and 15 squadrons had for counter-battery work, for contact patrol, trench reconnaissance, destructive bombardment and other duties and nine aircraft in reserve. VII Corps (Lieutenant-General Thomas Snow) was given 8 Squadron with and 5 Kite Balloon Section. On the Somme the RFC had against the German 2nd Army aircraft establishment, which also had to face the French on the south bank of the Somme (The Anglo-French air effort considerably outnumbered the Germans until mid-July). Protection for corps aircraft was to be provided by standing patrols of pairs of aircraft and offensive sweeps by the two army squadrons. Bombing attacks were to be made on the railways behind the German front, with the main effort beginning on 1 July, to ensure that damage could not be repaired in the days after the beginning of the offensive. Troops, transport columns, dumps and headquarters behind the battlefront were to be attacked and the ammunition depots at Mons, Namur and Lille were to be specially attacked. The French Sixth Army (General Émile Fayolle), had Artillery The British had substantially increased the amount of artillery on the Western Front after the Battle of Loos in late 1915 but the length of front to be bombarded on the Somme led to the preparatory bombardment being planned to last for five days. There had been a debate about the merits of a short hurricane bombardment but there were insufficient guns quickly to destroy German field defences and be certain that barbed wire was cut, given the dependence of the artillery on air observation and the uncertain weather. The artillery had to cut barbed wire and neutralise German artillery with counter-battery fire. The British artillery fired more than shells during the preliminary bombardment, more than in the first year of the war. On 1 July, another were fired; the guns could be heard on Hampstead Heath, away. While this weight of bombardment was new for the British, it was common on the Western Front; at the Second Battle of Artois in May 1915, there had been a six-day preparatory bombardment with over shells. British shell production had increased since the shell scandal of 1915 but quality had been sacrificed for quantity. Shrapnel shells were virtually useless against entrenched positions and required accurate fuze settings to cut wire; very little high-explosive ammunition had been manufactured for field artillery. The French Sixth Army had guns and howitzers, with a much