Realistic Battle Scenes

[ole]

Makes a lot of differnce. Have a 12 ga. shotgun with a rifled barrel. The shot lit up the trees and few pellets reached the target. Changed that sucker out for a smoothbore. Want there to be a cluster of BBs on target if the need arises. And minimal repainting to do.

 

[Waterloo50]

I have taken the liberty of posting a few descriptions from 24 Hours at Waterloo where the effects of 121b Cannon shot are described, I don't think that the experiences of the men of the ACW would have been any different.

Shells were roaming killers, but at least they were invisible. round shot was a different matter. The muzzle velocity of a 12-pounder was about 1,700 yards per second. Air resistance then slowed its progress, so that they could often be seen. On contact they might bounce three or more times. The arrival of these howling projectiles was so frequent and their effect on human flesh so destructive that apprehension bordering on terror affected everyone......one soldier was bowled over by an enormous punch to his chest, which snatched his breath away and left him breathing with pain and difficulty. The flesh of his right breast had been torn away by a glancing blow from round shot. Iron powder stained the skin area around the bright red gouge mark visible through his torn uniform breast coat, remarkably this particular soldier survived his injuries.

As many as nine men or more could be knocked down by a ball passaging the lines, smashing skulls and disembowelling torsos with direct hits. Raw recruits were instructed not to casually block spent rolling balls because they still retained sufficient energy to take a foot off. Amid a sonic symphony of howling, booming and crashing impacts the solid shot rained down, one could almost feel the undulation of the air from the multitude of cannon shot.

Waterloo50

 

[Waterloo50]

Interestingly, in the 1970 Italian-British-Russian film Waterloo with Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as Wellington, French General Antoine Drouot commanding the Imperial Guard (who was an artilleryman by profession) is depicted correctly asking Napoleon for additional time before beginning the battle because of the mud. The impression is given that he can't move the artillery into position; in reality it was because the ground was too soft to allow this very "skipping" of the round shot which was a basic technique for artillery against masses of infantry, allowing for additional range.

Hi,

There are a number or reports which claim British casualties were less because of the soft mud, the fact that the 12 pounder guns would recoil to at least 12 feet and would very often became stuck would in turn exhaust the gun crews who then had to push the guns back into position, over a period of time their firing became less organised. There are also a number of reports of the round shot hitting the embankments and digging in, soft mud was shot into the air as a result. From those reports it is clear that the gun crews were trying to skip the round shot into the infantry lines. Fortunately for the infantry there had been heavy rain the night before.

Waterloo

 

[Waterloo50]

I wouldn't want to face this lot. I have no idea why the gentleman in the bottom RH corner is carrying a white fluffy unicorn on the back of his horse.

 

[drezac]

I've heard of the rifles causing the shot to disperse in a wild pattern, though I couldn't really see that happening, thinking that the canister mainly comes apart after it leaves the barrel. Never heard of how the can would peel off in the rifled bore before, but it makes sense. As for the smoothbores, would the fact that the canister round itself is larger in diameter in say a 12lb Napoleon or 24lb Howitzer make any difference in spread?

I should have made my comment a little clearer. with the smooth bore the can would not start to peel off until it was out of the bore for a short time. with the rifles, the rifling would catch on the can, causing it to start to rip apart, and upon leaving the bore would very quickly peel off

 

[drezac]

The good thing about the photo that waterloo50 posted is that is gives you some Idea of the size of a 6 gun battery.
A 6 gun battery on full war organization consists of 5 officers,150 men, and 110 horses for mounted artillery ( with only officers on horses) add another 72 horses for horse artllery where all cannoneers were mounted (they would normally be attached to cavalry units)