The First World War on the Western Front was, as everyone knows, primarily a war of artillery, but it seldom

plays as important a role on the wargames table as it did in real life. This is perhaps not surprising, because it was the guns that were responsible for most of the pointless slaughter that has given the war such a bad name. There is not much fun in seeing our figures taken off in handfuls by something firing from off the table against which they cannot retaliate, and for the people who had to endure it in real life shellfire was one of the very worst experiences which the war had to offer. This article, though, is not really about heavy artillery operations in the war, which is a subject far too complicated and technical to be covered in a few pages, and is discussed in numerous books (see for example Osprey New Vanguard 105, British Heavy Artillery 1914 - 19, by Dale Clarke). What I want to do here is offer a few thoughts on how the artillery can be incorporated into our tabletop games, especially from the point of view of those who like collecting the models, but find it hard to justify them as gaming pieces.
I focus mainly on my own rules, Contemptible Little Armies, but a lot of the ideas should be applicable whatever system you use. What I mean here by "heavy artillery" is not necessarily the same as the official definition, which was in any case not always very precise. The British Army, for example, distinguished between Heavy batteries attached to divisions, and Siege batteries - controlled at corps level - which operated most of the really heavy stuff, from 6 inch calibre upwards. The simplest definition of "heavy" for wargaming purposes does not depend on shell weight but comprises any gun, howitzer or mortar which normally engages its targets by indirect fire, or at ranges too great to be represented on the tabletop using the normal ground scale. In other words they cannot just be treated like an ordinary tabletop playing piece, especially when it comes to things like measuring ranges or lines of sight. Exactly how we treat them in our games is likely to depend on the "level" of game we are playing, and whether the figures under a player's control represent a force which would historically be large enough to have its own artillery support.

In Contemptible Little Armies I have deliberately avoided stating what level of battle we are representing. This was partly because in playtesting we discovered that while people had widely different ideas about this, the difference of opinion never spoiled anyone's appreciation of the game. But another factor was that I wanted the players to be able to control sizeable amounts of offtable artillery, and to devise fire-plans in support of their units on the table. This, after all, was an important feature of the war, and the flexibility or otherwise of the artillery support could determine the success or failure of an attack. Even fairly minor trench raids could be supported by large concentrations of guns, so the apparent inconsistency of a player commanding a relatively small tabletop force also having control of masses of off-table artillery is less of a problem than it might appear. So each side is allocated a proportion of its points, depending on the army and the game scenario, which can be spent at the player's discretion on off-table artillery. (The accompanying army list books provide additional restrictions on the amount and types of artillery available where this is historically appropriate.)

Below: A battery of Mk V 8 Howitzers bombarding the German lines. Guns HLBSC, crew Great War Miniatures.

Above: German staff officers inspect a Krupp 42cm Big Bertha. Gun HLBS Co, figures Great War Miniatures.

Opinions differ about whether we need to represent the off-table guns by actual models. Many people prefer not to bother,

but this can lead to the artillery being seen as something rather abstract, or even as a boring irrelevance to the main business of the game. I happen to like artillery models, and think that they make for a more visually interesting game, but there are a few problems to be overcome if you want to use them. The first is the

question of ranges. Taking Contemptible Little Armies as an example, maximum rifle range for most infantry is 12 inches, which might represent an effective range of 300 yards. Even the relatively short ranged heavy howitzers of 1914 - 15 could usually manage around 10,000 yards, or more than 30 feet at the same scale. And they were typically sited well behind the lines, where they could make use of this formidable range to inflict damage while staying out of harm's way themselves. There was also the difficulty of getting the heavy pieces up to the front across boggy and shell-torn ground, even if you wanted to. So short of putting your guns at the bottom of the garden, you are going to have to compromise somehow with the ground scale. One way is to mark off a slice of your table edge as a gun line and put it out of bounds to both sides' fighting figures, so that they cannot shoot at or otherwise attack the guns across it. This can work well, though some people find it incongruous when their infantry advance almost under the muzzle of an enemy gun but can still do nothing to stop it firing at them. Perhaps a better solution - if you have the space is to deploy the guns on a separate table placed somewhere behind the main one and representing a piece of ground at some specified distance to the rear. The second problem is the models themselves. If you play in a small scale like 6mm or 10mm artillery models are cheap and easy to obtain (Pendraken do a very good selection in 10mm), but even if you prefer larger scales the problems are not insuperable. One compromise is to represent the guns with smaller scale pieces than those which you are using on

the tabletop. This idea has never caught on as widely as it deserves, perhaps because it intuitively seems wrong to those of us who are used to modelling at a constant scale. But from an aesthetic point of view it can work well, using the principle of perspective to depict a gun line which is situated several thousand yards from the main action, and visible to the front line combatants only in the distance if at all. It is much cheaper than using full scale guns, and requires less space. But if, like me, you are really looking for an excuse to buy some nice models, you will probably want them in the correct scale. And even in 25/28mm there are some excellent ones about. Several manufacturers produce the main armies' standard field guns, the British 18 pounder, French 75mm and German 77mm, all of which were widely used for indirect fire despite their flat trajectories and light shells. (Even in the great artillery duel at Verdun, three quarters of the rounds fired by the French were 75mm calibre.) And of course there are HLBS's splendid British 8 inch howitzer and German "Big Bertha", both of which are well worth having in your army if only for appearance's sake. There is something about the sheer presence of these big guns that can intimidate your opponent in a way that 6mm models, or pieces which exist only on paper, can never do. FIRE PLANS AND AMMUNITION Off-table artillery support in Contemptible Little Armies is classified under the following headings, which will serve to illustrate the sort of things you can do with your off-table guns.

World War I 1914 - 1918

HEAVY ARTILLERY IN WWI HEAVYARTILLERYINWWI

Below: Loading an 8'' Howitzer.

Defensive Barrage: A defensive barrage is allowed to all the main Western Front armies after 1915. It can only be used by a defending player. It is plotted on a map before the game, but differs from its ordinary static equivalent in that it does not actually arrive until it is called for by

Rolling or Creeping Barrage: This technique was invented by the French in 1916, but was quickly copied by the British and Germans. (Its first use by the British artillery was apparently at Longueval on the Somme in July 1916.) It is similar to a static barrage, but moves across the table towards the defending player's base edge at a predetermined rate. This had the advantage that, in theory at least, your infantry could advance behind the barrage as it moved over the enemy's positions, taking the defenders by surprise as they emerged from cover. In practice, though, the initial planning was generally too optimistic and the infantry were unable to keep up with the barrage. For this reason, creeping barrages are restricted to a fixed rate of advance of 6 inches a turn. Your infantry should be able to maintain this speed in ideal conditions, but if anything holds them up - like enemy machine guns - they will lose the support of the guns as the barrage disappears into the distance. This is frustrating, but realistic.

Static Barrage: A static barrage represents the simplest method of employing off-table artillery, just selecting a likely spot from a map and blasting it for a predetermined time in the hope of killing the people occupying it. Because they take time to organise and register with preliminary ranging shots, static barrages are only allowed to an attacking side. Apart from that restriction, though, all armies can use them.

Opportunity Fire: It was rare in this period for indirect opportunity fire to be called in by an observer on a target not previously registered, as we are used to doing in World War Two games, because the necessary technology was still in its infancy. However the British especially did make increasing use of the technique in the last couple of years of the war, so the British, French and Germans are allowed to dedicate one battery to opportunity fire in games set after 1916.

an on-table observer. Of course even then he might not get it straight away, because the telephone lines might have been cut, or the guns knocked out or kept busy in support of someone else. But if it does work properly, a defensive barrage can catch attacking troops out in the open and decimate them, or at least give the defenders a breathing space.

In most cases the player also has a choice of different types of ammunition for different tasks:

Shrapnel: Shrapnel shells were originally designed to burst over the heads of massed formations of men in the open, spraying them with small metal bullets. They were by far the most common type of ammunition at the outbreak of war, especially among the light field artillery, and they inflicted heavy casualties during the mobile campaigns of 1914, but were much less effective against troops in trenches. Shrapnel is available to all armies. High Explosive: The main alternative to shrapnel was high explosive, which was used mainly by the heavier guns and howitzers. It can also be used by any army. The shells of the period tended to bury themselves in the ground before

Heavy High Explosive: The rules distinguish between "ordinary" high explosive and that fired by heavy guns of 8-inch calibre or more. The latter has the same effect on troops in the open or in trenches, on the grounds that although each shell is more effective their rate of fire will be lower. However, unlike the smaller calibres, the "heavies" can destroy deep dugouts and concrete fortifications as well as trenches. This makes them especially useful if attacking an opponent like the French at Verdun or the Germans at Passchendaele, who is likely to be making use of elaborate prepared defences. Super Heavy High Explosive: Finally there are the real monster guns like the German "Big Bertha" and the British 12 and 14 inch railway guns. Wargamers inevitably want to use the biggest and most spectacular pieces of kit they can get, so these items tend to appear quite frequently, even though they are hardly cost effective against most targets. They do tend to remove whatever is in their way, though, in a very visually satisfying manner (one of the two British 14 inch guns was aptly nicknamed "Scene Shifter"). Another advantage was the enormous range of some of the long

exploding, and the casings broke into large chunks of metal which could inflict dreadful wounds on individuals unlucky enough to get in the way, but they were less effective than shrapnel at saturating an area. But high explosive was more deadly than shrapnel against dug-in troops, which made it more useful once trench lines had become established.

barrelled railway guns, which made them ideal for counterbattery fire. These pieces were expensive and difficult to manufacture, so they are only allowed to Germans from 1914 (the "Big Berthas"), French from 1915, and British from 1916, and only if attacking in a Prepared Attack scenario. Smoke and gas shells were also developed in the latter half of the war, though smoke really only came into its own in 1917. Understandably, many wargamers prefer to avoid using gas, but I do not feel that in a set of rules for the First World War it can legitimately be ignored. The most common method of delivery was by means of projectors which released the gas to drift with the wind, but this does not produce a

Above: British guns are supplied by a light railway. Figures by Great War Miniatures, Simplex tractor scratchbuilt.

very satisfactory game as it could be either totally devastating or completely ineffective, depending on such imponderables as weather conditions. So the rules confine themselves to gas delivered by artillery shells, a tactic first seen at Verdun in the summer of 1916. It is restricted to the French and Germans from 1916, and the British from 1917 onwards. The main effect of gas against regular troops equipped with masks is to force them to wear them, which temporarily reduces their fighting ability. SOME TACTICAL IDEAS

successful use of off-table artillery involves continually second-guessing the opponent, making demands on the players' skill and experience that really justify the use of artillery in game terms. I have employed all these tactics successfully in games, but have also seen them all come unstuck when used once too often. Good luck! In essence the German offensive at Verdun in 1916 was a massive feint. Calculating that for political reasons the French could not afford to give up the city, Falkenhayn intended to sucker them into reinforcing the place, then pound the crowded defences with his artillery. He did not really care whether he took Verdun or not, as long as he killed enough Frenchmen. Of course it all went wrong, for a variety of reasons. Falkenhayn seems eventually to have forgotten his own plan, and kept sending the infantry to their deaths in search of an impossible breakthrough. And the French turned out to have far more and better heavy artillery of their own than the Germans had suspected. So huge numbers of men were killed on both sides, and nobody except the shell manufacturers gained anything. But the basic idea can still work on the wargames table. Especially in games set in the early war period, your artillery will not be "The Verdun Tactic"

Any set of rules which aims to reproduce the characteristics of different phases of the war must impose restrictions on the tactical flexibility of the artillery. So in Contemptible Little Armies a static barrage or bombardment must start at the beginning of the game, and last for a number of turns specified in pre-game orders. In post-1916 games players can write more elaborate fire plans, involving batteries changing targets, stopping and resuming firing at preplanned intervals, or ceasing fire in response to signals from on-table observers, but the ideas below are intended to apply as widely as possible, so rely mainly on the sort of fire plans which will be available from 1915 onwards. This inflexibility is not necessarily a disadvantage from a gaming point of view. It means that the

In my rules the most common game scenario is a "Prepared Attack", which requires the attacker to nominate an objective in his initial orders. This can be either a terrain feature or a complete breakthrough, achieved by getting figures off the defender's base line. Either way you need not disclose the objective to your opponent before the game begins, but he will be doing his best to guess what it is. There is always a temptation to pick an objective as near to your own front line as possible, and generally a defender dare not neglect such a vulnerable feature if there is one. So when placing terrain try to ensure there is a likely looking hill, village or whatever within easy reach, pay it plenty of attention when writing your orders, and encourage the defender to pack it with men. That is where the weight of your pre-game artillery will fall, and you can continue to hammer it right through the game itself if there are
Left: At the sharp end. British infantry endure a German barrage. Figures by Great War Miniatures. Below: A pair of German 75mm FK96 give fire. Figures by Great War Miniatures.

flexible enough to detect and hit enemy troop concentrations while the game is in progress. But you can set up a preplanned bombardment and then make the enemy go to it.

still enough targets there to justify it. The best type of ammunition to use is probably high explosive, because the enemy will usually be dug in. There is no need to worry about hitting your own men as they attack, of course, because your real objective will probably be somewhere completely different... "The Neuve Chapelle Tactic" The first two years of the war are often associated with amateurish muddle on the British side especially, pitting infantrymen against barbed wire and machine guns in head-on attacks which inevitably failed with terrible losses. But in fact the nearest thing to a breakthrough of the German lines was achieved by the maligned General Haig, very early on in the history of trench warfare. The attack on the German salient of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 was planned as part of a converging advance on Lille in cooperation with the French, but the latter found themselves fully committed in Champagne and unable to provide the troops. The commander of the BEF, Sir John French, decided to go ahead anyway, giving the risky job to Haig and his First Army. There were plenty of guns, but this was the height of the "shell scandal" in Britain and ammunition was in short supply, so the preliminary bombardment had to be short - only 35 minutes. So perhaps unintentionally - Haig came up with what would later be called a "hurricane bombardment", followed by a rapid assault by the infantry. This maintained surprise and gave the enemy no time to bring up reinforcements while

the artillery preparation was still in progress. This is the ideal approach for a game set early in the war, when your artillery will not be well enough trained to carry out anything more complicated. So bite the bullet, pay the points for a lot of guns, and fire everything off in the first couple of turns. Again, high explosive is the best choice. Then send in your infantry immediately behind the barrage. You should take his first line quite easily while he is still sorting out the mess. Unfortunately the points spent on the bombardment will not be available either for men on the ground or for offtable support - for a further push to the second line, so your nominated objective will need to be fairly close at hand. The enemy will realise this, of course, but his logical response - to pack his front line with men and hold it at all costs - will play right into your hands. Unless, that is, he also decides to be clever. A sensible defender will soon learn not to mass all his men in the first line trenches where your pre-game bombardment can destroy them, and a good alternative is to deploy most of them in a second line, from where they can advance when necessary to reinforce the first line or to counterattack an attacker who gets a foothold there before he can consolidate. This was a tactic which the Germans often used to good effect, but there were ways of dealing with it, especially later in the war when the control of artillery had become more sophisticated. By July 1916 the British armies on the Somme were "The Somme Tactic"

already getting quite good at pre-empting German counterattacks, and it was their artillery superiority combined with relentless pressure from the infantry that eventually forced the Germans out of their formidable defensive positions. The most obvious way to reproduce their methods is to pre-plan a barrage of shrapnel on the ground between the two lines, which the counterattackers will have to advance through. If it works this can be devastating, though if the enemy does not oblige at the expected time it could have the effect of holding up your own further advance while he sits laughing in his trenches. Ideally you will plan for the shrapnel to start in a predetermined turn when you think the enemy will be caught out in the open, but most armies' artillery will probably not be allowed to do anything as clever as this until 1916 at the earliest.

Opposite page: The famous French 75 C.1914. Figures by Foundry. Caisson scratchbuilt.

Of course off-table artillery can be just as useful in defence as in attack. A defensive barrage is an especially versatile tool because, although it is plotted on a map before the game, it need not be activated until an observer sees enemy troops in the target zone. This means that your own men are safe from friendly fire even if they are occupying the area when the game starts, so you can plot a defensive barrage on your own front line trenches, or on some strongpoint that you think is likely to be attacked and captured. This is often preferable to calling fire in on noman's-land in the hope of stopping an attack before it reaches you, because it lures the enemy in further from his supports, gives you a chance to inflict

heavier losses as he approaches your position, and leaves him vulnerable to a counterattack. Shrapnel is usually the preferred ammunition for this role, because it is particularly deadly to men caught moving in the open. But of course a defender still has the problem of deciding where his artillery fire is going to go before he knows what his opponent's objective is. Get it wrong and your guns will have no target. A very important function of the heavy artillery that has not so far been considered is counterbattery fire, the use of your own guns to knock out the enemy's before they can do damage to your front line troops. An enormous amount of ammunition and ingenuity was expended on this task during the war. From a gaming point of view it is worth consideration not just because of its historical importance, but because it gives us another excuse to use some heavy artillery models which might otherwise never be seen on the tabletop. Normally a counterbattery target would not be visible to the shooting batteries themselves, or even to observers in communication with them. So shooting at such targets was a complicated business, involving locating them by sound, flash spotting or aerial reconnaissance, then calculating the range from maps. For game purposes this complexity has to be simplified, especially because for most players the artillery war will always remain peripheral to the main business of moving stuff about on the table. So the normal procedure in Contemptible Little Armies is simply for a player to nominate COUNTERBATTERY FIRE

The first thing to do is for each player using off-table artillery to place appropriate models of the guns he intends to use in the game, either on the main gaming table or on another table behind it, as discussed above. One gun model represents a battery, or an individual piece in the case of super heavies. Then write down the distance behind your table edge at which each battery is deployed. This is important because different types of weapon had different maximum ranges, with most of the short barrelled howitzers and mortars averaging around 10,000 yards, while the longer barrelled guns favoured for counterbattery work could often attain 15,000 yards, with the big railway guns considerably more. (Ranges for some of the most commonly used pieces are given below.) Railway guns could in theory be relocated fairly quickly and would change position after firing a few rounds to avoid counterbattery fire, but they would still be out of action for anything up to several hours while they took up new positions, and can in any case usually be deployed far enough back to be safe, so I have

a specific enemy off-table battery which fired last turn, then throw dice for the effect of his fire. This combines the processes of location and actual firing into a single procedure, and the number of dice thrown reflects the army's technical proficiency in counterbattery work. (So before 1916, all armies throw two per turn; after that British and French throw four, and all others three.) The alternative procedure proposed here needs you to supply actual gun models and involves a bit more work, but will produce more realistic results.

ignored this aspect and assumed that all the guns will remain in the same place for the duration of the game.

Start in the usual way by throwing dice to determine whether you have located the target accurately enough to engage it. I suggest that in games set before April 1916 guns of all armies throw two dice per battery per turn, requiring at least one 6 to successfully locate their target. From April 1916 to February 1917, and from July 1917 until the end of the war, British and French artillery throw four dice, and Germans three. The British and French should be reduced to three dice from March to June 1917 inclusive, to reflect the temporary dominance of the Germans in the air which restricted the activities of aerial observers. Each 6 scored means that you have successfully located the target battery and your shells are falling in the immediate vicinity. It does not necessarily mean that the target has been knocked out, and the effect of the fire must now be diced for separately (all dice used in the rules are six sided). This will depend on the type of ammunition being fired, as follows:

In line with the normal provision in the rules for one battery per side to be allocated to counterbattery work, I recommend that when using these alternative rules you allow a player only one battery of long-range guns (ie. anything with a range greater than 16,000 yards).This is realistic because such pieces were usually less common than the shorter ranged howitzers, and will prevent a player gaining an unfair advantage by placing all his artillery well out of reach of the enemy's counterbattery fire.

Shrapnel: 6: Crews sustain severe losses. Battery out of action for three turns. 5: Crews forced to take cover. Battery must cease fire for one turn. High explosive (HE): 6: Guns destroyed. Battery out of action for the rest of the game. 5: Crews forced to take cover. Battery must cease fire for one turn Heavy HE: 6: Guns destroyed. Battery permanently out of action. Super heavy HE: 4+: Guns and crew destroyed. Battery permanently out of action.

5: Crews shell-shocked. Battery must cease fire for two turns.

Gas: 5+: Crews forced to don masks. Battery must cease fire for two turns. All other dice scores have no effect. RANGES

** These weapons are classed as firing "heavy high explosive" in "Contemptible Little Armies" terms. *** These are classed as firing "super heavy high explosive".

* These are "field guns" by Contemptible Little Armies classification, and will usually be deployed on the tabletop for direct fire. When firing indirect they should be restricted to shrapnel ammunition.

77mm FK96 105mm M1913 howitzer 130mm gun 5.9 inch howitzer 150mm M1913 howitzer 150mm M1916 gun 150mm L40 gun 170mm railway gun 210mm Morser 380mm railway gun 420mm "Big Bertha"

German

9,200* 9,700 15,700 9,300 9,300 23,500 19,000 25,700 11,100** 51,000*** 15,500***

The following list is intended as a rough guide to the maximum ranges of some of the most common or best known guns in service on the Western Front, enabling players to place them where they can do most damage while being as safe as possible from retaliation. It is by no means comprehensive, and does not take into account the characteristics all the different types of ammunition in use, but it should be sufficient for most game purposes. In accordance with contemporary British practice, all ranges are given in yards. 18 pounder Mk I 60 pounder Mk I 6 inch siege howitzer 8 inch howitzer 9.2 inch siege howitzer Mk I 9.2 inch railway gun 12 inch siege howitzer 12 inch railway gun 15 inch siege howitzer French British 7,000* 10,300 9,500 10,500** 10,100** 22,000** 11,300*** 32,700*** 10,800***

I hope these ideas will inspire players to give the heavy artillery a more prominent role in their games, and perhaps even to put some interesting models on the table.

Top:Royal Horse Artillery 13pdr gun and ammunition wagon. Model by Great War Miniatures.

Opposite page: German FK96 sporting late war disruptive camouflage. Model by Great War Miniatures. Below: 8howitzer about to fire.

Above: Camouflage nets attempt to conceal a British howitzer from air observation.

75mm M1897 7,400* 105mm M1913 howitzer 13,400 Rimailho 155mm howitzer 9,300 155mm M1917 howitzer 12,000 220 & 270mm M1885 mortars8,800** 370mm mortar 9,000*** 400mm railway gun 17,500**