A Volksartilleriekorps was a brigade

Brigade

A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...

-sized massed artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 formation employed by the German Army

German Army

The German Army is the land component of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. Following the disbanding of the Wehrmacht after World War II, it was re-established in 1955 as the Bundesheer, part of the newly formed West German Bundeswehr along with the Navy and the Air Force...

 in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 from late 1944 until the end of the war. A Volksartilleriekorps (VAK) was typically composed of five or six battalion

Battalion

A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...

s of differing kinds of howitzers and guns, including antitank and anti-aircraft guns. Where deployed, VAKs were normally allocated on the basis of one to two per field army. As an organizational development of massed artillery, VAKs were relative latecomers in World War II and neither numerous enough nor strong enough to counter the massive artillery support of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 or the powerful and expertly controlled corps and army

Field army

A Field Army, or Area Army, usually referred to simply as an Army, is a term used by many national military forces for a military formation superior to a corps and beneath an army group....

 artillery units of the Western Allies

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

.

History

The first VAKs were organized in September and October 1944, and employed on both the Western

Western Front (World War II)

The Western Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and West Germany. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale ground combat operations...

 and Eastern Fronts

Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...

. Thirteen VAKs were eventually organized, being numbered 166, 388, 401 - 410, and 766. In addition to the VAKs, two regiments of Volksartillerie, the 1133rd and 1134th, were organized and employed in support of the Nineteenth Army in Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 and Baden

Baden

Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....

. VAKs were formed by re-designation of existing artillery units and so did not represent a true increase in the number of non-divisional artillery battalions supporting the German forces.

The first mass employment of VAKs was during the Battle of the Bulge

Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...

 in which several VAKs were used to initially impressive effect during German breakthrough operations. The VAKs, many of whose units used horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

-drawn transport, however proved unable to effectively keep pace with the motorized and armored units in the vanguard of the German offensive.

Organization

VAKs were organized as either partially motorized or fully motorized units. Partially motorized VAKs had motor transport for their artillery pieces with 2/3 of the remaining equipment being horse-drawn. The number of authorized trucks ranged from 124 to 406, depending on the type of VAK. The parlous state of German army motor transport in the final months of the war, however, meant that even fully motorized units often did not have enough prime movers to swiftly redeploy their artillery pieces as the flow of battle demanded. Besides the degree of motorization, VAKs were also distinguished as "Type I" (six battalions of artillery) or "Type II" (five battalions of artillery).

Type I VAKs were authorized:

• One battalion of eighteen 7.5-cm antitank guns used in a field gun role
• One battalion of eighteen 8.8-cm antitank guns used in a field gun role
• One battalion of eighteen 10.5-cm howitzers
• One battalion of twelve 122-mm howitzers
• One battalion of twelve 15-cm howitzers
• One battalion of six 21-cm guns and three 17-cm guns

Type II VAKs were authorized:

• One battalion of eighteen 7.5-cm antitank guns used in a field gun role
• One battalion of twelve 10-cm guns
• One battalion of eighteen 10.5-cm howitzers
• One battalion of twelve 122-mm howitzers
• One battalion of twelve 152-mm howitzers

Corps headquarters for Type I fully motorized VAKs included an observation battery.

Article Sources

• Keilig, Wolf, Das Deutsche Heer 1939-1945, Bad Nauheim: Podzun Verlag, 1960.
• Nafziger, George F., Panzers and Artillery in World War II, London: Greenhill Books, 1999. ISBN 1-85367-359-5.
• Sawicki, Tadeusz, Niemieckie wojska lądowe na froncie wschodnim czerwiec 1944 - maj 1945 (struktura), Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1987. ISBN 83-01-06556-7.
• Tessin, Georg, Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS 1939 - 1945, Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1979. ISBN 3-7648-1170-6.