The development of the Bulgarian
artillery in WW1
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According
with the official report of the head of the artillery of the General
Headquarters of the Field Army, gen. Stefan Slavchev, in October 1915 the
Bulgarian artillery had 244 batteries and at the end of the World War, on 15
September 1918, they were 365, with an increase of 50%. In addition, during
the war 98 batteries (40% of the batteries existing at the mobilization) were
rearmed with more powerful guns : – all
the batteries armed with obsolete Russian guns or mortars M. 1867 were
disbanded or rearmed with modern guns; – most
of the 87mm not QF field batteries were rearmed with 75mm QF field guns
(usually war trophies) or with 105mm QF field howitzers; – a
great number of mountain batteries, both QF and not QF (25 out of the 44
existing in September 1915), was rearmed with Austrian built Skoda guns, who
fired a more powerful shell at a greater range; – all
the 120mm not QF field howitzers and 150mm not QF heavy howitzers batteries
and part of the long guns not QF batteries were rearmed with QF materiel. In
particular, in spring 1918, 25 German heavy batteries serving in Macedonia
began to give their guns and howitzers to the Bulgarian batteries, but only
part of them could be rearmed before the beginning of the final offensive of
the Armée d’Orient in September 1918. In
addition on 9 July 1918, 16 platoons of trench artillery with 2 – 53mm
Romanian guns were raised and assigned to some Infantry Divisions. At
the end of the war the Direction of the artillery began to compile a detailed
list of all the artillery units employed in combat in 1915-18
(Развоя на
Българската
артилерия
през
войната 1915 - 1918 г. :
ДВИА, Фонд № 40,
Инвентарен
опис № 2,
Архивна
единица № 1264), but
unfortunately this work was not fully completed and part of the material was
not revised and in many cases the date of introduction of a change was
omitted. Using this document as starting point and consulting some other
sources (regimental histories, the official history of the war and so on), I
tried to reconstruct the development of the Bulgaria artillery during the
World War. Any
correction and addition is welcome! |
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Anti-aircraft
artillery |
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