Royal Canadian Artillery Organization
Anti-Tank Guns | Anti-Tank Projectiles

7th Medium Regiment, 12th Battery, "A" Troop, fire on Germans with 5.5 inch guns, Bretteville-Le-Rabet, Normandy, 16 August 1944.
Photo by Donald I. Grant. Department of National Defence / National Archives of Canada, PA-169331.
By 1942 British and Canadian artillery regiments came to be organized in three eight-gun batteries, each composed of two four-gun troops. Each regiment was affiliated with, for example, an infantry brigade, with the regimental commander attached to brigade headquarters. Battery commanders, in turn, worked from battalion headquarters. Troop commanders manned the forward observation posts, in close contact with the infantry in the field, while the guns themselves were commanded by subalterns. The dispersion of artillery officers was made possible, of course, by the development of reliable wireless communications, which allowed a commander to work in close liaison with his infantry counterparts at battalion or brigade headquarters and still remain in contact with "his" guns. Canadian infantry and armoured divisions in Northwest Europe typically included three regiments of 25-pounder field artillery (two for armoured divisions), one anti-tank regiment, and one light anti-aircraft regiment, all under the Commander, Royal Artillery (CRA).

The heavy artillery was organized into Army Groups, Royal Artillery (AGRA) under the Commander, Corps Royal Artillery (CCRA) at army or corps headquarters. Each AGRA comprised, typically, one heavy regiment of 7.2- or 8-inch howitzers or 155-mm guns, three medium regiments of 4.5- or 5.5-inch guns, and one or two regiments of 25-pdrs. AGRAs were employed for additional support, and especially counter-battery fire against enemy guns. Techniques for detecting enemy guns included air observation, flash-spotting, in which special observers were trained to detect the flash of guns firing from concealed positions, and sound ranging, where a series of microphones were laid out at various ranges to pick up the noise produced by enemy guns firing. Analysis of the recordings allowed bearings to be plotted that were, on average, accurate to within 50 metres. Then-Lieutenant-Colonel A.G.L. McNaughton had influenced the development of the sound-ranging procedure as counter-battery officer for the Canadian Corps during the First World War, achieving effective results at Vimy Ridge and in later battles.
Observation Post, "B" Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery, in Potenza, Italy, 24 September 1943. From left to right, Gunner Chuck Drickerson (rangefinder), Signalman Jim Tully (telephone), Regimental Sergeant-Major George Gilpin (plotting board), Captain G.E. Baxter (field glasses), and Signalman Hugh Graham (radio).
Photo by Alexander M. Stirton. Department of National Defence / National Archives of Canada, PA-177156.

The chief principle of the Royal Artillery, and thus the Royal Canadian Artillery, was centralisation of control. Rather than allotting small groups of guns-"penny packets"-to individual units for support, command was to be "centralised under the highest commander who can exercise control" (Field Service Regulations Volume II, 1935, quoted in Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham, Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945, 1982, p. 248). This principle, along with the practice of affiliation with the units being supported described above, allowed the RA to bring devastating concentrations of fire to bear within minutes when forward observation officers (FOOs) called for a "Mike", "Uncle", or "Victor" target-the concentration of all guns of the regiment, division, or all guns within range on a single target, respectively. One such impromptu request for support in Italy early in 1944 was answered by 600 guns within 35 minutes.

 

 
 
 
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