Creeping Barrage in World War 1?

Answer 1

A creeping barrage was a tactic used by the artillery to support at attack. The artillery would begin by pounding the enemy position until the infantry attack was scheduled to go in across No Man's Land. Allowing so many minutes - calculated in the planning - for the infantry to get across to the enemy line, then the artillery fire would be shifted back a certain distance every minute or two minutes - for example maybe 100 yards every two minutes, on the assumption that the infantry would have gotten to their first objectives and would be able to follow along as the barrage was "creeping" deeper into enemy territory. It was an attempt at coordinating the artillery to give the maximum cover and support for attacking infantry. WWI was the first large war where artillery was no longer a "line of sight" weapon. The cannoneers were too far back, with their modern long range weapons, to see what they were shooting at. Reliable communications between "forward observers" with the attacking troops, who could call back adjustments to the firing artillery to adjust and correct their aim, were still one war away in the future. There were field telephones, but these were unreliable and the wires were often broken. In the absence of the ability to correct their aim with real time information, the creeping barrage was an ingenious attempt at coordination, that rarely worked out in practice as planned.