Ammo Confederate two tiered grapeshot from Savannah, Georgia.

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Aug 25, 2012
Tonight as rearranged some older magazines I read some older Civil War related articles. Some were interesting, others less interesting. In the Military Collector & Historian from spring of, 1988 I read Confederate Two Tiered Grapeshot From Savannah, Georgia by Lawrence E. Babits. In his article he discussed an archaeological excavation of a previously unreported type of grape shot. It was a two tiered grapeshot that could have been used by one of four types of cannons; a 42 pounder, a 7 inch Brooke rifle, a 8 inch gun, or a 8 inch Col. Babits believes it was probably for the 8 inch gun. Most larger cannon fired grape that had three or more tiers. His article included a drawing but I can not tell how many balls there were but it appears to have six balls.

So some questions:
1) What would be the advantage of two tiered grapeshot for a large cannon? Could it be to save iron?
2) Would have there been any advantage to having two tiers of three larger balls instead of smaller balls?
3) Did the US Army use any two tiered grapeshot in 8 inch guns? If not why would the Confedercy designed these?

I do wonder if after 1988 any artillery expert did additional research and cleared up what type of cannon the two tiered grapeshot was made for.
 
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