In order to understand how the tactics and strategy of Russian artillerymen have stepped forward by the summer of 1944, it is necessary to recall the state of our "god of war" three years earlier. Firstly, the shortage of both standard artillery systems and ammunition. Major General Lelyushenko D. D. reported to Major General N. Berzarin about the current situation in the 21st Mechanized Corps:
“The corps went to the front with a significant shortage of artillery, heavy and light machine guns and automatic rifles, as well as mortars. Most of the 76-mm guns were without panoramas, and the small-caliber anti-aircraft guns were without rangefinders (they were given two days before the war and during the war)."
Secondly, the combat training of the personnel of the artillery units, the weak MTO, as well as the lack of anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns left much to be desired. Third, the Red Army lost a lot of artillery in the first months of the war. So, the troops of the Southwestern Front at the end of September 1941 lost about 21 thousand artillery pieces! Battalion, regimental and divisional artillery - 45-mm anti-tank and 76-mm guns, 122- and 152-mm howitzers - bore the brunt of the main losses. Gigantic losses in guns and mortars forced the High Command to withdraw part of the artillery weapons to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command. In the rifle division, as a result, the number of guns and mortars decreased from 294 to 142, which reduced the weight of a mortar salvo from 433.8 kg to 199.8 kg and barrel artillery immediately from 1388.4 kg to 348.4 kg. I must say that the infantry command, even with such meager reserves, sometimes treated very freely, if not criminally.
A typical example is given in Izvestia of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences. On October 3, 1941, near Kapan and Dorokhovo, the 601st Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Infantry Division retreated without notifying the artillery. As a result, in a heroic and unequal battle, without the support of the infantry, almost the entire personnel of the batteries died. Also a serious problem was the imperfection of the tactics of using artillery in the first months of the war. The density of the fire was so low that it practically did not suppress even the weak defense of the Nazis. Barreled artillery and mortars worked mainly at the German strongholds only on the front line of the defense. The attacks of tanks and infantry were not supported in any way - after the artillery preparation of the offensive, the guns fell silent. Movements appeared only on January 10, 1942 with a directive letter No. 03 of the Supreme High Command Headquarters, which indicated the need for a massive artillery strike against enemy defenses, as well as escorting attacking infantry and tanks until the enemy fell. Actually, this directive introduced a new concept for the army of an artillery offensive. Subsequently, the theory of an offensive by artillery was painstakingly improved at headquarters and on the battlefields. The first use of the new approach on a strategic scale was the counteroffensive at Stalingrad in Operation Uranus. The true pinnacle of the theory of the Red Army's artillery offensive was the Bobruisk offensive operation.
Double firing shaft
The success of the Bobruisk offensive operation (June 1944) as the initial stage of the large-scale operation "Bagration" was formed, like a puzzle, from many components. One of the most important was the creation of a large artillery grouping in the 18th Rifle Corps' offensive zone. Then on one kilometer of the front, it was possible to concentrate up to 185 guns, mortars and rocket launchers of various calibers. They also took care of ammunition - per day for each gun it was planned to spend 1 ammunition for artillery preparation, 0, 5 ammunition for artillery support for the attack and 1 ammo for artillery support for attacking units in the depth of the breakthrough. For this, within six days from June 14 to June 19, the front artillerymen received 67 echelons with equipment and ammunition. At the same time, it was necessary to organize the unloading of individual echelons at a distance from the dispersal area by 100-200 km. This decision came already in the course of unloading, which naturally caused a fuel shortage - the units were not ready for such long marches. To the credit of the front rear services, this problem was quickly resolved.
It was supposed to bombard the enemy for more than two hours (125 minutes), dividing the fire effect into three parts. At the beginning, two periods of heavy shelling, 15 and 20 minutes each, followed by a 90-minute period of calm to assess the effectiveness and suppress the remaining pockets of resistance.
In addition to the traditional concentrated fire, the artillerymen had to fire using a new complex method of "double barrage". The fact is that with a deeply echeloned enemy defense, even a massive artillery barrage is unable to quickly cover all the Nazis' objects. This allowed the enemy to pull up reserves, maneuver, and even counterattack. In addition, the Nazis already then learned to leave the forward positions at the first volleys of Soviet guns - often the shells fell into the empty trenches. As soon as the infantry and tanks of the Red Army went on the attack, the Germans occupied the targeted firing points plowed by shells and opened fire back. What did the artillerymen come up with? Lieutenant General Georgy Semenovich Nadysev, Chief of the Artillery Staff of the 1st Belorussian Front, wrote about this in his memoirs:
“Unlike a single barrage, artillery, starting to support the attack of infantry and tanks, set up a curtain of fire (barrage) not one at a time, but simultaneously along two main lines, which were 400 meters apart from each other. Subsequent main lines were also outlined every 400 meters, and between them there were one or two intermediate ones. To conduct a double barrage, two groups of artillery were created. They opened fire at the same time - the first on the first main line and the second on the second. But in the future, they acted in different ways. The first group fired at all lines - main and intermediate, "walking" 200 meters. At the same time, the second group of artillery fired only at the main lines. As soon as the first group, having approached, opened fire on the line, where there had just been a curtain of fire from the second group, the latter made a "step" forward by 400 meters. So the double barrage was carried out for two kilometers. It turned out that with the beginning of the support of the attack, the enemy in the 400-meter strip fell, as it were, in a vise of fire. The rest of the conditions for organizing and conducting a double barrage remained the same as for a single one: close interaction of artillerymen with infantry and tanks, clear control signals, high training and coordination of calculations."
It is noteworthy that the chief of artillery of the 65th Army, Major General Israel Solomonovich Beskin, before the Bobruisk offensive operation, conducted several exercises aimed at coordinating the actions of infantry and artillery during the offensive. Particular emphasis was placed on the interaction in the attack under the cover of the "double barrage".
"God of War" in action
Strike in a new way artillery of the 18th Rifle Corps unleashed on the 35th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht on June 24 at 4.55 am. It turned out that the tactics of a double barrage of fire was very successful - the Germans suffered significant losses in the first hours of the operation. Tanks and infantry of the Red Army launched an attack 10 minutes earlier than planned, which was due to the results of accurate and destructive artillery fire. And already at 6.50 artillery began to move to support the attacking units. With a double barrage of fire, the guns worked in the center of the offensive zone, while on the flanks it was necessary to conduct concentrated fire due to insufficient visibility. In the case of the imposition of barreled artillery fire on the strikes of the multiple launch rocket systems, sheer hell was created in the enemy's defense sector - virtually nothing was left of the Nazis.
The author of the new method of conducting artillery fire was a group of officers from the headquarters of the 1st Belorussian Front, headed by the aforementioned Lieutenant General of Artillery Georgy Nadysev. The theoretical development of the scheme for a double barrage was proposed by Major Leonid Sergeevich Sapkov, Senior Assistant to the Chief of the Operations Department of the Command of the 48th Army Artillery Commander. Including for this military innovation, Major Leonid Sapkov was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
It is worth noting that the use of a double barrage of fire made it possible to seriously save ammunition for the needs of the artillery of both the 65th Army and the rest of the armies of the 1st Belorussian Front. According to the plans, 165.7 thousand shells and mines were prepared for the army, of which only about 100 thousand were used up. There was a more efficient and accurate use of ammunition by artillery. Having unleashed such fire on the Nazis, the 65th Army's artillery command was concerned with the mobility of artillery units. At the same time, there were not enough resources - the Belarusian swamps seriously complicated the offensive. The army's artillery had only one road and two gats at its disposal. Only by strict coordination of the movements of the units was it possible to successfully transfer the self-propelled guns and escort weapons behind the rifle units and tanks of direct support of the infantry. The second echelon was sent to battle the infantry support artillery groups and part of the artillery, including the rocket artillery, from the long-range corps group, the army group of the guards mortar units, as well as the anti-tank reserves of the 18th rifle corps and the 65th army. Already after the 1st Guards Tank Corps of General MF Panov, artillery of large and special power, long-range corps and army groups, moved. It is this scheme of an artillery offensive against a defense in depth that has shown itself to be the most effective and has become typical for further combat operations.
The art of artillery warfare, which was fully mastered by the Soviet soldiers in the Bobruisk offensive operation, contrasts sharply with the almost catastrophic situation of the military branch of 1941. From poorly organized and ineffective artillery, the "gods of war" became the prevailing force on the battlefield. No wonder that on June 29, 1944, in honor of the successful Bobruisk operation in Moscow, a salute of 224 artillery pieces was given.
