Officer Promotion, RFA

[Hoplophile]

Does anyone know of a source with statistics on officer promotion in the RFA duirng the first two years of WWI? I am trying to link the problem of finding suitable battery commanders with the switch to the "four by four" (four four-gun batteries in each brigade) structure in the winter of 1914-1915. The theory I want to test is that it was easier to find 480 relatively inexperienced officers (120 junior majors and 360 captains) to command the 480 four-gun field batteries of the New Army divisions than it would have been to find 360 experienced majors capable of commanding six-gun batteries.

[rflory]

What kind of promotion statistics are you looking for? The build up of the New Army basically changed the nature of officer promotion in the artillery and other regiments.

I also would question your premise that commanding a six-gun battery requires more experience than commanding a four-gun battery. Having commanded a six-gun howitzer battery for three years in the early 1960s in Germany, first as a young Lieutenant with less than two years service and for the the last year as a newly promoted Captain, I really don't think my job would have been any easier with four guns. Most of the work of a BC involves organization, planning and command and control that really has nothing to do with the number of guns. This was especially true of the RFA during the Great War where the section commanders really held most of the responsibility for the guns.

I would guess that the change from six-gun batteries to four-gun batteries had more to do with shortages in guns and ammunition than it did with shortages of suitable officers to command the batteries.

Maybe I have misunderstood what your premise is. If so please feel free to correct me.

Regards. Dick Flory

[Robert Dunlop]

Farndale provides the following explanation:

'The Territorial divisions still had 15-pounders and 5-inch howitzers and it was agreed in 1915 that this made them so weak in battle that regular artillery had to support them as well, thus putting great strain on regular batteries. It was agreed that they should have an establishment of four brigades, each of three batteries each of 4 x 18-pounders, making 48 guns. In principle, one 18-pounder battery was taken from each division in France and used to reform two batteries. This caused a revision of thought of the organisation of divisional artilleries and the mix of 18-pounders and howitzers. Those in action favoured mixed brigades of two 18-pounder batteries and one 4.5-inch battery, all of 6 guns/howitzers. There was no doubt the 6 gun batteries were superior to 4 gun batteries like those of the French. However, it would take some time before there were enough guns and howitzers to ensure a uniform organisation throughout.'

At least for this period of reorganisation, the limiting factor was the number of guns, as per Dick's hypothesis.

With respect to the reorganisation of officer structure (which is a separate issue), I would propose that it was cheaper to reorganise in the manner that you describe.

Robert

[Hoplophile]

Gentlemen,

Many thanks for the very detailed posts!

On the subject of the difficulty of commanding large batteries, the opinion is not so much my own as it is the consensus of professional military opinion in the decade or so prior to 1914. The professional debates, in both conferences and the military journals, uncovered lots of different opinions about the ideal size of batteries and brigades. All agreed, however, that a smaller battery was easier to command than a large one.

There were, I think, several reasons for this:

1. Calculations were still done in the battery commander's head.

2. Ranging the entire battery took longer with six guns.

3. It was easier to find a firing position suitable for four guns than one that could accomodate six guns.

4. The care of horses was very much a battery function.

5. Communication between the battery commander and his section leaders was still very much a "face-to-face" business.

Having commanded a rather large mortar platoon (US Marine Corps, with four two-gun sections), I understand that the command of present-day (post-motor transport, post-radio, post-fire direction center) batteries is not particularly complicated by an extra firing section or even two! What I am trying to do here, however, is try to figure out why the plans for the New Army divisional artilleries were switched in December of 1914. Prior to December, the plan was to form New Army brigades on the same pattern as Regular Army batteries - with three six-gun batteries. After that, the "four by four" structure - four batteries of four guns each - was imposed.

[Hoplophile]

PS: I'm currently writing a chapter on the decisions relating to field artillery organisation in 1914 and 1915. I'll make it available when it is presentable.

[Hoplophile]

My own research into artillery organisation in WWI leads me to disagree with General Farndale's explanation for the "four by four" structure for field artillery brigades.

This structure was first set down for New Army divisions in late November or early December of 1914. As these divisions had yet to receive much in the way of artillery pieces, the issue was largely academic. The first formation to be restructured according to this scheme was the 1st Canadian Division. It changed its brigades from three six-gun batteries to four four-gun batteries on 10 and 11 December 1914.

The next formations to get the "four by four" structure were the 27th and 28th Divisions, which had been formed with field artillery brigades consisting of three four-gun batteries. The extra batteries were formed by taking two-gun sections from existing six-gun batteries.

Territorial Divisions started the war with four-gun batteries. In the second half of 1915, those on the Western Front exchanged their obsolescent weapons (15-pounder BLC and 5" howitzers) for new ones. They retained, however, the old structure of three field gun batteries per brigade. Extra batteries - first to bring the howitzer brigades up to three batteries and then to raise all brigades to four batteries - do not start to arrive until early 1916. Indeed, this transformation is barely complete when the order comes down to break up a number of 4-gun batteries in order to convert others into 6-gun batteries. Put another way, of all of the formations to get the "four by four" brigade structure, the Territorial Divisions were the last.