Artillery Practice - First Time with Live Ammunition

[Rhea Cole]

Thank you. I was getting a little lost….

I suggest referring to General Gibbon's artillery manual. It was originally a West Point course book. It was modified based on Civil War experiences. The section on fuzes is comprehensive.

What I like about Gibbon is that it is very how to oriented. The illustrations are excellent, which makes a lot of difference.

The link is to Internet Archive that requires a free registration. If you are not familiar with it, I can't praise it enough. No stupid pop up ads or junk mail.

Read more here.

Link

The artillerist's manual : Gibbon, John, 1827-1896, comp : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Appendix and Index (p. [501]-568) numbered as p. [1]-67, 568

archive.org

Note: I have printed & spiral bound pages like friction primers. I keep it in my haversack so that I can use it to explain things to visitors to Stone River NB… also to refresh my memory.

 

[Intrafinesse]

>>I then ordered a solid shot. It was fired and went somewhere, I don't know where; but it didn't hit the target.


What was the lifetime in rounds of a smooth bore cannon, such as a 12 pounder Napoleon?
How many rounds time on average would a cannon be used until retired?
Or were they used until they burst, possibly injuring or killing the crew?

 

[Rhea Cole]

>>I then ordered a solid shot. It was fired and went somewhere, I don't know where; but it didn't hit the target.


What was the lifetime in rounds of a smooth bore cannon, such as a 12 pounder Napoleon?
How many rounds time on average would a cannon be used until retired?
Or were they used until they burst, possibly injuring or killing the crew?

Bronze cannon did not burst in the catastrophic manner that cast iron cannon did. That was not an issue.

In order to load through the muzzle, 12 pound Napoleon gun / howitzer rounds were smaller in diameter than the bore. As a result the wear on the walls of the bore was not what one might imagine. When you examine the bore of an original Napoleon, there are long shallow scratch marks made by the sabot straps, but no gouges or the like. Bronze is very durable.

Bronze cannon that were cast in 1862 were still in service in 1865. Regardless of their serviceability, 1841 model cannon & howitzers were returned to the depot & then recycled into 12 pounders. Three 6 pounders = two 12 pounders.

The rifled bronze Ames / James cannon were surprisingly durable. In the West, they were still in active service right through the Vicksburg & Tullahoma / Chattanooga Campaigns. During the winter of 1863 - 64 the rifled bronze guns were exchanged for 3" rifles as part of a department wide standardization.

The bronze rifles were either returned to depots to be recycled or relegated to backwater forts & garrisons. A surprising number of them still exist today.

Bronze 'Tsar cannon' - 20' long, 39 tons. Designed in 1586 to fire 890-mm stone projectiles capable of knocking down castle walls. Each round weighed 1,700 lbs.

As far as anyone knows, the 'Tsar' may have only been fired once, which is on one end of the scale. Depending on a host of factors, the rule of thumb for bronzed cannon was firing between 500 & 2,000 rounds before it was recycled. For a perspective, a cannon & caisson only carried ( +/- ) 220 rounds / 4 ammunition chests / gun. With reloads from the artillery reserve, on December 31, 1862 the Chicago Board of Trade Battery's eight Model One Ames bronze rifles fired almost 1,500 14 pound Ames bolts.

Bronze is ductile, which makes it very durable. The simple answer is that bronze cannon fired between 1 & 2,000 (+) rounds depending on a world of factors before replacement… which I agree is no real answer at all.

 

[Belfoured]

>>I then ordered a solid shot. It was fired and went somewhere, I don't know where; but it didn't hit the target.


What was the lifetime in rounds of a smooth bore cannon, such as a 12 pounder Napoleon?
How many rounds time on average would a cannon be used until retired?
Or were they used until they burst, possibly injuring or killing the crew?

I'm not aware of any specific studies but I've occasionally seen the assumption in some sources that a bronze tube could handle 500-600 rounds before starting to show signs of significant wear. One advantage of bronze was that a warning sign in the form of small fractures in the tube could be visible. In addition, if it was noticed that the tube developed a "burr" or started to "sag" (for lack of a better word) or bulge, it could be retired before failing in combat. There's the additional question as to how many rounds would begin deterioration of the rifling in a re-bored 6 lb gun or a "James" rifle. My assumption is that it was fewer. Catastrophic failures were pretty unknown.

 

[Rhea Cole]

I'm not aware of any specific studies but I've occasionally seen the assumption in some sources that a bronze tube could handle 500-600 rounds before starting to show signs of significant wear. One advantage of bronze was that a warning sign in the form of small fractures in the tube could be visible. In addition, if it was noticed that the tube developed a "burr" or started to "sag" (for lack of a better word) or bulge, it could be retired before failing in combat. There's the additional question as to how many rounds would begin deterioration of the rifling in a re-bored 6 lb gun or a "James" rifle. My assumption is that it was fewer. Catastrophic failures were pretty unknown.

I agree that a bronze bore developed a "sag" from wear on the lower side. In practice, what I have not found is any kind of hard & fast rule. For example, the Ames round had a lead covering that would have liquified with friction, thus mitigating the wear on the lands & grooves. The Chicago Board of Trade saw active service with their Model One Ames for years before they were exchanged to standardize the ammunition. I don't find anything that says exactly X number of rounds were fired & the guns were recycled. Of course, obviously the hundreds of guns in National Parks cast in 1862 survived the war. Go figure is the best answer I have.

 

[Belfoured]

I agree that a bronze bore developed a "sag" from wear on the lower side. In practice, what I have not found is any kind of hard & fast rule. For example, the Ames round had a lead covering that would have liquified with friction, thus mitigating the wear on the lands & grooves. The Chicago Board of Trade saw active service with their Model One Ames for years before they were exchanged to standardize the ammunition. I don't find anything that says exactly X number of rounds were fired & the guns were recycled. Of course, obviously the hundreds of guns in National Parks cast in 1862 survived the war. Go figure is the best answer I have.

We certainly agree that there is no hard and fast rule, and so far as I know it's not like we have records readily available of Ames or Revere failure testing - which might not focus as much on overall number of firings as on seeing what loads caused issues, etc or on rapidity of firing to heating. I'm simply referring to anecdotal accounts that appear to repeat a presumption - perhaps based on experience or not. Live firing in drill was not uniform or frequent, for a lot of good reasons, so 500-600 rounds would be a reasonably high number given how few actual battles these guns were used in. In the Army of the Potomac, you might get that starting June-July 1864 with the siege at Petersburg.

 

[Rhea Cole]

We certainly agree that there is no hard and fast rule, and so far as I know it's not like we have records readily available of Ames or Revere failure testing - which might not focus as much on overall number of firings as on seeing what loads caused issues, etc or on rapidity of firing to heating. I'm simply referring to anecdotal accounts that appear to repeat a presumption - perhaps based on experience or not. Live firing in drill was not uniform or frequent, for a lot of good reasons, so 500-600 rounds would be a reasonably high number given how few actual battles these guns were used in. In the Army of the Potomac, you might get that starting June-July 1864 with the siege at Petersburg.

I agree entirely. Over a forty year career of regular programs at Stones River our original 6 pounder called Shelly has fired something over 2,000 rounds. I don't have the current number. In actual service the crazed rapid fire seen at reenactments did not happen. For a host of reasons, fire was deliberate if they wanted to hit the target.

 

[Belfoured]

I agree entirely. Over a forty year career of regular programs at Stones River our original 6 pounder called Shelly has fired something over 2,000 rounds. I don't have the current number. In actual service the crazed rapid fire seen at reenactments did not happen. For a host of reasons, fire was deliberate if they wanted to hit the target.

And so one Henry J. Hunt advocated that fire should be "slow and deliberate" because accuracy was "far more important" than rapidity of fire. He presumed a maximum of one round every two minutes and generally slower. Obviously, at canister range he was good with more frequent discharges.