In some cases, it seems that shore artillery has the advantage over naval artillery while in other cases it appears as if the warships, especially the battleship, has the advantage.

Is there a clear judgment which has the advantage. I would imagine that hitting a battleship, which can more around, is much more difficult but the shore artillery can in some cases have incredibly heavy armor around them

I would say that for the same caliber, shore wins hands down, specially if supported by mines and mobile batteries.

Shore artillery could be camouflaged, the platform is steady and could use triangulation techniques to determine where the targets is if there's no radar.

Also if guarding a chokepoint, it can have pre-calculated firing parameters to ensure maximal effect - see coastal batteries in Oslofjord.

It's a truism that for a given weight of fire the shore batteries have a big advantage. The reasonable question is what ratio of superiority the shipboard guns need. In the sail/smoothbore era one rule of thumb was ships needed three times the weight of fire as 'forts', though another was simply not to engage strong forts with ships, a landward attack was always better. From mid 19th century technological changes in guns, ships and forts rendered questionable any rule of thumb. Some matchups like very large and/or rifled guns on armored ships v masonry forts gave hope that even inferior weight of shipboard fire power could prevail, what the USN attempted against Charleston forts in 1863 with ironclads, not a ridiculous idea, though it didn't work. In real cases of 20th century ships actually destroying shore batteries is a timely way, they usually had a weight of broadside advantage far higher than 3:1.

One quick example is the USN's failure to destroy the troublesome French battery at El Hank in the Torch landings in Morrocco in November 1942. Just counting the main batteries of ships mainly firing at El Hank, BB Massachusetts and CA's Wichita and Tuscaloosa, not even counting the other CA's CL's and DD's available to fire, they outweighed El Hank's 4*194mm guns (the 4*138 were hardly fired at by the American ships) by >30:1 per salvo. And their shooting, both at the battery and ships in the harbor at Casablanca, was not bad: they covered the ground around the El Hank lighthouse with craters (locating the 194's right near such an obvious landmark was recognized as flawed by some French artillerists) and sank a number of ships in the harbor besides hitting the main harbor target, stationary BB Jean Bart, 7 times w/ 16". It was just very difficult to land a direct hit on a gun or fire control post of a shore battery, and that's what it took, especially since the 16" were all AP, though the 8" were not all. El Hank suffered 1 KIA, 1 WIA in the bombardments Nov 8, some more personnel casualties but no significant material damage either in carrier plane bombing and strafing attacks that day and the following two. All 8 guns remained ready for action at the armistice. El Hank's own hit rate of three 194mm shells of 229 fired in the main engagement (2 on Massachusetts, 1 on Wichita, with light damage to both and light casualties on Wichita only) was not high either, but the mission of the ship is assumed to be to 'reduce' the fort. If the mission is just to run past a fort, then the equation changes completely.

Joe

How about using battleships as protection. Say you have a fortress with only relatively light guns and the enemy tries to move guns in to bombard the fort but you have battleships to support the fort?

If you have to have battleships to protect your fortress, why have the fortress at all? Save money by not building the fortress and depend on your battleships to secure control of the sea around your coast.

Hojutsuka

Not very common, but - taking the cue from Joe - one could point to Dakar and the RN/Free French attack of Sept 1940, where the Vichy shore batteries, BB Richelieu and supporting ships, a/c and subs forced a nominally superior force to break off the attack, also repulsing a landing.

Someone coming from Inland?

Because BB's aren't there allways?

Coastal artillery could take many forms, from field artillery emplaced as emergency batteries to 16in naval guns. Apart from the usual idea of fortress based direct fire abig guns many countries in the early 20th century invested in 'coast mortars', really breech loaded short barrel artillery, which fitted the term of mortar in the original sense. The USA even had a 16in coastal defence howitzer with that specific role in mind.

These were usually mounted in a position to rain shells down on the decks of attacking shipping going through choke points, and were emplaced in positions where a ship's guns simply could not reach with any usual firing solution.

The classic possible WW2 ship vs shore COULD have been Corregidor: but of course it was not to be. The Japanese, instead of risking their heavy naval assets used aircraft and a seige train to reduce the defences.

Battle of Oslofjord in 1940: Germans lost a cruiser and 700+ KIA, Norwegians - after enduring fire from two cruisers and day-long Luftwaffe bombing - suffered 0 (zero) KIA. Engaging shore batteries was always a losers game for ships, unless technological advantage was considerable (which indeed happened several times in 19th Century).

The arches of fire was well prepared since before 1900, but when push came to shove in 1940 it was point blank range in the early morning dusk, from both sides of the fjord, and the main fort was well below strength. Infact the "crews" of the guns were gathered and organized on the spot just a few minuttes before opening fire.

Coastal fortifications changed as much as ships did over the years.
Civil war era forts could only command an area a couple of thousand yds from the gun muzzles (if that) and needed large numbers of concentrated guns 1. because of the inaccuracy of the mostly smooth bore armament. 2. the small size of most of the guns (hand loaded solid shot) 3. The limited time of engagement if the enemy was trying to "run" the fort.
As forts shifted to breech loading rifles and ranges went up the 'forts' were often moved further out from the harbors/cities they were supposed to protect. With modern (WW II modern) fire control the guns could be several dozens of miles apart. For instance there were guns mounted in Rhode Island and a matching battery on Long Island that were supposed to defend/close off all of Long Island sound, Similar batteries on southern Long Island over laped fields of fire with batteries in New Jersey and further south batteries in southern New Jersey and Delaware closed off all of Delaware bay.
The forts went from Brick/masonary or dirt embankments with guns mounted 20-30 feet apart and in many cases in multipule storied structures to pairs of guns mounted several hundred feet apart with the paired guns mounted miles apart. In fact by the 1890s there really wasn't much for the ships to shoot at in a new fort. Disappearing carriges that lowered the guns below the parapet or the breechloading mortars mention above ment the ships could no longer 'see' the defenders.
The ships were trying to hit a single rather well protected gun mount basicly. And then hit another one and then another one. Near misses do no good, there is no hull or propusion system to damage and a single gun mount is a rather small target compared to an entire ship. Hitting a moving target from a stationary position is also easier than hitting a stationary target form a moving platform. Remember a ship may be pitching, yawing and rolling in addition to it's speed through the water.

The cost benifits of ships vrs forts have been debated as long as there have been ships and forts. While it is true that the fort is useful if the 'home" fleet isn't there it is also true that all the money spent on forts is wasted if the enemy doesn't come to them. Well maybe they scared the enemy into not coming so they did provide benifit for maney spent;) but a fort in Maine does you no good if the enemy attacks Georgia.

While the WW II forts were not cheap the long range of their guns ment in many cases that a few batteries could defend hundreds of miles of coast or multipule cities, unlike Civil War era forts were each sea coast city or town needed at least one fort/battery if not several.

I am sure that there are various forts around the world where it is good that they simply were not tested. An example about 10k from my home is Bare Island, built in the 1880s to fend off a Russian invasion of Sydney via 'the back door) of Botany Bay. It was built of substandard materials, and whilst 'heavily armed' with light QF and ML guns the heaviest muzzle loader could only get off one round ever five minutes or so, giving a flotilla plenty of time to close to a range where the ships guns would have been fired point blank into the embrasures.

The area around Middle Head in Sydney Harbour is honeycombed with tunnels, sea level installations, and a quite intact array of fortifications, the guns however are long since gone. The guns were intended, in association with mines, to close off the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Would have been effective, but never tested.

The idea of coastal defences alone being good defence was not accepted as long ago as Henry VIII, who maintained a coastal fortress chain, with a fleet and an army, all of which played their role in the defence of the realm.

The US Marines on Wake Island did a very good job at driving off the first Japanese invasion attempt with their 5" and 3" gun batteries, plus supporting aircraft. They suckered-in the Japanese bombardment ships to practically point blank range before opening counterbattery fire, sinking or damaging several warships. The IJN lost alot of "face" that day.

For what is worth, the Spanish Army only decommissioned the heaviest guns (381mm) a few years ago, when the survability of the batteries was compromised by the widespread presence of PGMs.

One time frame I am most interested in is the World War II Time frame.
I am thinking of a case where the allies might have a beachhead which is defended by battleships offshore.
The enemies are trying to assault the beachhead with mobile artillery. There is no real rail network left I am assuming so none of the really heavy artillery pieces which are railroad type can be used. If I understand, the largest practical mobile artillery is around 8 inch compared to 12, 14, 15, and 16 inch for battleship main guns.
Would that not likely give the advantage to the naval support?

Advatage to the Navy in this case.

But then you are comparing the equivelent of almost divisons of artillery against a few batteries.

Most countries (including the US) had very few 8in rifles as apposed to 8in howitzers. The 8in rifles were a bear to transport and usually took hours if not a couple of days to set up. Or take down.

2-3 heavy cruisers armed with 8in guns have more guns than the Entire German army had of mobile 21cm guns in WW II or more guns than the Americans/British had in the Italian Campaign.

Dedicated coastal artillery in protected positions and equipped with competitive fire control have an advantage against naval guns. Field artillery in open positions trying to trade fire with cruisers just get slaughtered as per Normandy.

There is a reason why coastal batteries are located in restricted waters, ships are unable to manouevre and you can pre-register.

The most useful fires come not from big BB calibers but CL and CAs, 6" & 8". They have a good ROF, decent range and enough bang to wreck anything they hit.

Simon

The stand British countr-bombardment guns for about 70 years were 9.2in, larger guns were used in certain applications, but the 9.2 was used across the Empire. It fired a 380lb shell at 2,700ft/sec, to various ranges depending on the mounting. The Railway 9.2in gun fired a shell of the same weight with roughly the same performance.

Enough to deter a BB and certainly enough to ruin a cruiser's day.

Where those 9.2 inch batteries were mounted, could they also fire inshore to defend themselves against attack from that direction?

See:

http://www.fsgfort.com/DB/C076/32/text.htm

Taking the forts at the Dardanelles seemed to be important, especially since they seemed to be supporting the minefields in the straits.


Shot

The arc of fire very much depended on the terrain, but the actual mounting was capable of 360d traverse even if details of the installation limited that arc. The 15" at Singapore were an example of this, the electrical cabling wasn't long enough to follow the gun though any more than about 270d, but I'd submit that whole 'mistake' business wasn't half as important as popular myth might suggest, the ammo allocation for CA tends heavily towards AP and isn't usually all that large (circa 100 rounds) for big stuff. Re-fighting the battle of the Somme wasn't part of their job description.

IIRC the 9.2"s at Sydney had about 270d arcs, the southern gun could certainly train from a bit West of North, around to at least South East, bit its been a while since I saw the maps for them. In addition the 2x9.2 battery, Syd had 6-8x 6" on ex-naval pedestal mounts spread between North and South Head, with a 'Twin 6' close in defence position on Middle Head built into the old RML casemates and a couple more 6" backed with 18pdr field batterys covering Pittwater and Botany Bay.

Melbourne on the other hand had about 4 (IIRC) 6" in proper CA mounts covering the heads, split between Queenscliff and Fort Nepean, a couple more 6" at South Channel/Quarantine Battery, with a mixed battery of 6", 4.7" and 4" in the proof battery at Williamstown. See there was no need for a Counter Bombardment battery as Melbourne was too far inland for naval guns to hit, so they just had to close the heads, South Channel and Williamstown were just backup, and the Mine Depot at Swan Island was probably as important for all this as any of the gun batteries, although Ft Nepean fired the first shot of WWI - and the same gun fired one of the first shots of WWII under similar circumstances (stopping a ship from leaving).


shane

The myth of the 15" [and others] facing the wrong way at Singapore is pretty much outed now. We know that they only had 50 rds of HE per gun and continued firing AP at suitable targets whenever called upon.

I suppose one advantage enjoyed by coastal batteries is that a "hit" on much of the battery has a limited effect - a shell exploding in the ground away from the gun / director / magazine is as good as a miss. Hitting a ship anywhere has far more chance of having a serious impact - engines, boilers, bridge, fuel tanks etc, as well as the firing units.

If the mission is to keep the enemy down, then RoF certainly is important (making 8" and above unsuitable), and "keeping down" usually is what you can count on aryillery doing. But AFAIK one of the Normandy experiences was that the very heavy shelling from 12-16" guns by the size of craters disrupted telephone cabling and thus left much of the German defence paralysed in the important opening moments.

In my army time in the 80s we planned for defending the SE coast of Zealand against a Soviet invasion. The Soviets could count on 6" armed cruisers for firesupport, but if given time to dig in as planned (24-48 hours notice) we expected to be reasonably fit for fight after the bombardment, incl. telephone cabling. We expected most of the radio communication to be thoroughly jammed during the attack.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

How hard were shore batteries to hit? The obvious answer is to look at what is probably the only long range (ie 20 mile plus) artillery duel in history, that between the 15in guns of thge Wanstone Battery at Dover and the 38cm guns on Cap Griz Nez. The duel took place over 2 years, until in 1944 assisted by spotting aircraft, the British guns got a direct hit on one of their German equivalents.

For a moving platform, such as a ship, to get a hit even at much shoter ranges in the limited time available for a bombardment would have proven to be VERY difficult.

If you are seriously concerned about an attack from the landward side, you need ground troops and ground artillery in addition to battleships and/or coast defense guns. Coast defense guns are sited to defend against enemy ships rather than enemy ground troops, and typically don't have the quantity of HE shells needed for ground engagements.

Hojutsuka

That would be a reasonable answer if the coast defense guns were powerful enough to do the job on their own. But DesertFox was floating the idea of a weak coast defense fortress that had to be backed up by battleships, so if your battleships weren't there, you'd be in the soup anyway...

Hojutsuka

For both sides of the coin one can look at the use of BB's and other NGFS at Normandy. The Allies picked a landing site that was away from most true coast artillery (the beach defenses were meant to engange troop boats and the troops on the beach, not to keep away the RN/USN). The Allies feared German shore batteries enough to expend a British airborne attack on one and a US Ranger attack on another. Once the US and Commonwealth forces were ashore the Allied naval guns added tremendous firepower to the troops until the beachhead expanded beyond naval gun range. NGFS was credited with a major assist in turning back the initial German counterattacks in the British sector. Some of the difficulties with emplaced "true" shore batteries can also be seen off Cherbourg. The Germans had 28cm (I believe) against the USN who engaged with 14" and 12" fire, with more tubes available. The Allies also had absolute air superiority over Cherbourg and could use spotters and air strikes. The batteries were pounded but not completely silenced until US infantry took them from the land side.

As stated earlier, the famous gun batteries in Calais were engaged over a couple years from their Dover equivalents and suffered many air attacks, but they were only silenced when the Canadians and British ground troops actually seized them.

Gary

In all the German efforts at CA in Normandy, does anyone know how many ships they sank with their coastal guns?

It took the allies also quite some effort to put "Big Willie" out of business, the fortress at Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer with two turrets (each with 2*340mm) from the scuttled Provence battleship. According to this site the American and Free French ships fired no less than 354 salvos over four days to silence the shore battery. In addition the fortress was bombed for ten days by aircraft.

Similar Cap Cépet battery after the fighting:

There was a great quote by someone I can't remember criticising Churchill and the Dardanelles operation during the war which was 'In the history of naval warfare a ship's gunnery has never sunk a fortress, but i'm afraid the opposite is rather common'

Not untrue as such, but planners were wary of the possibility that enemy ships would outrange the forts and so at least some larger calibre guns were seen as necessary and they also often had special long-range shells designed for them. There were several instances in the 19th Century when ships armed with modern guns defeated forts which had previous generation guns and were thus unable to return fire. In Crimean War, for example.

The Royal Navy had quite a strong tradition of overcoming local tinpot rulers around the Mediterranean by bombarding their forts and strangling their sea trade. I believe Jackie Fisher made his reputation by putting his gunboat under the guns of one such fort and silencing its batteries.

Fisher was CO of HMS Inflexible (masted turret ship of 1881) in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 (response to anti-foreign nationalist uprising in Egypt), which was the largest such action for the British between the Crimean War and WWI. The weight of ships' broadside was 22,500#, that of 44 rifled guns in the forts 9,400 though there were also 211 smoothbores, traditional age-of-sail types on often rotten wooden carriages. The British inflicted more damage and casualties than they suffered but did not destroy the forts, unmounting only 10 of the rifled pieces and a few smoothbores: 'Though the forts from the water appeared masses of ruins, when they were examined closely the damage was found to have been very much less than was supposed', per Wilson in "Battleships in Action". The fleet had broken off action due to shortage of ammo, but it was found the forts were abandoned.

So, altogether this action didn't differ starkly from a lot of 20th century ones. Like the US bombardments in Morocco in 1942, the key element of success was moral collapse on the 'fort' side (French opposition with limited devotion to fighting the Western Allies, disorganized Egyptian forces), other than which the ships were running out of ammo and the forts were mainly still intact.

Joe

And while catchy, it sort of ignores the RM/RND landing parties and the point that the key forts were suppressed to a workable level, the problem in 1915 was an inability to sweep mines at more than 5-6 knots

Coastal defenses are just like any other fortification, they are a graduation of effort, the agressor can always get past an unsupported work in time, if they are prepared to put in the effort and have the resources. All any fort on its own can do is buy time, and make the enemy pay the highest possible price in blood and strategic opportunity for a piece of real estate. Hopefully the price is too high and the bad guys go away, but its pretty hard to get any any great surprise with a fort, so the enemy usually either come prepared to have a go, or, as with the Maginot line, go elsewhere, - ultimately that last is about the best one can really hope for.

Coastal arty is one of the better examples of this. Unless there are other forces in play or short of a lucky break like hitting a mag, their principal enemy (warships) have the mobility to simply up sticks and leave if the gunners make things too hot. This is as true of the Martella Tower as it was of Gib or Hegioland, they could have all been taken with the right force mix in sufficient strength, but either the price was too high, the forces weren't available or the whole idea just wasn't worth the effort in light of some more reasonable alternative.

shane

The key problem at the Dardenelles was that naval officers do not deliberately put ships at risk of sinking, or any other equivalent to land force combat. It is just not in their blood. Nobody knew, with certainty of course, how weak the Turkish defenses were and how an additional effort would have carried the day. That said, anchoring the battleships and cruisers in the Bosporus or Sea of Marmara might not have brought a Turk collapse, so the lack of an adequate landing force simply repeats.

Did not see it elsewhere, but the Brit use of the 9.2-inch almost exclusively as their major caliber CD gun stems from the adequacy of their battle line historically, such that the 9.2 was considered adequate for fending off a cruiser raid, the typical threat taken into account. Except for a few naval bases, no UK/CW place was set up to fight battleships, such as with the US Army CD doctrine for defending major harbors.

I'm sure Cochrane would have managed this better.

But that was in the days when Men of War etc were more plentiful and men cheaper.

By WW1 the BB's & OBB's were more valuable and the loss of men less acceptable.

IFF the ANZAC & 29th Div were capable of landing at the same time as the Naval push into the Narrows ould this story be different (And we would be celebrating today as a Victory)

There was probably also a certain amount of inertia, in that guns and mountings are expensive, and if something is in place that would seem to work it will not be replaced. When the 9.2in calibre was adopted in the 1880s it was of similar calibre to the guns mounted on many battleships and coastal defence ships. The Kaiser of 1898, for example, was armed with four 9.4in guns plus a heavy secondary battery. Other ships of the time had much bigger guns of up to 16in to 18in, but they were only capable of firing one round every fiftteen minutes or so per gun.

Most 9.2in guns were placed in CD emplacements after the turn of the C, therefore did not correspond to BB main but rather secondary armament. The 3 x 9.2in Mk X installed at Albert Head within the Base Esquimalt [Victoria BC, Canada] system in 1942 effectively closed the Strait of Juan De Fuca to opposing ships long before the US 16in battery at Ft Hayden [begun 1943] would have come on line.

The old slow large caliber guns, many muzzle loading, went out long before the end of the C., Majestic class of 1895 set the standard for the 20th C. The earlier Admirals class 12in were perhaps the last large caliber guns installed in UK coast defenses [from 1885] before the 9.2in became the standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_9.2_inch_gun_Mk_IX_-_X

Perhaps the lackluster performance was more related to the fact that the naval units assigned were more the RN’s “B” team than the “A” team at Scapa Flow?

Meanwhile the USA was paying royalties to the senior officer who designed dissappearing carriages and who made the choice to keep installing these, resulting in financial benefit for himself.

The British considered dissappearing mountings to be obsolete in 1912.

Considering the actual amount of combat seen, I would say the 'B' team did more fighting (and dying) than the 'A' team did. They were definitely not as coddled as the Grand Fleet -- by that I mean they often sailed without escort and spent long periods in bombardment activities.

And the OBBs fought their war without up-to-date fire control systems.

Came across the following thread on another board and found it to be quite a good read (although not exactly fair to the BBs) :

16-in Guns vs Hard Targets : A Reality Check

Which really shows the cost effectiveness of the British monitors. They may not have achieved any more hits than a battleship, but they were cheaper.

I think the worlds most modern coastal artillery would be the torpedo batteri in Aglapen, Malangen, Norway. Finished in 2001, test fired and then mothballed, now awaiting to be emptied and sealed off.
Sketch-up here:

http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm99/Natter99/2006-07-26 Drobak - Oscarsborg Festning/?action=view&current=IMG_6558.jpg://http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/...nt=IMG_6558.jpg://http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/...nt=IMG_6558.jpg

http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm99/Natter99/2006-07-26 Drobak - Oscarsborg Festning/?action=view&current=IMG_6559.jpg://http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/...nt=IMG_6559.jpg
Construction price was 120 million NOK (~13M Euros), a cheap alternative compared to expanding the Navy or Air Force.

Somewhat OT, but the picture next to this one (nr.52) shows several torpedotails and a diorama in a corner. I made that dio ten years ago or so, still recall working all night with the painting to finish it just before the deadline. A closeup can be seen at nr.55, nice to see that it still exist.