“...I have read that during WWII, more casualties were inflicted by artillery than anything else.” [yarddog, post 41]
Consensus on these numbers isn’t stable.
For decades, most authorities concluded that machine guns killed more soldiers on the Western Front during World War One than any other weapon. Since the 1970s, those estimates have shifted toward artillery being the number one killer in that conflict.
Uncertainties may never go lower, because tens of thousands were killed in action who are still officially missing: bodies dismembered beyond recognition by shelling, buried under rubble from shelling, unrecoverable due to loss of ground, buried in the field in emergency circumstances, ID tags torn off by weapons fire, remains impossible to identify due to decomposition, etc. Cause of death was often impossible to determine.
You’re referencing WW1, he’s referencing WW2. Pretty sure that latter one’s not in doubt considering what happened to the Wehrmacht after the Soviets could rearm and they were *properly* introduced to Ivan’s God of Battle. The Germans, characteristically, were rabid about accurate stat keeping and the numbers of German troops that got sliced, diced and pureed by Ivan’s artillery were pretty well documented. Do NOT f**k with Ivan when his artillery is properly set up and ranges on you.
9 minute multiple loop of Ivan sending his greetings via the classic Katyusha batteries in WW2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bWt81vhIyY