Royal Garrison Artillery
The Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) was part of the Royal Artillery . Their job was to manned the guns in the fortifications of the British Empire, including the coastal artillery, the heavy artillery of the infantry divisions and the guns of the siege artillery. From 1914 on, when the British Army had only a small proportion of heavy artillery, it grew into a significant rear-front component of the British Armed Forces, armed with heavy cannons and large-caliber howitzers . It was created on July 1, 1899, when the Royal Artillery was split into three parts: Royal Field Artillery (RFA), Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) and Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). The name was used intermittently until the 1920s when the Royal Garrison Artillery was re-incorporated into the Royal Artillery.
Use of artillery before the First World War
Prior to World War I, artillery traded side by side with infantry and cavalry on the battlefield . The field artillery formed part of the order of combat of the infantry units, the mounted artillery acted in close association with the cavalry.
Use of artillery in the First World War
The use of far-reaching infantry weapons increasingly meant that the artillery fighting in the order of the infantry came under fire in battle. The solution was to detach the artillery from the tight order of battle and to fight the enemy with indirect fire . But even after this procedure became the official principle of operation, the field and mounted artillery on both sides tried to lead the fight according to traditional, outdated principles. An example of this was an artillery duel between British and German mounted artillery during the retreat on the Marne, which was conducted at visual range. However, during the trench warfare that began soon after, it was finally recognized that the artillery no longer had a place in the order of the infantry. The artillery was positioned at a sufficient distance behind the front line. Targets were fought in indirect aiming, the target coordinates were determined with the help of topographic maps and calculated mathematically. As the war continued, both artillery weapons and the principles of fire fighting with far-reaching artillery were massively developed.
Reintegration into the Royal Artillery
In the interwar period, the artillery units were merged in the Royal Artillery, the RGA ceased to exist.
Individual evidence
- ^ The British artillery of 1914-1918
- ^ UK Hansard, February 18, 1930
- ↑ "The following is an episode typical of the way our gunners have fought in the Great Battle. During the fighting on the second day of the great battle in the neighborhood of Epehy, two batteries of our field guns for some four hours, at ranges of from 600 yards downwards, fired at point-blank range into masses of the enemy. Two of the guns were smashed and two more we blew up before retiring. The rest were got away, and the men who saw it, say that two batteries of guns can hardly ever have killed so many men in action. So one correspondent related. Said another of the firing of our artillery in general, on the dense masses of the enemy: 'Our artillery fired with open sights and could not miss.' [Official Photographs.] " Report in The Illustrated War News , April 3, 1918
