Do cannonballs explode?
UCBEH::CAMPBEJR
From camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR)
In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
Thanks -Jim
Charles K. Scott
From Charles...@dartmouth.edu (Charles K. Scott)
In article <CzqDB...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>
camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR) writes:
> In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
> anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
> things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
> cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
That depend on whether it's an exploding cannon ball or not. If you
are talking about the old muzzle loaded cannon, they had solid shot,
exploding shot, chain and grape shot. Sometimes the cannon balls were
heated up real hot to try to set the other ship on fire (so I've read
anyway).
But the puff of smoke you see in Hollywood films is pure directors
imagination and special effects. Real solid shot cound not, of course,
explode. But it could make a mess of anything in it's way.
Corky Scott
David A. Terhune
From dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)
UCBEH::CAMPBEJR (camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu) wrote:
: In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
: anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
: things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
: cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
: Thanks -Jim
Depends on which type of cannonball you are referring to. There
are actually two different kinds of "balls" for cannon.
1) solid shot
2) shell
The solid shot is just what it sounds like - a large ball of
iron. The shell on the other hand is hollow and filled with black
powder. It has a fuse which is lit by the wash from the propellent.
Oftentimes, they would not light or would go off premature. They were
not used that often in real life due to their unreliability (I could be
wrong, please correct me if I am). The only real use for such a shell
would be in ship to ship battles where you want to set your enemy on
fire. Grapeshot was far more effective in the antipersonnel role, and
chainshot was better for destroying sails and rigging. If you wanted to
sink the bad guy, you simply fired round shot at him.
To answer your original question, the explosions are probably
just Hollywood cinematic license.
--
David A. Terhune Unfortunately, we ARE on a budget here.
dter...@sprint.uccs.edu -Londo Mollari, "Believers"
HorvathA
From HorvathA <horv...@delphi.com>
UCBEH::CAMPBEJR <camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu> writes:
>In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
>anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
>things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
>cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
During the 1800's, the three primary types of artillery ammo were,
shot, shell, and cannister. Shell was a hollow ball, filled with
powder, and did explode. Cannister was a "can" of shrapnel, that was
also filled with powder. Shot was bags of scrap steel, that flew apart
after leaving the tube.
Aimed at fortifications, artillery used solid ammo. At massed
formations at a distance, shell. As the formations moved closer,a
shell/cannister combination was used. As the formations moved even
closer, a cannister/shot combination was used.
In the "Star Spangled Banner," written during the 1812 war,
the, "Bombs bursting in air," was a shell/cannister combination.
Horvath
shove the whales
William H. Roberts
From wrob...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (William H. Roberts)
In article <CzqDB...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR) writes:
>From: camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR)
>Subject: Do cannonballs explode?
>Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 17:16:22 GMT
>From camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR)
>In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
>anything). Why would this be?
Because the scriptwriter needed it to do so.
> Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
>things look cool by having the ball explode?
Yep.
> What does happen if a real cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
A real cannonball (or round shot) is just a round lump of metal. When it runs
into something at high velocity, the something gets damaged -- but (unless the
target itself is explosive) there won't be any explosion. Spherical case or
shell (also basically round and fired from smoothbore cannon) normally
employed time fuses but might perhaps explode if they hit something solid
enough before the fuse functioned. They wouldn't be nearly as spectacular as
modern ordnance because the black powder filling isn't as powerful as modern
fillers.
Bill
Steve Williams
From swil...@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams)
If you're talking about the cannonballs used in 1700s and 1800s, there
are basically three kinds of cannonballs: the hollow type filled with
explosive which explodes upon impact; the solid shot which is used to
create holes in ship hull or fortress wall; and the canister (grapeshot)
which is used against oncoming enmasse of enemy soldiers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Williams swil...@oasys.dt.navy.mil
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Card
From p...@jet.uk (Peter Card)
>From camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR)
>Thanks -Jim
In most cases, the explosion is just a Hollywood effect. Solid shot
does not explode. Of course, when the Crimson Pirate lets a broadside
go, you are going to see an explosion of debris from the impact.
However, exploding shells were also used, just to confuse matters. The
word "Shrapnel" comes from Col Shrapnel, the inventor of an exploding
shell.
Solid shot _was_ the most commonly used ammunition for long ranges, up
to the ACW. At shorter ranges, ~500 yards and below, cannister was
used, giving the artillery piece the effect of a giant shotgun. This
was especially useful for repelling massed infantry. ( Pickett's
charge etc )
In the Eighteenth Century, (or earlier for all I know), mortars were
used in siege warfare, to lob high trajectory low velocity exploding
mortar bombs over fortifications, as seen in Last of the Mohicans.
These were small artillery pieces, not very similar to the modern
light mortar.
--
__._____.___._____.__._______________________________________________________
__|_. ._| ._|_._._|__| Peter Card, Joint European Torus, Abingdon OX14 3EA
| | | |_. | | | p...@jet.uk or CIS 100010,366
| | | _| | | | "This space reserved for spontaneous witticism"
._| | | |_. | | | "This space intentionally left blank"
--`--~'-+---+-+-+----+-------------------------------------------------------
- Disclaimer: Please note that the above is a personal view and should not
be construed as an official comment from the JET project.
William H. Roberts
From wrob...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (William H. Roberts)
In article <CzzMv...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) writes:
>From: dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)
>Subject: Re: Do cannonballs explode?
>Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 17:21:22 GMT
> Depends on which type of cannonball you are referring to. There
>are actually two different kinds of "balls" for cannon.
> 1) solid shot
> 2) shell
If we're keeping to ball-shaped things, add spherical case (like a shrapnel
shell)
>They were
>not used that often in real life due to their unreliability (I could be
>wrong, please correct me if I am).
Used extensively in land warfare -- usually against stationary or slow-moving
targets because the fuse times were not very accurate.
>The only real use for such a shell would be in ship to ship battles where
you want to set your enemy on
>fire.
Which is just about any battle against a wooden ship.
> If you wanted to sink the bad guy, you simply fired round shot at him.
And probably didn't sink him. Frigate- and line-of-battle-ship sized vessels
could take tremendous damage and still stay afloat -- that's why shell (and
before that, hot shot) was such a big deal.
Bill
Ed Rudnicki
From Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil>
In article <CzqDB...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
UCBEH::CAMPBEJR <camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu> wrote:
>In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
>anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
>things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
>cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
Depends on what you mean by "cannonball". Solid shot of course does
not explode. Round shells with percussion (point detonating) fuzes
were used in the ACW, and likely earlier, but pyrotechnic time fuzes
were more common. Exploding shell was used earlier in mortars, but
not in direct fire weapons.
In most cases it's Hollywood "enhancing" things. For the Napoleonic
Wars and earlier ammunition was either solid shot or grape or
perhaps canister, solid single or multiple projectiles which were
effective against the close formations of the day.
My favorite gripe is with "The Mission". A very small unit of
Portuguese manpacks their gun up a very steep cliff, fires it from a
very unstable canoe, and has exploding projectiles to boot (period
is early 1700s I think). Ruined it a bit for me.
Ed Rudnicki erud...@pica.army.mil All disclaimers apply
Ed Rudnicki
From Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil>
In article <CzzMv...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> HorvathA <horv...@delphi.com> writes:
>UCBEH::CAMPBEJR <camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu> writes:
>
>>In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target(or
>>anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
>>things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
>>cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
>
>During the 1800's, the three primary types of artillery ammo were,
>shot, shell, and cannister. Shell was a hollow ball, filled with
>powder, and did explode. Cannister was a "can" of shrapnel, that was
>also filled with powder. Shot was bags of scrap steel, that flew apart
>after leaving the tube.
Shot was a single solid projectile. Shell was filled with BP, and
exploded with usually a pyrotechnic time fuze or less often a
percussion fuze. Canister was like a shotgun cartridge, filled with
small balls or other fragments; it contained no powder, and was used
for close-in antipersonnel work. Case shot, or shrapnel, contained
lead balls in a sulfur matrix, with a central burster, and was
initiated with a pyro time fuze. Grape shot consisted of 9 balls,
held together with a metal rod and plates and rings in three layers
of three, which separated on firing.
> Aimed at fortifications, artillery used solid ammo. At massed
>formations at a distance, shell. As the formations moved closer,a
>shell/cannister combination was used. As the formations moved even
>closer, a cannister/shot combination was used.
Solid shot and grape were most effective against massed formations.
Case shot or shrapnel was better if the fuze worked. Canister was
used at close range only. Shell doesn't seem to have been effective
against infantry because of the limited fragmentation potential of
the body and BP filler.
> In the "Star Spangled Banner," written during the 1812 war,
>the, "Bombs bursting in air," was a shell/cannister combination.
The "bombs" were in effect time-fuzed high angle projectiles, the
equivalent of mortar rounds. The fact that they were "bursting in
air" meant that they were being fired from beyond their effective
range. They should have been bursting in the fort :)
Woodrow C. Henderson
From g9u...@fnma.COM (Woodrow C. Henderson)
> From dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)
> Depends on which type of cannonball you are referring to. There
> are actually two different kinds of "balls" for cannon.
> 1) solid shot
> 2) shell
> The solid shot is just what it sounds like - a large ball of
> iron. The shell on the other hand is hollow and filled with black
> powder. It has a fuse which is lit by the wash from the propellent.
> Oftentimes, they would not light or would go off premature. They were
The topic is "CANNONballs" but I'll take the liberty to include siege
mortars, too. These guns usually fired large shells filled with black
powder. They were inserted with a protruding fuse facing toward the muzzle.
The shell was lit separately just prior to lighting the propellent charge.
In the case of a mis-fire, the procedure was to:
1 - reach in and pluck out the fuse or
2 - pour a bucket of water in the muzzle or
3 - run (and hope the barrel was thick enough:).
The best theatrical presentation of these guns being fired is in the
most current production of "The Last of the Mohegans". If you watch
closely, you will see the French lighting the ball fuse prior to discharging
the gun.
CANNON shells were fused with a proximity fuse most commonly made of a
wooden plug encasing a helixical fuse. The gunner would trim or dial the
length of fuse to coorespond to the distance/time that he wanted the
burst to occur. As David A. Terhune mentioned, ...the wash from the propellent
lit the fuse.
To my knowledge there was no standard use of any kind of impact detonating
shell used in either cannons or mortars.
> To answer your original question, the explosions are probably
> just Hollywood cinematic license.
Of course, Francis Scott Key did notice some "...bombs bursting in air"
prior to Hollywood's cinematic debut.
PS: all the above is a discussion of 1860's and before vintage ordnance.
Ryan Montieth Gill
From la...@unix.cc.emory.edu (Ryan Montieth Gill)
Two people mentioned Hot Shot, so I thought I'd clarify that subject. Hot
shot was used primarily for anti ship work before Iron Clads became
common. Two specific Examples I remember are with Naval Fortifications
during the Napoleonic Wars and During the Am. Civil War. The reason you
didn't have ships fireing them is that the Cannon Balls were heated to
red hot temperature in a furnace or air blasted forge. Not a good thing
to have on a pitching ship. (The CSS Virgina did have provisions for hot
shot and used it against the Congress? in Norfolk Harbor.) The basic set
up was a forge somewhere near the gun deck/walls, large buckets of water
for soaking the waddings for the cannons, and cannon balls to put in the
forge. The waddings were soaked in water to prevent the red hot/flame
producing cannonballs from detonating the powder charge in the barrel of
the cannon before firing. This would ruin the day of the crew ramming the
round into the barrel.
One of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels speaks fo a Frog fortress
that would fire up its forges for heating hot shot if any possibly
unfriendly ships came into view.
--
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Timothy Allen
From tja...@mbunix.mitre.org (Timothy Allen)
In article <D03C1...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, Ed Rudnicki
<erud...@pica.army.mil> wrote:
> In article <CzzMv...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> HorvathA
<horv...@delphi.com> writes:
[snip]
> > In the "Star Spangled Banner," written during the 1812 war,
> >the, "Bombs bursting in air," was a shell/cannister combination.
>
> The "bombs" were in effect time-fuzed high angle projectiles, the
> equivalent of mortar rounds. The fact that they were "bursting in
> air" meant that they were being fired from beyond their effective
> range. They should have been bursting in the fort :)
============================
I'm not sure what "beyond their effective range" means.
Suppose you target a medium-sized fort. If you don't have good location
data for the fort, you can use the bracket method. After establishing a
bracket, you can get almost all rounds to impact (ie, ground burst) within
the fort. There will always be a few rounds that impact outside of the
fort because artillery is an area, not a point, weapon system.
But you really want a 10 meter height of burst (HOB) instead of a ground
burst: so you use shell and time fuze instead of shot. The shell will
follow the same set of trajectories as the shot [because our quartermaster
has ensured that the ballistic coefficients of the shell and time fuze are
identical to the shot]. However, if the fuze is too long, the shell will
impact on the ground before the fuze activates; if too short, the fuze
will activate while the shell is still following its trajectory high in
the air. If you have good fuze setting data, you will observe many shells
explode at the desired 10 m HOB, but some will still explode on the ground
(ie, a graze), others lower than 10 m HOB, and others higher than 10 m
HOB. Hey, our quartermaster is good, but there are still slight
manufacturing variations in the time fuzes that result in an observable
dispersion in time of flight and HOB.
My understanding is that Key saw the "bombs bursting in air" because the
other "bombs bursting on ground" fell behind the walls of the fort where
they could not be observed. I also suspect that the defenders of the fort
felt that they were well *within* effective range.
Dick Wisan
From wis...@hartwick.edu (Dick Wisan)
In article <CzqDB...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR) writes:
>
> From camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (UCBEH::CAMPBEJR)
>
> In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its target
> (or anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to
> make things look cool by having the ball explode?
I thought about that while I was watching the attack scene in "Gettys-
burg". Yes, there was exploding ammunition, but mainly, ordinary guns
(as opposed to "pot gun" mortars) used either solid shot at long range
or canister (lightweight can of bullets --like big buckshot) when the
range shortened.
The explosions they generally show in movies are pretty much a conven-
tion. They'd look about right for WWI or later but not for the middle
of the 19th Century. But it's easy to see why they do it. It's hard
enough to place those explosions on a movie set plausibly and safely;
just think what the choreography would have to be like to show the ef-
fect of cannon balls on an attacking line, especially if the shot is
coming in at a shallow angle, as some of it was at Gettysburg.
--
R. N. (Dick) Wisan - Email: internet WIS...@hartwick.edu
- Snail: 37 Clinton Street, Oneonta NY 13820, U.S.A.
- Just your opinion, please, ma'am: No fax.
Aleksandr Milman [Development Engineer]
From a...@XAIT.Xerox.COM (Aleksandr Milman [Development Engineer])
wis...@hartwick.edu (Dick Wisan) wrote:
[snipped]
>The explosions they generally show in movies are pretty much a conven-
>tion. They'd look about right for WWI or later but not for the middle
>of the 19th Century.
Not exactly true. Field howitzers were introduced in XVII century and
widely used in 7 years war. They shoot bombs (genades). Advantage was
that on the maximum distance where cannonball was already not effective
explosion could cause a lot of damage. At the beginning of XIX century
they were widely used in the most of european armies (e.g. in 1812 at
Borodino one of the Russian generals was mortally wounded by the piece
of the French grenade).
Wayne E. Worman
From "carib.camden.ge.com"!WWO...@uunet.uu.net (Wayne E. Worman)
In article <CzqDB...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, camp...@ucbeh.san.uc.edu
(UCBEH::CAMPBEJR) writes:
>
> In film, if a cannonball is shot it will explode when it it hits its
target(or
> anything). Why would this be? Is it just a Hollywood/film attempt to make
> things look cool by having the ball explode? What does happen if a real
> cannonball is fired from a real cannon?
>
Typical Hollywood "The audience will never know, so who cares. Just make it
look spectacular!"
If you're talking about Civil War cannon, they had a variety of rounds:
ball, grape, cannister, and shell. Shells explode, the others just bore on
through whatever they hit.
A shell was a hollow iron sphere with a gunpower inside and a gunpowder fuze
stuck in it. The firing of the cannon lit the fuze, which would have been
towards the muzzle as the shell was loaded. Enough of the hot gas and flame
snuck by the shell to light the fuze, which then burned down to light off the
shell itself. This didn't necessarily happen when the shell struck the
ground (or whatever) the first time. It could roll along before exploding;
it could explode in the air. Mortars and siege guns usually fired shells
(ever hear of an army "shelling" a fort?); these were also called "bombs,"
particularly when the Navy fired them. ("...the bombs bursting in air...!")
The the "cannon ball" or "round shot" or "solid shot" or just "shot" was, in
effect, just a big bullet. No, it didn't explode, although it could fragment
if it hit something harder than itself, and it would throw up a pile of dirt
and make a pretty good hole in the gound--maybe that's what looks like an
explosion. But I dare say it wouldn't SOUND the same as an exploding shell.
Gunners used solid shot just like a big musket, too: only it might bring
down a dozen men if fired through packed ranks of soldiers, and it could sure
make a mess of an enemy cannon or wagon, or the wall the enemy's hiding
behind!
Grape and cannister were like shotguns; they were made primarily to cut down
troops at short ranges. Shells would go farther, but they were less accurate
than solid shot, and fuze timing was tricky. Solid shot would travel farther
and was more accurate, and so it was the choice round for counter-battery
fire.
By the way, a pet pieve of mine along these lines is Hollywood's inability or
lack of interest in RECOIL. Those cannon were firing heavy rounds at was
(then, at least) a high velocity, and they didn't have the recoil absorbing
mechanisms we have now. Physics tells you the guns would have a considerable
recoil. Thats why the gunners didn't stand behind the guns when they fired!
Wayne E. Worman
WWO...@VF.GE.COM
(609) 338-4709
scott david orr
From scott david orr <sdo...@mik.uky.edu>
In article <D056z...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> la...@unix.cc.emory.edu (Ryan Montieth Gill) writes:
>
>
>One of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels speaks fo a Frog fortress
>that would fire up its forges for heating hot shot if any possibly
>unfriendly ships came into view.
>
>--
That would be _Ship-of-the-Line_, the second book in the orginal Hornblower
trilogy. Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress :) (or
at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast).
Scott Orr
William H. Roberts
From wrob...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (William H. Roberts)
In article <D056z...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> g9u...@fnma.COM (Woodrow C. Henderson) writes:
>From: g9u...@fnma.COM (Woodrow C. Henderson)
>Subject: Re: Do cannonballs explode?
>Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 17:23:46 GMT
>From g9u...@fnma.COM (Woodrow C. Henderson)
>CANNON shells were fused with a proximity fuse most commonly made of a
>wooden plug encasing a helixical fuse. The gunner would trim or dial the
>length of fuse to coorespond to the distance/time that he wanted the
>burst to occur. As David A. Terhune mentioned, ...the wash from the propellent
>lit the fuse.
PMFJI, but I must disagree -- what you describe is a time fuse, not a
proximity fuze. Proximity fuzes were developed during World War II.
Bill
par...@worf.infonet.net
From par...@worf.infonet.net ()
In article <D01IC...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil> wrote:
>Depends on what you mean by "cannonball". Solid shot of course does
>not explode. Round shells with percussion (point detonating) fuzes
>were used in the ACW, and likely earlier, but pyrotechnic time fuzes
>were more common. Exploding shell was used earlier in mortars, but
>not in direct fire weapons.
Apparently, a lucky soul could be rather close to an exploding ACW cannonball,
and suffer nothing worse than a headache. However, gun-cotton was by 1863
used in European breach-loading cannon as a propellant, (and presumably as a
bursting charge). If a gun-cotton bursting charge would shatter the case into
thousands of high-velocity splinters, and completely clear exposed infantry
for several yards, wouldn't its introduction have conferred a decisive
advantage, and _why_ then was it not used?
Gary J. Mac Donald
From ar...@freenet.carleton.ca (Gary J. Mac Donald)
In a previous article, sdo...@mik.uky.edu (scott david orr) says:
>From scott david orr <sdo...@mik.uky.edu>
>
>In article <D056z...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> la...@unix.cc.emory.edu (Ryan Montieth Gill) writes:
>>
>>One of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels speaks fo a Frog fortress
>>that would fire up its forges for heating hot shot if any possibly
>>unfriendly ships came into view.
>>--
>That would be _Ship-of-the-Line_, the second book in the orginal Hornblower
>trilogy. Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress :) (or
>at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast).
French fortress at, if memory serves, Llanzas, onSpain's Med. shore.
A better example from the HH books would be in Lieutenant H, where HMS
Renown storms a spanish battery at Samana (in Hispaniola) and then use the
furnaces the fire hot shot at spanish ships.
In fact, any self-respecting shore battery of the day had a furnace for
heating shot. that was one of the reasons why Nelson said that a 6 gun
shore battery could match a 100 gun ship-of-the-line (in certain
circumstances).
GaryJ
Bill Shatzer
From aw...@freenet.carleton.ca (Bill Shatzer)
In a previous article, "carib.camden.ge.com"!WWO...@uunet.uu.net (Wayne E. Worman) says:
-big snip-
>
>By the way, a pet pieve of mine along these lines is Hollywood's inability or
>lack of interest in RECOIL. Those cannon were firing heavy rounds at was
>(then, at least) a high velocity, and they didn't have the recoil absorbing
>mechanisms we have now. Physics tells you the guns would have a considerable
>recoil. Thats why the gunners didn't stand behind the guns when they fired!
>
>
My favorite is "The Pride and the Passion" based on C.S.Forrester's book
"The Gun" starring Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra (as a *blue-eyed* Spanish
guerrilla!) They've got this *monster* cannon - maybe 30 feet long with a
bore of about 15 inches. After much trial and tribulation, they finally
move it over hill and dale, past marauding French cavalry patrols, and
get it into position to lead the attack on the French fortress. When they
finally fire this sucker, it gently rocks back on its carriage! Ha!
--
Bill Shatzer - bsha...@ednet1.osl.or.gov - aw...@FreeNet.Carleton.ca
Emmanuel.Gustin
From gus...@evs2.uia.ac.be (Emmanuel.Gustin)
: >One of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels speaks fo a Frog fortress
: >that would fire up its forges for heating hot shot if any possibly
: >unfriendly ships came into view.
: >
: That would be _Ship-of-the-Line_, the second book in the orginal Hornblower
: trilogy. Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress :) (or
: at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast).
Spanish fortress on Haiti, if I remember correctly. At least that is the
book with the clearest description of the use of hot shot, as Hornblower
learns how to make good use of the guns of a captured fortress... I don't
know how accurate it is (Forester is, I tought, considered reasonable
accurate in such matters), but it makes interesting reading.
Emmanuel Gustin
Ed Rudnicki
From Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil>
In article <D056z...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> tja...@mbunix.mitre.org (Timothy Allen) writes:
>In article <D03C1...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, Ed Rudnicki
><erud...@pica.army.mil> wrote:
>> In article <CzzMv...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> HorvathA
><horv...@delphi.com> writes:
>[snip]
>> > In the "Star Spangled Banner," written during the 1812 war,
>> >the, "Bombs bursting in air," was a shell/cannister combination.
>>
>> The "bombs" were in effect time-fuzed high angle projectiles, the
>> equivalent of mortar rounds. The fact that they were "bursting in
>> air" meant that they were being fired from beyond their effective
>> range. They should have been bursting in the fort :)
>
>============================
>
>I'm not sure what "beyond their effective range" means.
I meant that the fuzes would not have been available with infinite
time. There would have been a maximum time available. "Beyond their
effective range" means that the time of flight exceeds the fuze burn
time.
>But you really want a 10 meter height of burst (HOB) instead of a ground
>burst: so you use shell and time fuze instead of shot. The shell will
>follow the same set of trajectories as the shot [because our quartermaster
>has ensured that the ballistic coefficients of the shell and time fuze are
>identical to the shot]. However, if the fuze is too long, the shell will
>impact on the ground before the fuze activates; if too short, the fuze
>will activate while the shell is still following its trajectory high in
>the air. If you have good fuze setting data, you will observe many shells
>explode at the desired 10 m HOB, but some will still explode on the ground
>(ie, a graze), others lower than 10 m HOB, and others higher than 10 m
>HOB. Hey, our quartermaster is good, but there are still slight
>manufacturing variations in the time fuzes that result in an observable
>dispersion in time of flight and HOB.
I would dispute the "many" bursting at the desired HOB in the
scenario above (assuming we're still talking about War of 1812
weapons of course), due to the variations in muzzle velocity and
fuze burn time for weapons of the day. Not to mention that they're
on ships. More would airburst or impact than burst at the
desired height. Not many more, but more.
>My understanding is that Key saw the "bombs bursting in air" because the
>other "bombs bursting on ground" fell behind the walls of the fort where
>they could not be observed. I also suspect that the defenders of the fort
>felt that they were well *within* effective range.
In a bombardment at night one would see the bursts within the fort as
silhouetting the walls of the fort. There was supposed to be one
exceptional piece in the fort which kept the British at bay, but
unfortunately my source of information for this is on leave until 30
Dec. Anyone else?
Ed Rudnicki
From Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil>
In article <D056z...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> g9u...@fnma.COM (Woodrow C. Henderson) writes:
>CANNON shells were fused with a proximity fuse most commonly made of a
>wooden plug encasing a helixical fuse. The gunner would trim or dial the
>length of fuse to coorespond to the distance/time that he wanted the
>burst to occur. As David A. Terhune mentioned, ...the wash from the propellent
>lit the fuse.
By "cannon" I presume you meant direct fire weapons (aka guns).
Shell fired from guns used a pyrotechnic time fuze for the most part
(what is here erroneously called a "proximity" fuze). The most
common type was a straight column of delay mixture in a wooden tube,
which was simply cut to size. There were others with helical delay
elements; some were used by punching a hole in the top of the fuze
at the desired time, while others had a time dial.
>To my knowledge there was no standard use of any kind of impact detonating
>shell used in either cannons or mortars.
PD fuzes were available, but they were nowhere near as safe as
today's. They were usually referred to as percussion fuzes.
Check out Gibbons' "Artillery Handbook" 1858 or 1863 editions. Great
section on fuzes. There are also a number of other books on Civil
War ordnance which deal primarily with projectiles but include
coverage of fuzes as well.
m...@mole-end.matawan.nj.us
From m...@mole-end.matawan.nj.us
In article <D03C1...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil> writes:
>
> From Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil>
> In article <CzzMv...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> HorvathA <horv...@delphi.com> writes:
> ... Canister was like a shotgun cartridge, filled with
> small balls or other fragments; it contained no powder, and was used
> for close-in antipersonnel work. ...
> ... Canister was
> used at close range only. ...
At Gettysburg, the Union forces are reported to have put double and triple
loads of cannister over a single powder charge because of the extreme
close range at which they were firing.
I've also heard that cannonballs were sometimes double-shotted to cause
them to fragment. This was done, if I understand, by the Royal Navy to
sweep the decks of a ship.
> > In the "Star Spangled Banner," written during the 1812 war,
> >the, "Bombs bursting in air," was a shell/cannister combination.
> The "bombs" were in effect time-fuzed high angle projectiles, the
> equivalent of mortar rounds. ...
I believe they were a new and still experimental weapon, fired from a
ship called a `bomb ketch'.
--
(This man's opinions are his own.)
From mole-end Mark Terribile
m...@mole-end.matawan.nj.us, Somewhere in Matawan, NJ
(Training and consulting in C, C++, UNIX, etc.)
Ed Rudnicki
From Ed Rudnicki <erud...@pica.army.mil>
Gun-cotton was too sensitive for use in artillery projectiles. It
was used as a bursting charge in torpedos (what we call naval mines
today). Until the introduction of picrates, BP was the only useful
explosive for conventional guns. The Zielinski Dynamite Gun and the
Maxim "Aerial Torpedo" were low-velocity launch systems which
attempted to take advantage of better explosives.
Dick Wisan
From wis...@hartwick.edu (Dick Wisan)
In article <D071s...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, scott david orr <sdo...@mik.uky.edu> writes:
>
> From scott david orr <sdo...@mik.uky.edu>
> In article <D056z...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> la...@unix.cc.emory.edu (Ryan Montieth Gill) writes:
>>
>>One of the Captain Horatio Hornblower novels speaks fo a Frog fortress
>>that would fire up its forges for heating hot shot if any possibly
>>unfriendly ships came into view.
>>
> That would be _Ship-of-the-Line_, the second book in the orginal Hornblower
> trilogy. Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress :) (or
> at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast).
That's possible, though I don't recall a hot-shot scene in _Ship_of_the_Line.
There's a good deal about such a fort, though, in (I'm reaching from memory)
_Lieutenant_Hornblower_. It's a Spanish fort in the Caribbean, someplace,
and they sieze a fort and turn it on the Spanish. It has a furnace for heat-
ing shot, which Hornblower uses, so you get quite a lot of detail. One I
recall is that it was possible to get the shot _too_ hot, in which case it
would deform and no longer fit the gun. I suspect Forster is reliable when
he gives this kind of detail, but I wouldn't testify to it in court.
I'm sure about the scene, but I could have transposed it into the wrong
book.
Roger Moore
From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)
m...@mole-end.matawan.nj.us writes:
>I've also heard that cannonballs were sometimes double-shotted to cause
>them to fragment. This was done, if I understand, by the Royal Navy to
>sweep the decks of a ship.
I believe that the double shotting refers to loading both a ball and a
cannister in the same load, with only a single load of powder. This way
there is a solid ball to do structural damage (or long range/ multi row
damage if used in land warfare) and multiple projectiles to cause massive
damage to personell. John Keegan comments on the practice of double-shotting
in his section on Waterloo in _The Face of Battle_.
Raj
Master of Meaningless Trivia
scott david orr
From scott david orr <sdo...@mik.uky.edu>
In article <D0GBt...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> wis...@hartwick.edu (Dick Wisan) writes:
>
>> That would be _Ship-of-the-Line_, the second book in the orginal Hornblower
>> trilogy. Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress :) (or
>> at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast).
>
>That's possible, though I don't recall a hot-shot scene in _Ship_of_the_Line.
>There's a good deal about such a fort, though, in (I'm reaching from memory)
>_Lieutenant_Hornblower_. It's a Spanish fort in the Caribbean, someplace,
>and they sieze a fort and turn it on the Spanish. It has a furnace for heat-
>ing shot, which Hornblower uses, so you get quite a lot of detail. One I
>recall is that it was possible to get the shot _too_ hot, in which case it
>would deform and no longer fit the gun. I suspect Forster is reliable when
>he gives this kind of detail, but I wouldn't testify to it in court.
>
Yeah, I remember that one now that you mention it--they captured the fort
by surprising by marching overland to take it from the rear (after the
captain went nuts). I think both forts were using hot shot.
Scott Orr
William H. Roberts
From wrob...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (William H. Roberts)
In article <D0I5B...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore) writes:
>From: r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)
>Subject: Re: Do cannonballs explode?
>Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 17:16:21 GMT
>I believe that the double shotting refers to loading both a ball and a
>cannister in the same load, with only a single load of powder. This way
>there is a solid ball to do structural damage (or long range/ multi row
>damage if used in land warfare) and multiple projectiles to cause massive
>damage to personell. John Keegan comments on the practice of double-shotting
>in his section on Waterloo in _The Face of Battle_.
True. At times, two round shot were also used. Check out Douglas's _Treatise
on Naval Gunnery_ -- Conway reprinted (in 1982) his fourth edition of 1855.
Bill
Jess Coker
From jco...@umr.edu (Jess Coker)
William H. Roberts (wrob...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
: From wrob...@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu (William H. Roberts)
: Bill
It should be mentioned that the double loads were only used at close
ranges as the double load/single powder significantly reduced the range of
the shells......but of course it also significantly increased the amount
of damage caused by a single discharge--too bad there wasn't a way to get
both.
Jess Coker
University Missouri--Rolla
jco...@umr.edu
Al Jagnow
From jag...@al.weeg.uiowa.edu (Al Jagnow)
Re: Hot shot
If you visit the old fort in St. Augustine, Florida, you can see a furnace that
was used to heat cannon balls. Also tongs for carrying the hot shot. The idea
being that the hot cannon balls would start fires on wood ships. If you are
near St. Augustine, it's worth the visit.