Artillery

Artillery (from French artillerie) refers to any engine used for the discharge of projectiles during war. The term also describes ground-based troops with the primary function of manning such weapons.

• Солдатушки, бравы ребятушки, а кто ваши жёны?
  Наши жёны — пушки заряжёны, вот кто наши жёны.
  • Soldiers, you brave guys, who are your wives?
    Our wives are our loaded cannons, that's what our wives are.
  • Anonymous, «Солдатушки, браво-ребятушки...», stanza 3, from «Сборник избранных песен для солдатского хорового пения» (Екатеринослав, 1893), reported in Н. Розанов, «Русские песни» (1952), p. 33

• We looked at each other, and back across the river. There were explosions in the town itself now; the first Fascist shells were landing in the city and there was the smoke of fires. From directly over our heads, on the crest of the hill, there came swift, violent reply that deafened us and we dropped onto the ground. Our own artillery was answering. "Nice to know we got a couple pop-guns of our own," I said. "This is no place to be," said Luke. "They'll be throwing the stuff over here in a minute."
  • Alvah Bessie, Men in Battle: A Story of American in Spain (1939) p. 127

• From somewhere the enemy artillery awoke and the shells came over- you could count them as they came. And then you couldn't count them; they fell in no regular order, one-two-three, but with a conscious knowledge of where we were- to left, to right, ahead, behind, crashing like enormous garbage cans heaved by gigantic men. The broken earth fell on us, the cracked rock spattered against the unbroken stone of the hillsides. The growing night was loud in our ears, and the men, ordered up the right slope of the ravine, were huddled in a long line against the hillside, crouching, sitting, lying flat. My rifle was smashed to pieces in my hand.
  • Alvah Bessie, Men in Battle, pp. 252-253

• Ahead, muffled by distance, was the sound of artillery in the night- always more terrifying than it is by day, though less effective.
  • Alvah Bessie, Men in Battle, pp. 270-271

• In peace the cry is for mobility, in war for weight of shell.
  • Lt Col Alan F. Brooke (later Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke), The Evolution of Artillery in the Great War (1925)

• ...если угодно знать, «Войну и мир» читал… Вот, действительно, книга. До самого конца прочитал — и с удовольствием. А почему? Потому что писал не обормот какой-нибудь, а артиллерийский офицер. У вас десятка? Вы со мной…
  • ...If you really want to know, I've read War and Peace. Now there's a book for you. Read it right through — and enjoyed it. Why? Because it wasn't written by any old scribbler but by an artillery officer.
  • Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard (1925), as translated by Michael Glenny (1971)

• When, after a three-day silence, our only six-inch battery was delivered fifty shells, this was reported by telephone immediately to all the regiments, all companies, and all the men sighed with joy and relief.
  • Gen. Anton Denikin, about Russian 4th Rifle Division action in the battle of Przemyśl, May 1915. Source: Nikolai Golovin, Военные усилия России в Мировой войне (Paris: International Publishers Association, 1939) vol. 2, ch. 7

• Artillery is an arm equally formidable both in the offensive and defensive.
  • Antoine-Henri Jomini, Summary of the Art of War (1838), article XLVI, as translated by W. P. Craighill (1862)

• Suddenly the fresh booming of cannon was heard. A two-story red brick building half a block down the street began to twist and buckle. With a shivering roar, it toppled and collapsed. Bricks flew in every direction. A rebel shell had made a direct hit. A lieutenant sprinted down the middle of the street, one hand on his clanking sword to keep it from tripping him. As he ran, he muttered, "That crazy, dumb Hindman! Shelling his own town!"
  • Harold Keith, Rifles for Watie (1957), pp. 152-153

• An' as their firin' dies away the 'usky whisper runs
  From lips that 'aven't drunk all day: "The Guns! Thank Gawd, the Guns!"
  • Rudyard Kipling, "Ubique", The Five Nations (1903)

• For you all love the screw-guns — the screw-guns they all love you!
  So when we call round with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do — hoo! hoo!
  Just send in your Chief an' surrender — it's worse if you fights or you runs:
  You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don't get away from the guns!
  • Rudyard Kipling, "Screw-Guns", Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads (1919)

• The poorer the infantry, the more artillery it needs; the American infantry needs all it can get.
  • French General Koechlin-Schwartz, speaking to U.S. General George S. Patton on two occasions. Reported in The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, ed. Martin Blumenson; George Smith Patton (Houghton Mifflin, 1972), pp. 520-521

• ...в 1912 или в начале 1913 г. решался вопрос о числе зарядов на полевое орудие. Забудский «доказывал», что надо иметь 3000 патронов на ружьё и по 500 зарядов на полевое орудие. На заседании присутствовал генерал Радко-Дмитриев, только что перешедший на русскую службу из болгарской, где он победоносно командовал армией. На основании собственного опыта он сказал, что бой надо, главным образом, вести и кончать артиллерией и надо иметь 3000 зарядов на орудие, тогда достаточно иметь и 500 патронов на ружьё.
  • In 1912 or early 1913, the question of the number of rounds per field gun was being discussed. Zabudsky argued that 3,000 rounds per rifle and 500 rounds per field gun were needed. General Radko-Dmitriev was present at the meeting; he had just transferred to Russian service from Bulgaria, where he had victoriously commanded an army. Based on his own experience, he argued that a battle should be primarily fought and finished with artillery, and that 3,000 rounds per gun were needed; then 500 rounds per rifle would be enough.
  • Aleksey Krylov, My Memoires (Мои воспоминания (Moscow: publ. АН СССР, 1963)

• Our artillery... The Germans feared it almost more than anything we had.
  • Ernie Pyle, Brave Men (1944)

• And telling me...it was great pity, so it was,
  This villainous saltpetre should be digg’d
  Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
  Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d
  So cowardly.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act I, Scene 3

• The nimble gunner
  With linstock now the devilish cannon touches.
  • Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Prologue

• The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
  And ready mounted are they to spit forth
  Their iron indignation ’gainst your walls.
  • Shakespeare, King John, Act II, Scene 1

• What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?
  He speaks plain cannon, fire, and smoke, and bounce.
  • Shakespeare, King John, Act II, Scene 1

• I have seen the cannon,
  When it hath blown his ranks into the air
  And, like the devil, from his very arm
  Puff’d his own brother.
  • Shakespeare, Othello, Act III, Scene 4

• Артиллерия — бог современной войны.
  • The artillery is a god of modern war.
  • Joseph Stalin, Speech and remarks at a reception in honour of graduates of military academies, 5 May 1941. Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Contemporary Historical Documents (РЦХИДНИ), Фонд 558, опись 1, дело 3808, листы 1-12 [1]

• Artillery Quotes