Hi guys, I'm newbie to armorama. I am a WWII Deutsche Afrika Korps nut, I build anything DAK/Luftwaffe in Afrika. However, I am also edging into the WWI range. Here I have a question for you Great War experts:

How did the Germans and Austro-Hungarians set up their trenches so that they could field artillery? Or was their artillery outside of the trench, infront of it? Or did they dig shallow trenches for the arties? If so then were they infronf of the trenches, or in the land in the middle of the winding trenches (so like a moat was formed with the trenches)? I cannot find any photo refs. How did the Ottomans do it? Did they even use trenches?

Thanks.
DAKfreak

Hi Calvin. I am by no means an expert on WW1 artillery but I do know they were placed some distance to the rear of the front line (and reserve) trenches as they had ranges quite capable of reaching many miles to enemy posisitions. They were put in various emplacements similiar to what WWII artillery were placed in ie: dug in to the earth, sandbags etc. There was equipment such as trenchmortars etc that were used in forward trenches. Smaller field guns that were more mobile would have been used outside of gun emplacements if necessary, particulary in the early days of the war before static trench warfare set in. Here is a link with photos of a Diorama at the top of the page that will give you an example.
http://wdmodels.com/page11.htm
It's a British gun but would be similiar to other nations gun emplacements.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/
You could also try the British Imperial War Museum website above for photographs of artillery, they would be most likely be British etc.
There is currently a WWI Campaign been run on Armorama, there will likely be people with knowledge on the subject involved. You should sign up and build something for the campaign!
Hope that's of some help.
Cheers,
Tim

Field artillery on both sides was generally sited such that it could reach the first few lines of defense but was out of range of the enemy's field artillery, who was trying to do just the same thing. So the field pieces were about two miles or so behind each side's front line. WWI arty really didn't have great range. The Brit 18 pdr had a nominal max range of only abuot 4 miles. Counterbattery fire was usually the responsibility of the heavier artillery as they had monger range and were emplaced even further behind the front lines.

Being 2 miles behinds the lines artillery was normally dug into pits much like WW II arty (as was said) with access to the ammo through gaps in the walls of the pit and piles of spent cases & boxes strewn around during any fire mission. Late in the war, to overcome the problem of the arty not being far enough forward to supprt successful attacks, some arty units were positioned right up against the front line just before an attack, but wouldn't fire until the attack was successful and then they supported the units against enemy counterattacks. By this time, this was a feature of the Empire troops and not of the Germans who were fighting much more defensivly.

On the German side, individual 77mm field pieces were frequently sited just behind the outpost lines (after 1916) to ward off Entente tanks. They were still in pits and very well camouflaged, but there wasn't the extensive array of ammo support as these were really being used only as anti-tank guns and not as field artilery.

The exact layout of artillery firing pits varied considerably, from open pits on flat ground with sandbagged barbetttes to gun emplacements that were totally underground with very limited firing arcs and reinforced concrete walls & roofs.

It all depended upon how static the line was, how long the unit had been in its position and how long the generals _thought_ it would be in position. In general, the Germans fought much more statically from the fall of 1915 on. Notwithstanding Verdun & the 1918 Spring Offensive it was the Entente troops who did most of the attacking once teh Germans had occupied the western front in 1914.

HTH

Paul