Exploding shells vs. wooden-hulled ships

[USS Cumberland]

Old Soldier, just a wee correction. The 40-gun Endymion was armed just as you say, in 1815 when she fought the USS President, but with six 32-pounder carronades (twenty-two total!) on the forecastle, not four, making 48 guns in all.

 

[Old Soldier]

Old Soldier, just a wee correction. The 40-gun Endymion was armed just as you say, in 1815 when she fought the USS President, but with six 32-pounder carronades (twenty-two total!) on the forecastle, not four, making 48 guns in all.

I won't argue - my source was for 1813. Things change.

 

[Paul Goodman]

At Sinope, the explosive shells were largely ineffective. A squadron of Russian steamers entered a bay containing a squadron of sail who were largely uncrewed. In order to prevent capture, the Ottomans fired their own ships, and this was wrongly ascribed to the effect of shells.

The problem with shells is getting them to explode in the right place, and that place is inside the enemy ship. This is mainly a fusing issue, and with some of the better fuses shell could be very effective. The USN used an ineffective watercapped fuse with only three settings:

3.5 seconds: bursts at 1,250 yds
5 seconds: bursts at 1,650 yds
7 seconds: bursts at 2,100 yds

This made getting the shell to burst inside the enemy ship quite difficult. The Royal Navy was using pillar fuses in their Armstrongs (which were very effective when you didn't have a faulty batch) and Moorsom fuses for smoothbores. These were both very effective at getting the explosion to occur inside the target ship, and were effective against stone fortifications, but struggled against earthworks because they buried themselves without the fuse actuating. This led to the adoption of the Pettman fuse (which was a base rather than nose fuse) in 1861.

Sorry I am late to this discussion.

Respectfully, I am very curious about the source of your statement that the Turks fired their own ships at the Battle of Sinop and that Russian explosive shells were "largely ineffective". Every source I've read about Sinop attribute the destruction of the Turkish squadron to delayed action explosive shells fired from Paixhans guns mounted aboard the Russian ships.

 

[67th Tigers]

Sorry I am late to this discussion.

Respectfully, I am very curious about the source of your statement that the Turks fired their own ships at the Battle of Sinop and that Russian explosive shells were "largely ineffective". Every source I've read about Sinop attribute the destruction of the Turkish squadron to delayed action explosive shells fired from Paixhans guns mounted aboard the Russian ships.

Yes, because that's what was reported by the French ambassador. The Russians reported the shell guns performed poorly.

The battleships expended:

• Imperatritsa Maria: Expended 176x 68 pdr (5 being shells), 1,361x 36 pdr shot and 619x 24 pdr shot (2,128 rds)
• Velikiy Knyaz Konstantin: Expended 457x 68 pdr (30 being shells), 1,529x 36 pdr shot and 480x 24 pdr shot (2,466 rds)
• Chesma: not engaged with the enemy ships, engaged coastal batteries
• Tri Sviatitelia: damaged by coastal batteries and turned away, not engaging the enemy ships
• Parizh: Expended 893x 68 pdr (70 being shells), 2,111x 36 pdr and 940x 12 pdr (3,952 rds)
• Rostislav: Expended 400x 68 pdr (16 being shells, but most used as "hollow shot"), 2,800x 36 pdr (1,000 of these were double-shotted) and 760 24 pdrs (3,960 rds)

A maximum of 121 shells were fired against the Turkish ships by the battleships, of 12,506 rds fired (ca. 1%). However, the Russians used three natures of shell, in addition to solid shot and grape from the 68 pdr:

• Unfilled shell used as "hollow shot"
• Powder filled explosive shells
• Incendiary filled "brandskugels" filled with pitch etc.

Most of the shells used seem to be hollow shot. Explosive shells were avoided, and only 5 rpg were carried. They were carried in a bomb-cellar deep on the ship, and required to be fuzed down there and brought up individually when needed.

The Russians, through maneouvering, got themselves into a position where they could shoot down the Ottoman line with little return fire, and proceeded to smash the enemy with a massive weight of conventional shot. The explosive shell was largely a non-factor, and the Russians noted how ineffective the shells had been.

It's been about 15 years since I looked into this, but my memory is that the Ottoman accounts have them beaching their overwhelmed ships and trying to fire them (not always successfully). One of those that exploded was, ISTR, an officer going below and deliberately lighting the powder magazine after the ship was abandoned.

You will note that in future conflicts, like the ACW, shells showed no incendiary effect.

 

[Saphroneth]

An important supplementary note (on the "standard" view of Sinop) is why the British and French ships that bombarded Sevastapol didn't get destroyed by the shell firing guns in the defences of that city - if Paixhans guns were so destructive as to set wooden ships afire easily, then that should have happened during the bombardment of Sevastopol and it did not. Some ships did have to pull clear to extinguish fire, but if you have to hit a ship dozens of times to start a fire which can be extinguished by the crew, then that's hardly a very effective weapon against a crewed warship.

 

[Saphroneth]

I should point out that if what shells actually do is that they make it so that a ship overwhelmed by heavy fire might catch fire, instead of merely being battered to splinters, that might well explain any incendiary effect without actually making them much of a better weapon as they don't have as much ability to swing close fights. Clearly there was some benefit to the shells, but I wonder if it's more the effect inside the ship as much as anything (fragments causing greater slaughter).

 

[67th Tigers]

The ship that was blown up by it's captain was the Navek-i Bahri, 42. The captain, İmamoğlu Ali Bey, ordered the ship abandoned and then detonated the magazine to prevent capture, being killed in the process.

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

When the blockade runner Modern Greece was intercepted, solid shot were fired with the intent to disable her. When the crew ran Modern Greece aground near Fort Fisher NC, fuzed shells were fired with the intent to set the wreck & cargo afire.

There was a natural inhibition to having fuzed rounds aboard wooden ships. The ignorant gunners aboard the Alabama did not know that the bronze caps on their British impact fuzed rounds were safety devices. As a result, Semmes believed they were all duds. All the fantasy what ifs about the bolt that hit Kearsarge's stern post are just that. Had the contact fuze have been active, that round would have exploded harmlessly against the hull far from where it caromed into the sternpost.

Would you happen to know about the exact brands of ammunition used on the Alabama? American designs likewise also come as brass "caps" that are the metal fuze bodies; these are not unfamiliar to any Civil War gunner, field, naval or heavy service. However, there are various, including British designs that involve safety pins and other forms of safety systems intended to be fixed when intending to load and fire; could they have been fooled by those, perhaps? Knowing what fuze brands were being used or even just shell brand, i.e. Armstrong, Britten designs would tell a lot. It sound a lot like they forgot to arm them.

EDIT:

Nevermind; You mentioned it!

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

At Sinope, the explosive shells were largely ineffective. A squadron of Russian steamers entered a bay containing a squadron of sail who were largely uncrewed. In order to prevent capture, the Ottomans fired their own ships, and this was wrongly ascribed to the effect of shells.

The problem with shells is getting them to explode in the right place, and that place is inside the enemy ship. This is mainly a fusing issue, and with some of the better fuses shell could be very effective. The USN used an ineffective watercapped fuse with only three settings:

3.5 seconds: bursts at 1,250 yds
5 seconds: bursts at 1,650 yds
7 seconds: bursts at 2,100 yds

This made getting the shell to burst inside the enemy ship quite difficult. The Royal Navy was using pillar fuses in their Armstrongs (which were very effective when you didn't have a faulty batch) and Moorsom fuses for smoothbores. These were both very effective at getting the explosion to occur inside the target ship, and were effective against stone fortifications, but struggled against earthworks because they buried themselves without the fuse actuating. This led to the adoption of the Pettman fuse (which was a base rather than nose fuse) in 1861.

The late, great John D. Bartleton Jr. included some of these among many others in his illustrations and diagrams of fuzes and shot of the era. Including the British Boxer time fuse designs, a favorite of mine. British time fuzes had considerably more fuze settings, including variants up to 20 seconds.

Among many others just of British design. Fuze design & development certainly deserves more threads, considerable change over the course of the century and realistically in the time that separates the Mexican and Civil Wars.

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

You will note that in future conflicts, like the ACW, shells showed no incendiary effect.

There is a potentially very interesting topic. There seems to be a general debate over whether shellfire in the 19th century was being used (at least in practice or with actual effect) in setting fire/firing buildings and vessels, with the evidence mainly seeming to be naught.

 

[Rhea Cole]

There is a potentially very interesting topic. There seems to be a general debate over whether shellfire in the 19th century was being used (at least in practice or with actual effect) in setting fire/firing buildings and vessels, with the evidence mainly seeming to be naught.

Shellfire had been utilized for about 2,000 years before the Civil War. It took many forms, but the principles are the same. Fling a vessel filled with a volatile substance that caused mayhem on contact or burst in midair.

My favorite are the Ming Chinese war kites that dropped timed shells.

"Fang Ji Huo Feng Zheng (燔積火風箏, lit. 'Supply-scorching fire kite') was a unique but obscure siege weapon. It was essentially a weaponised kite that carried a timed explosive and propelled by a rocket. The rocket allowed Fang Ji Huo Feng Zheng to be launched into the sky quickly, where it would stay in the air and "wire-guided" to its intended target. After a set amount of time, the bomb would explode in mid air, spreading poisonous dust and burning gunpowder all over the target."

Read more here.

Link

Unique weapon of the Ming Dynasty — Fang Ji Huo Feng Zheng (燔積火風箏)

A blog about Ming Dynasty military resources for historical wargaming, martial arts and reenactment.

greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com

Standard Field Ammunition Chests: Union and Confederate ordnance manuals specified that a standard limber or caisson ammunition chest for a 12-pounder system held a combination of 15 shells, 20 spherical case shot, and 4 canister rounds (though exact field loadouts varied slightly, such as 15 shells and 8 case shot in specific configurations.