Ammo Solid shot or shell

[bwgolling]

I wonder if anyone can tell me the usual breakdown of shell and solid shot used during a typical cannonade?

 

[John Winn]

That would vary depending on what the target was (i.e. other artillery batteries, troops behind walls or barricades, buildings, attacking infantry or cavalry). Jack Coggins in his Arms and Equipment of the Civil War diagrammed what might have been used against cavalry and infantry attacks by a smoothbore battery. I'll summarize:

Cavalry starting out at 1500 yards:

7 rounds spherical case at between 1500 and 650 yards;
2 solid shot at between 650 and 350 yards;
2 canister rounds at 350 yards or less.
Total time: 5 minutes

Infantry starting out at 1500 yards:

20 rounds spherical case at between 1500 and 650 yards;
7 solid shot at between 650 and 350 yards;
11 canister rounds at 350 yards or less.
Total time: 17 minutes

Both scenarios average out at two rounds per minute which would have been typical. However, the rate of fire would probably have increased as troops got closer, certainly so when within canister range. Accurate, slow fire was encouraged in counter-battery fire as the range was typically longer and massed fire or rapid fire was considered a waste of ammunition.

Hope that's of some use.

 

[Larryh86GT]

Welcome from WNY

 

[UCVRelics]

Welcome From THE Heart Of Dixie. Are you talking a everyday run of the mill battle and if so smooth-bore or rifled field gun? As @John Winn eluded to what type of operation. Battle, Siege, Seacoast operation as it makes a big difference as to the makeup of rounds.

 

[Ole Miss]

Welcome from the Shiloh/Pittsburg Landing Forum and North Mississippi! Be sure and visit the Forum soon
Regards
David

 

[Rhea Cole]

The field artillery chest was pre packed with solid shot, case or shell depending on the size of the gun, & canister rounds.

Depending on what was to be accomplished, different rounds or combination of rounds & blank charge was used to achieve the desired effect.

To breach a wall, door or gate, the cannon was charged with a blank round & rolled into contact with the target. A loaded gun, it had been discovered, could bounce a round off the target with predictable effect.

Solid shot from smoothbores & bullet shaped bolts from rifled guns were used to batter a target. The first instance that he superiority of rifled vs smoothbore was at Fort Pulaski on the coast near Savannah. Robert E. Lee had supervised the construction of what was considered an invunerable brick fort guarding the mouth of the Savannah River. You can clearly see it from the south point of Hiltonhead Island.

Confederate defenders literally slapped their knees in laughter when those foolish Yankees started mounting batteries far out of range of the smoothbore Cannon mounted on the fort. Imagine their shock when the first ranging shot shattered a large pockmark out of their wall. 30 pound Parrott rifles fired blunt nosed bolts one after another into the quickly crumbling masonry. If you visit the fort preserved by National Parks, stroll around the upper walls & look for the impact of an over round at the base of the parapet. Embossed into the bricks is a perfect impression of blunt nose 30 pounder bolt. Under the pounding of such accurate fire, the wall collapsed & the shaken Garrison could surrender with honor.

Field guns, 3" rifles & 6-12 pound smoothbores, were effective at 800 yards. Beyond that range smoothbores had a circle of error the size of a barn door. In the smoky murk of 19th Century battle field conditions, you might not have been able to see 100 feet. At eight hundred yards, a smoothbore could hit a garage door, a rifled gun could hit the window in the door. Due to physics, a rifled round hit wth much greater impact than a ball.

Rifled Cannon were very accurate out to 1-2 miles, depending on conditions. During the Battle of Chattanooga, the fire of 30 pound Parrots in Moccasin Bend was controlled by Signal Flag from Orchard Knob. They cut their fuses at 22 seconds in order to strike infantry on the Summertown Road. A six pounder smooth bore's fire table only goes up to six seconds.

Firing at cavalry or a battery with horses, a solid shot or bolt would be loaded with a canister loaded on top. "Long Range Canister" from a 3" ordinance rifle was a bolt with two canisters. In extremity, a bolt, three canisters & dummies (socks filled with Minnie balls) would jellify attacking infantry.

At Hover's Gap in 1863, Eli Lillie's Battery of 3" rifles fired long range canister at Bate's attacking infantry. Veterans of many battles, the Confederate infantry pushed home their attack on what appeared to be cavalry. For the first time in history, mounted infantry armed with excellent Spencer repeaters met them with a withering fire. The combined effect of the long-range canister & repeater fire forced the infantry to lay low in a swale of ground. Anyone standing up to flee or attack was shot down. Muskets were raised butt first in token of surrender. The badly shaken veterans in gray were allowed into the lines of what would now be called Wilder's Lightening Brigade.

At Stones River, Confederate infantry was in a cedar break around 3/4 mile from Thomas' line. Solid shot was fired into the trees to create havoc & as a recon by fire. As the infantry under General Raines formed in front of the Cedars, solid shot from smoothbores were fired low, hitting the ground well in front of the enemy line. The shot bounded across the cotton fields like demented jackrabbits. The low flying balls did catastrophic damage to anyone, up to twelve men, it hit. The most common object removed from black powder era wounds were other people's teeth & bone. Anyone struck by a solid shot would have little to no chance of survival.

The Parrott & ordinance rifles would have opened up on Raines' line with shrapnel. A timed fuse would set off a small bursting charge would then break open the shell casing, sending a shower of pistol balls showering down onto the target. General Hanson ofvthe Orphan Brigade was killed by the fuse of one of these rounds. The round would have been traveling at just under the speed of sound more or less three seconds in flight. Ideally, the bursting charge would ignite ten meters above & before the target for maximum lethality. Batteries would be placed at either end of the line, ideally striking the target at 45 degree angles. Under concentrated shrapnel fire, the target could be beaten into hamburger. Raines, himself, fell dad a few steps into the cotton field in front of the treeline.

The ammunition chests only contained a very few canister rounds. If you have six horses & a gun effective at 1/2 a mile, why wait around for the infantry to get close? At about 300 meters, the 28 balls of a canister round had a spread of almost ninety feet. (There were 28 balls no matter the size of the gun.) Canister was aimed at a piont ten meters in front of the target. The grazing spray of iron balls would kick up a blast of dirt before screaming through the target at thigh level. It was common for a canister ball to strike six men.

As mentioned above, double or even triple canister was used. Dummies were uncommon.

It has been discovered that casualty reports during the Civil War greatly underrepresented the effect of artillery fire. In many cases, the victim was too mangled to be counted. Wounds were so traumatic that the victims were not taken to aide stations. Even firing blanks, reenactors suffer traumatic amputation & other injuries annually. The most common dismemberment comes during quick fire. Civil War Cannon were not fired at less than one minute intervals. Unlike the reenactors, Civil War gunners had to roll their recoiling pieces back into line & aim before firing. They only had a limited number of rounds, 200+/- on hand. Fire missions of single digit well aimed shots were the rule. Another limiting factor was that bronze cannon had to be fired at a deliberate pace or the heat would cause it to swell & it was impossible to load it.

At Stones River, a battery stationed near The Round Forrest where Bragg ordered repeated attacks, fired almost 2,000 smoothbore & rifle rounds. The battery had four 3" rifles & four 12" howitzer smoothbores. The close proximity of the artillery reserve kept Captain Parson's regulars supplied through out a long day.

I hope this has been helpful. You can look up firing tables for different sized guns & different rounds online. You can look on the websites at both Stones River & Fort Pulaski National Parks for information on the arteiiery used there. A visit to Ft Pulaski is an eye opener. The pock marks from the bombardment are still in the wall. At Stones River, you can walk the gunlines that devastated Bragg's attacking infantry on the first & third days of the battle. There is nothing like laying hands on & walking the ground to enlighten your understanding.

If you come to Stones River, it would be my privilege to show you around.

 

[bwgolling]

That would vary depending on what the target was (i.e. other artillery batteries, troops behind walls or barricades, buildings, attacking infantry or cavalry). Jack Coggins in his Arms and Equipment of the Civil War diagrammed what might have been used against cavalry and infantry attacks by a smoothbore battery. I'll summarize:

Cavalry starting out at 1500 yards:

7 rounds spherical case at between 1500 and 650 yards;
2 solid shot at between 650 and 350 yards;
2 canister rounds at 350 yards or less.
Total time: 5 minutes

Infantry starting out at 1500 yards:

20 rounds spherical case at between 1500 and 650 yards;
7 solid shot at between 650 and 350 yards;
11 canister rounds at 350 yards or less.
Total time: 17 minutes

Both scenarios average out at two rounds per minute which would have been typical. However, the rate of fire would probably have increased as troops got closer, certainly so when within canister range. Accurate, slow fire was encouraged in counter-battery fire as the range was typically longer and massed fire or rapid fire was a waste of ammunition.

Hope that's of some use.

That is very enlightening. However I don't know what spherical case is. As I read the histories I can't help but sense the horror of what those troops must have felt being under cannon fire.

 

[bwgolling]

Can you compare an exploding shell from that era to say an 81mm HE round from today? That would give me a reference point.

 

[UCVRelics]

I'm very familiar with the 81 mike mike from my US Army days and the field guns of the CS Army from my previous life and it would be like a 3 inch field gun except it was direct and not indirect fire.

 

[JOHN42768]

Welcome, enjoy

 

[John Winn]

Can you compare an exploding shell from that era to say an 81mm HE round from today? That would give me a reference point.

In short, not really as I'm not familiar with the 81 MM HE round. I can say, though, that CW rounds used black powder and not high explosive charges so one would have had to be closer (I'm guessing) with CW ammunition. There were four types of CW ammunition:

solid shot (just called shot in smooth bore guns and "sabots" in rifles);
shells - round shot with a cavity in the middle filled with powder which would explode and, in addition to the concussion, would scatter pieces of the shell;
case - round shot (in the case of smooth bore guns) or conical rifle rounds which were hollow and contained an explosive charge of powder and round "shrapnel" pieces and which would explode and rain down the shrapnel;
canister - a tin can filled with round shot which turned the gun into a shotgun of sorts and was used at relatively short ranges as an anti-personnel round (mostly confined to smooth bore guns but such did exist for rifled guns, just not very effective).

Round shot would typically (i.e. against personnel) be skipped along the ground much like skipping a rock on water. Against massed columns it could be very effective. Shells and case were designed to explode above and somewhat in front of advancing troops. The resulting shrapnel was thus propelled forward and downward (note that most CW movies always show exploding artillery rounds bursting on the ground; not typical). As stated, canister was a close-range anti-personnel round.

Smooth bore guns only had timed fuses but rifled guns also had percussion fuses that would explode on contact (when they worked). Those could be better employed in counter-battery fire or against fixed targets. So, which gun to use against which type of target was a calculated choice. The types of rounds for rifles, though, was the same although, being smaller bore diameter, they delivered less than smooth bore guns but had greater range and were more accurate.

Realize that in the day there were no forward observers and things like smoke and terrain meant that one had to actually see one's target. Thus, practical range and possible range were a lot different. Generally speaking, artillery was employed at targets within 1000 yards and, often, much closer.

That help ?

 

[Belfoured]

That is very enlightening. However I don't know what spherical case is. As I read the histories I can't help but sense the horror of what those troops must have felt being under cannon fire.

It's what also is called "shrapnel". Basically the same as shell but instead of being hollow it was filled with several balls fixed in place by sulphur or similar compound. . For the M1857 12 lb. Napoleon, Hunt's prescribed chest was 32 rounds - 12 solid shot, 12 spherical case, 4 shell, 4 canister.

 

[Rhea Cole]

It's what also is called "shrapnel". Basically the same as shell but instead of being hollow it was filled with several balls fixed in place by sulphur or similar compound. . For the M1857 12 lb. Napoleon, Hunt's prescribed chest was 32 rounds - 12 solid shot, 12 spherical case, 4 shell, 4 canister.

Spherical case shot had a very thin shell (for want of a better word.) filled with pistol balls & sulpher. It was the Round invented by English Army Officer Sir Henry Shrapnel. It was one of the keys to defeating the tightly packed columns Napoleon used to great effect. His name has become a generic term. During the Civil War, six pounder smoothbore could not use shells. A timed fuse was used with both shell & case.

Shells had a thick skin. The bursting charge caused the shell to break into chunks. Against structures, shell was very effective. It could harm infantry, but compared with shrapnel, it was six or eight chunks compared to a handful of balls & the shell casing hitting the target. Under shrapnel fire, French veterans lay down & surrendered.

Contact fused rifled case shot was used, as well. During Forrest & Bates' attack onMurfreesboro in 1864, 20 pound Parrott rifles in Fortress Rosecrans engaged the Washington Artillery at a range of two miles. The first round struck a caisson with a contact fused round. A shower of rounds peppered the battery, leaving them no option but to limber up & run for it. About ten years ago, duds from that salvo were discovered during excavation for a parking lot. Rounds striking into soft soil did not explode. A team of Army demolition experts from Fort Campbell blew them up in place.

If you have any further questions, fire away. If I don't know the answer, I know who does.

 

[Belfoured]

That is very enlightening. However I don't know what spherical case is. As I read the histories I can't help but sense the horror of what those troops must have felt being under cannon fire.

Hunt regarded spherical case as the equivalent of "long range canister" which should be timed to explode some distance in front of the target. As for targets, he advocated its use against (1) troops that are stationary or moving slowly and (2) against fixed points through which troops are moving. He opposed its use against troops covered by conformation of the ground or by intervening obstacles.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Hunt regarded spherical case as the equivalent of "long range canister" which should be timed to explode some distance in front of the target. As for targets, he advocated its use against (1) troops that are stationary or moving slowly and (2) against fixed points through which troops are moving. He opposed its use against troops covered by conformation of the ground or by intervening obstacles.

In effect it is canister because it is a shrapnel round. Some of this does go into a semantic furball.

 

[Belfoured]

In effect it is canister because it is a shrapnel round. Some of this does go into a semantic furball.

Yes it does become a bit of a semantics game - with the significant differences being the range at which it is used, based on the use of a time fuze, and the fact that the "spread" is different.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Yes it does beome a bit of a semantics game - with the significant differences being the range at which it is used, based on the use of a time fuze, and the fact that the "spread" is different.

I suppose it depends on whether you are a mayo, mustard or yum-yum sauce man...

 

[Belfoured]

I suppose it depends on whether you are a mayo, mustard or yum-yum sauce man...

I'll get back to you on that .....

 

[drezac]

From the Field Artillery Manual ( Barry, Hunt, French)

Should an enemy's cavalry be at a distance of 1000 yards from the battery it is about to charge, it will move over the first 400 yards at a walk, approaching to a gentle trot, in about four and a half minutes ; it passes over the next 400 yards at a round trot, in a little more than two minutes; and over the last 200 yards at a gallop, in about half a minute, the passage over the whole distance requiring about seven minutes. This estimate will gene rally be very near the truth, as the ground is not always even, nor easy to move over. Many losses arise from the fire of the artillery and from accidents, and the forming, and filling up of intervals create disorder; all of which contribute to retard the charge.

Now a piece can throw with sufficient deliberation for pointing, two solid shot or three canisters per minute. Each piece of the battery, therefore, might fire nine rounds of solid shot upon the cavalry whilst it is passing over the first 400 yards ; two rounds of solid shot and three of canister whilst it is passing over the next 400 yards ; and two rounds of canister whilst passing over the last 200 yards — making a total from each gun of eleven round shot and five canisters. To this is added the fire of the supporting infantry.

Care should be taken not to cease firing solid shot too soon, in order to commence with canister. If the effect of the latter be very great on hard, horizontal, or smooth ground, which is with out obstruction of any kind, it is less in irregular and soft ground, or on that covered with brushwood ; for, if the ground be not favor able, a large portion of the canister shot is intercepted. A solid shot is true to its direction, and, in ricochet, may hit the second line if it misses the first.

Solid shot should be used from 350 yards upwards : the use of canister should begin at 350 yards, and the rapidity of the fire increase as the range diminishes. In emergencies, double charges of canister may be used at 150 or 160 yards, with a single cartridge. Spherical case ought not, as a general rule, to be used for a less range than 500 yards ; and neither spherical case nor shells should be fired at rapidly advancing bodies, as for instance,cavalry charging. The fire of spherical case and of shells on bodies of cavalry in line or column, and in position, is often very effective. To the destructive effects of the projectiles are added the confusion and disorder occasioned amongst the horses by the noise of their explosion ; but neither shells nor spherical case should be fired so rapidly as solid shot.

 

[Rhea Cole]

From the Field Artillery Manual ( Barry, Hunt, French)

Should an enemy's cavalry be at a distance of 1000 yards from the battery it is about to charge, it will move over the first 400 yards at a walk, approaching to a gentle trot, in about four and a half minutes ; it passes over the next 400 yards at a round trot, in a little more than two minutes; and over the last 200 yards at a gallop, in about half a minute, the passage over the whole distance requiring about seven minutes. This estimate will gene rally be very near the truth, as the ground is not always even, nor easy to move over. Many losses arise from the fire of the artillery and from accidents, and the forming, and filling up of intervals create disorder; all of which contribute to retard the charge.

Now a piece can throw with sufficient deliberation for pointing, two solid shot or three canisters per minute. Each piece of the battery, therefore, might fire nine rounds of solid shot upon the cavalry whilst it is passing over the first 400 yards ; two rounds of solid shot and three of canister whilst it is passing over the next 400 yards ; and two rounds of canister whilst passing over the last 200 yards — making a total from each gun of eleven round shot and five canisters. To this is added the fire of the supporting infantry.

Care should be taken not to cease firing solid shot too soon, in order to commence with canister. If the effect of the latter be very great on hard, horizontal, or smooth ground, which is with out obstruction of any kind, it is less in irregular and soft ground, or on that covered with brushwood ; for, if the ground be not favor able, a large portion of the canister shot is intercepted. A solid shot is true to its direction, and, in ricochet, may hit the second line if it misses the first.

Solid shot should be used from 350 yards upwards : the use of canister should begin at 350 yards, and the rapidity of the fire increase as the range diminishes. In emergencies, double charges of canister may be used at 150 or 160 yards, with a single cartridge. Spherical case ought not, as a general rule, to be used for a less range than 500 yards ; and neither spherical case nor shells should be fired at rapidly advancing bodies, as for instance,cavalry charging. The fire of spherical case and of shells on bodies of cavalry in line or column, and in position, is often very effective. To the destructive effects of the projectiles are added the confusion and disorder occasioned amongst the horses by the noise of their explosion ; but neither shells nor spherical case should be fired so rapidly as solid shot.

For a graphic depiction of what the "destructive effects of the projectiles" see my Solid Shot, a modern day perspective. posting.