8-inch gun/mortar?

[FiremarshalBill]

I was reading a recent post about the diameter/weight of Civil War artillery and noticed that the 8-inch diameter hollow shell was broken down into two types... Mortar (44.12 lbs) and Gun (49.75 lbs). I suspect this difference in weight between the same diameter shells is due to the thickness of the wall of the shell. If so, it would appear that an 8-inch "gun" shell would have had thicker walls than an 8-inch "mortar" shell. Why was this? Different battlefield applications? Were the 8-inch mortar shells and 8-inch gun shells safely interchangeable between guns and mortars? Can anyone confirm this difference in wall thickness? Thanks.

 

[redbob]

8" mortar balls are round and 8" shells are oblong, the mortar is designed for firing upwards in an arc and the gun is rifled and designed to fire at a much flatter angle. The 8" bore of the gun would equate to a 200 pound Parrot gun such as the Swamp Angel so the weight (49.75 pounds) throws me off somewhat.

Note: after doing a little more checking the 8" shell that you were referring to is for an 8" smoothbore cannon (which is a ball) and it does have thicker walls than does an 8" mortar ball, another difference is that the mortar ball has ears on either side of the fuse hole for lifting the ball into the mortar. For more information you can go to www.civilwarartillery.com and my apologies for the above misinformation. As far as I know, while the two balls may have been interchangeable, the mortar ball had to be precisely located in the mortar (fuse up) for the ball to operate correctly by the fuse lighting properly.