For the Commonwealth forces fighting in North West Europe (NWE), artillery was the core of their firepower. Each infantry division had 72 field guns available (armoured divisions had 48 field guns), and each one was capable of sending out an impressive weight of fire. Its worth noting that of the forces Britain committed to the campaign in NWE, 18% belonged to the Royal Artillery (incl AT and AA regts), while only 16% were infantry.

Figure 1: Organisation of a Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, including key appointments and ranks

On operations a field regiment supported each brigade in the division (hence armoured divisions only had two regiments), and a battery supported each battalion in that brigade. At each level the commander was co-located with the supported arms commander - the CO stayed with the brigade commander, the BC was with the battalion CO, and the FOs (usually captains, two parties from each battery) were with two of the four companies in each battalion.

Since there were only two FOs for each battalion, they were kept busy moving around between companies, but since most attacks were conducted "two-up" (two companies ahead, two in reserve), this wasn’t too limiting. These attachments (regiment-brigade, battery-battalion, etc) were effectively permanent, and encouraged close working relationships between infantry and artillery personnel, who became very used to working with each other.

Sydney Jary - an infantryman in NWE and author of "18 Platoon" - when discussing the best method for eliminating German MG positions is quoted as saying "...To knock them out we required HE, fired directly by supporting armour, or indirectly by Dennis Clarke or Bramley Hancock, our beloved FOOs..." . That is, he knew the two FOOs who regularly worked with the battalion (of which 18 platoon was part) by name, and held them in very high regard.

When engaging targets FOs could call for any number of guns, from a single barrel to engage a single target, through troop and battery fire, to regimental targets (24 guns, known as ‘Mike’ targets), up to divisional (72 guns, ‘Uncle’), Corps (216+ guns, Victor), and finally Army level targets, where every gun in range would fire on the same target in a single massive blow, capable of being delivered literally within a matter minutes of the call for fire. A very high standard of swift and accurate surveying to every battery position was the cornerstone of this ability, for it ensured that all guns in the theatre were oriented in the same way, on the so called ‘Theatre Grid’. Battery and regimental targets were by far the most common means of engaging the enemy used by the FOs, and calling for 50 or 60 rounds on regimental targets was reasonably common - a call that would dump 1200 - 1440 rounds on an area roughly 200m x 200m in the space of six or seven minutes.

Since the larger scenarios deal with up to a battalion of infantry, a battery in support is roughly the right allocation. However the 25pdr FO in CMBO - like most FOs - seems to have been treated in a rather cursory manner. The rate of fire is strictly limited to a paltry 3 r/g/m, and each FO has only four guns (or a single ‘troop’) on call. This gives each FO a delivery of a meagre 12 rounds per minute, rather than the fearsome 90-odd rounds per minute which 25pdr batterys were capable of.

This type of firepower is more likely to have been seen when conducting defensive operations - including defending against local counterattacks - where the British troops have been in positions for at least an hour or so, rather than during attack or more mobile scenarios.

In order to correct this in scenarios, Commonwealth players should be given at least two FO teams for each battery that is in support, with advice to move them around together and use them all on the same target at the same time, i.e. to treat them as a single entity. This way the fire delivered will be from the correct number of barrels, even if the rate is a bit low. If you want to up the rate that is delivered, then add more CM FO partys to the real-life party-equivalent. Bear in mind, though, that using this many FOs could have serious play balance issues!

Figure 3: Number of 25pdr FO partys reqd to get desired ROF on a single target

The number of rounds to give an FO is of course up to the designer, but in general there wasn’t a shortage of rounds and FOs were subtly encouraged to use rounds as they saw fit. Giving an FO access to 50 - 60 rounds per gun for a 30 minute scenario would be a reasonable allocation. The exact number to give each FO depends of course on the rate you want to simulate.