Most of you are probably unaware, but I began my Army life in the Field Artillery. Yes, yes, I’ve heard all the jokes … or rather, I’ve probably not since the hearing loss which accompanies time spent around explosions isn’t just a fictional trope but rather all too real. That said, I miss those early days of my youth, when I walked among professional Redlegs and practiced delivering projectiles over incredible distances. If artillery is indeed the “King of Battle”, I was—and remain—proud to have been in the service of the king.
The artillery experience of World War I is what lent the branch and its signature weaponry, large caliber guns and long-range rockets, its fearsome reputation. Today, modern artillery units firing guided munitions can literally place projectiles into a bucket from sixty kilometers away. Yet think about what a long way the branch has come from what was once considered the most dangerous branch of any army … to its own gun crews, if not the enemy.
In artillery lore, Saint Barbara was chosen to be the patron saint of the artillery, as she was said to protect all those who risked death and injury from sudden calamity. And what could be more sudden for a medieval gun crew than having your weapon explode on you? Please bear in mind that the production of gunpowder was in its infancy in the West, the methods of transporting the volatile substance less than scientific, and measuring devices weren’t exactly precise. It was hoped then that the blessed Saint Barbara would protect the gun crew and keep any and all explosions within the desired parameters.
This danger—from one’s own weapon, to say nothing of the enemy—is what created the reputation that field artillerymen held for a very long time. It took a certain education and, indeed, professionalism to be an artilleryman, as one was often afforded only a single mistake. Like being a bomb-maker, you’re either a good one … or you’re no longer with us. Thus, good artillerymen in the early days were in high demand across a Europe plagued with endemic warfare.
And the big guns and mortars were needed, weren’t they? Europe was literally studded with solid castles built to withstand not only the ravages of time, but also the vast array of weaponry which humanity had devised to knock down walls, blast open gates, and topple the tallest towers. If a disadvantaged enemy could simply pull back within his castle walls in order to escape annihilation, one might never achieve true success on the battlefield. Artillery, of course, offered a more powerful alternative, and one which throughout history has convinced defenders to give up without a fight.
The ability to shatter even the thickest stone walls, or fire high over the ramparts to deliver effects within the courtyards beyond, changed the face of warfare. And not only in Europe, of course, but in Asia as well, which only makes sense since gunpowder was developed there in the first place. The Japanese invasions of Joseon Korea beginning in 1592 provide an excellent example of just how much of a role artillery played on land and at sea by this time in military history.
That affair featured the use of shipboard cannon of various sizes, utilized, at times, in ways that would be considered downright modern. Admiral Yi’s rotating line of cannon-armed battleships at Angolpo in 1592 is eerily similar to the tactics employed by Commodore Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898—some three hundred years later—with the identical result that the enemy fleet was completely destroyed.
On land, rocket-arrows launched from Hwacha—a weapons system that can really only be described as an early multiple launch rocket system—contributed significantly to Korean success at the Battle of Haengju in 1593. On that riverside promontory just west of Seoul, 30,000 Japanese failed to secure a position held by 2,300 Korean troops and guerilla fighters. Yet the devil’s in the details as the scarce, if stubborn, Korean force was greatly augmented by the presence of some forty hwacha, each of which dispensed a volley of a hundred rocket-assisted arrows in one massive fusillade.
Having visited Haengjusan, I can tell you, because of the steep slopes on all but the northwestern approach, the only viable place to attack would have compacted the Japanese force into a kill zone ready-made for such an artillery bombardment. The barrage must have been truly awful. In the end, despite successive attacks, the Japanese failed to clear the heights, withdrawing back to Seoul, carrying their many wounded with them. Some sources claim nearly a third of the Japanese force was killed or wounded that day, including several senior leaders.
That war also saw prodigious use of mortars as well, the most famous incident taking place at the prolonged and bloody winter siege of Ulsan in 1598. This first real experience for the Japanese with an exploding iron projectile lobbed over the unfinished castle walls was reportedly quite a shock and caused significant casualties. Not enough to win the battle, perhaps, but enough to make the defenders risk a dangerous sortie to push the Chinese and Korean forces back out of mortar range.
Most importantly, perhaps, both sides learned the value of cannon, artillery, and mortars to land and naval combat, lessons that would change both nations’ concept of warfare. Just sixteen years later Tokugawa Ieyasu would bring to bear upon Osaka Castle in Japan the largest assembly of artillery in that nation’s long military history. And his opponent, reportedly, had the second largest. And off the western coast of Korea, on Ganghwa Island, a series of cannon-armed fortifications would be installed over the coming years to protect the seaside entrance to the Han River. These fortresses would feature prominently in military conflict with France, the United States, and Japan in the late 19th Century.
I can’t say for sure why I felt the need to take this trip down artillery memory lane, though it may have something to do with the Saint Barbara’s Day Ball invitation I received this week. You see, still today, we pay our respects to the brave professional Redlegs who preceded us with a celebration held in the name of our patron saint.
Military traditions are often interesting and hinge on some pretty strange happenings, but the history behind them is always worth digging into. No less so for the Field Artillery, the undisputed King of Battle.
M. G. Haynes