Question re: Artillery terminology WW2 (German)

[armyguy62]

I am reading an interesting book (Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945) and in it he makes mention a number of times of a "drumfire artillery barrage". He provides no explanation as to what a drumfire barrage is, does anyone out there know?

 

[redleafjumper]

As I understand it, a drumfire barrage is the direction of battery or multi-battery fire on a particular point for a set period of time.   This would be differentiated from the rapid or slow creeping barrage in which mobile barrage techniques may be used to cover an advance or to target advancing troops. There is also a hurricane barrage, which I understand to be a barrage that happens without warning or pre-registration on a set area with nearly simultaneous fire from the guns involved.   The drumfire barrage would be very much like its name - the stick beating on a drum as in a roll.   The creeping barrage is the mobile barrage and the hurricane barrage would be a map-plotted splat.   Perhaps there is a gunner out there who might add to this or correct any misconceptions that I might have.

 

[Old Sweat]

This may muddify the discussion, but the only German primary source references (in translation) I have seen that refer to drumfire use the term to describe the intensity of Allied bombardments, which exceeded both in the number of guns and the amount of ammunition the Germans could employ.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

There is also a hurricane barrage, which I understand to be a barrage that happens without warning or pre-registration on a set area with nearly simultaneous fire from the guns involved.  

The Americans and British called it TOT - time on target - and the Germans never learned how to do them in WW II from what I've read.

 

[armyguy62]

Many thanks for the answers. I suspect that it refers to a multi-battery barrage on a set grid reference. Although I have not finished reading the book, General Raus has only used the term when his forces are under attack, never on the offensive. Further, since the book was translated from General Raus' personal papers the term "drumfire" may well never have been used by the Germans. Again, thanks for the answers.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Many thanks for the answers. I suspect that it refers to a multi-battery barrage on a set grid reference. Although I have not finished reading the book, General Raus has only used the term when his forces are under attack, never on the offensive. Further, since the book was translated from General Raus' personal papers the term "drumfire" may well never have been used by the Germans. Again, thanks for the answers.

I don't think its a technical term, actually; from what I've read it usually just describes the sound and noise of any kind of barrage falling on someone's head...FWIW

 

[redleafjumper]

Michael makes a good point.  If it is landing on you that's likely what it'll sound like.  My reading indicates that there are different types of barrage and that the term 'drumfire' does indicate a type of fire as I have specified above.  I believe it is a literal translation of the German word "trommelfeuer".

 

[3rd Herd]

An excellent easy to read source on German tactics and organization is the U.S. War Department Technical Manual TM-E 30-451: Handbook on German Military Forces, The U.S. Army Military History Institute (USAMHI) has the complete TM-E 30-451 available on line at http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/DL/ for download in PDF format. A caveat though is this was published by an intelligence service during war and may have some inaccuracies

 

[larry Strong]

I use that manual quite a bit, and have found it to be accurate so far, and I have been using it as a reference book for about 10 years.