Hat 8256 WWI British artillery crew

At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the entire British army was made up of volunteers and numbered around 250,000. regular troops. Artillery served as a weapon supporting infantry attacks. The heaviest weapon of British artillery at the beginning of the Great War was the cannon 127mm Ordnance BL 60-pounder, which were formed into heavy artillery batteries with four battery guns. Moreover, the Royal Horse Artillery used primarily a 13-pounder cannon, while the basis of the field artillery was rapid-fire 84 mm 18-pounder guns. During World War I, British artillery underwent huge changes - both in terms of organization and tactics. In 1918 it was seen as the de facto basic type of armed force, and the number of field artillery brigades increased from 45 (at the beginning of the war) to 173. There was also a huge increase in heavy artillery, the number of which increased from 32 batteries to 117. British artillery It also began to adopt the use of indirect fire as a standard, which entailed the need to develop artillery and counter-battery observation methods. It is worth adding that in the course of the Great War, new types of weapons were also introduced to the equipment of British artillery (e.g. heavy railroad cannon Ordnance BL 12-inch) and the modernization of existing equipment, often significantly.