 other things
And today you can get a lot more firepower in a single self-propelled 155mm art battery... I think a lot of the explaining here is to do with technological developments, a part of that (besides obviously better guns incl. automation) is computer power and another is the motorisation/mechanisation of modern militaries. There is also an argument about improved training so as you need less C&C directly in the art. unit.
As mobility, communication, calculation, and command authority was a lot more challenging 70-80 years ago, then you simply needed more people to rain the same death and destruction on your enemy.
We also pay through the nose for each of those new computer controlled guns, and another bundle for each smart artillery round. When you are in total war, like WW2, those fancy bits are lost real fast.
Great video. I don't know if you do request but do you think you can do an assessment on the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's?
thx, Spanish Civil War is on the "long list", but not sure if I do a complete assessment.
I don't know, I just thought of it because I'm kind of comparing it with the current Syrian Civil War how there are many anti-government factions fighting or not cooperating with each other just like with the Spanish Civil War, except they were political parties fighting against Franco.
interesting thought, I didn't dig into the Syrian Civil War at all, so I can't really comment on that.
this video really got me thinking more than your others. these howitzers seem to be really resource demanding and I was wondering is this a trait with all artillery or just with these heavy guns. if it was just with these guns then what were the advantages of spending so much manpower to keep them going. was the firing arc, range or some other factor worth it to them and why would the Americans bother with these howitzers much considering that they would usually have air superiority or lighter guns available to them?
a bit late of a response but here it goes. some thing you have to consider is weather and availability. if you have poor weather than you have no air support like in the battle of the bulge. in a large battle you may need to destroy large fortified enemy position. small guns won't do any meaning full damage and you may not always have air support in the area. large gun don't care about the weather and provide you another option for heavy fire support. large guns also have a very long range so in a defensive situation these gun can be placed well be hide the line and keep firing even after the defensive line is over run.
I identify as an attack helicopter, and can serve in the military. I feel offended.
The guns are have to be ready to fire 24 hrs - men need time off. Also there needs to be an allowance for casualties, one reason military ships have such large crews compared to commercial crews in similar jobs.When you look at support compared to the number of grunts at the front the ratio is more extreme.
at 1:22 you say that there are 4 men in the headquarters but the number on the screen says 3.Anyway a great video as always.
A lots of soldiers for a few guns , so you ought consider to borrow some man from an enemy !!
This doesn't even include the security detail for the artillery battalion. The people put in charge to make sure the enemy can't just send in one squad to kill the 12 men while they are trying to recharge the artillery gun. But this of course change with the composition and tasks of the brigade/division.
Wow. A modern Marine Corps battery of 155mm howitzers is 147 men, smaller than an infantry company. Things have changed.
awesome videos man! what part of Deutschland are you from??
thank you, Austria, but it's no a part of Deutschland anymore ;)
Military History Visualized Ahhh! hahahaa! It could be many places then either from from the first or second Reich!
Cycling in Edmonton from the Eyes of a Teen Dope, dude. My family is from what used to be Pruße and Bayern.
How about a video about the concentration of power from these artillery units, and why it was worth it to have so many men for so few FA field pieces.
“And 12 men for the medical detachment, you know, the guys with the bandages”
*Pretty Much*
The 155mm Long Tom and the 155mm howitzer were two different weapons. Long Toms were classed as field guns, not howitzers, and had about 60% greater range than 155mm howitzers due to higher muzzle velocity. The graphics OP is using look like the carriages for Long Toms. I don't know why he keeps calling them howitzers.
thx, my bad. Completely missed that part :( I will add an annotation.
annotation added. The German heavy artillery were howitzers: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_cm_sFH_18
but yeah, the muzzle velocity is about 50 % less... crazy.
Would be nice to know which country and which machine these figures were based on
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs well since the howitzers in the video were Long Toms,it's probably the US
He is citing US sources and also, it says so at 0:18 - Motorized 155mm field artillery battalion, US army, 1944 - Lower left corner.
*facepalm
Sapper here,
Are you some day making a video about Combat Engineers?
Assuming that the unit if fulled manned, no one is sick, on leave or dead.
I wonder how many personnel it takes to operate a single Northrop B-2 Spirit?
And it's very important to service the queen of the battlefield!
My father was 30+ years career US Army FA.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Those 12 guys running the gun is most likely how many is needed to run it at peak efficiency, as no military wants its guns knocked out by one guy breaking his arm when falling down the stairs. So less that 12 could operate the gun, but perhaps not at the same rate of fire.