The U. Ordnance Department soon adopted this revolutionary idea, but American officers found that the wooden and paper fuses were susceptible to moisture and shrinkage that resulted in duds or premature explosions, sometimes even before the fired round left the muzzle of the cannon. Allegheny Arsenal worked to remedy this problem and to ensure safety while storing and transporting exploding-type cannonballs in horse-drawn caissons that bounced over all kinds of roads and terrain.
In the late s, the arsenal began producing shells and spherical case shot fitted with Bormann fuses. This waterproof pewter fuse screwed into the iron ball. It featured a sealed powder channel that could be exposed by the gunner, who used a chisel to punch a small hole through a number between 1 and 5 cast into the face of the fuse. The numbers corresponded to how many seconds the gunner wanted the fuse to burn.
When the cannon fired, the flame of the propelling charge wrapped around the ball and ignited the exposed powder train, which in turn sparked the bursting charge after burning for the selected number of seconds. Contrary to Hollywood films and popular lore, these cannonballs did not explode on contact.
Percussion fuses were not used on spherical projectiles. These shells and spherical case shot were designed to explode only when a flame reached the interior charge. Another widely held misconception is that black powder becomes unstable over time. In fact, the opposite is true. With exposure to moisture, the saltpeter potassium nitrate , charcoal and sulfur components degrade and, in many cases, will not even burn after years in the ground.
Nitro-based explosives, such as dynamite, can become less stable and more dangerous over time. Hence the appropriate caution exercised by government agencies when unidentified ordnance is discovered.
There will always be a few rounds that impact outside of the fort because artillery is an area, not a point, weapon system. But you really want a 10 meter height of burst HOB instead of a ground burst: so you use shell and time fuze instead of shot. The shell will follow the same set of trajectories as the shot [because our quartermaster has ensured that the ballistic coefficients of the shell and time fuze are identical to the shot].
However, if the fuze is too long, the shell will impact on the ground before the fuze activates; if too short, the fuze will activate while the shell is still following its trajectory high in the air. If you have good fuze setting data, you will observe many shells explode at the desired 10 m HOB, but some will still explode on the ground ie, a graze , others lower than 10 m HOB, and others higher than 10 m HOB.
Hey, our quartermaster is good, but there are still slight manufacturing variations in the time fuzes that result in an observable dispersion in time of flight and HOB. My understanding is that Key saw the "bombs bursting in air" because the other "bombs bursting on ground" fell behind the walls of the fort where they could not be observed.
I thought about that while I was watching the attack scene in "Gettys- burg". Yes, there was exploding ammunition, but mainly, ordinary guns as opposed to "pot gun" mortars used either solid shot at long range or canister lightweight can of bullets --like big buckshot when the range shortened.
The explosions they generally show in movies are pretty much a conven- tion. They'd look about right for WWI or later but not for the middle of the 19th Century. But it's easy to see why they do it. It's hard enough to place those explosions on a movie set plausibly and safely; just think what the choreography would have to be like to show the ef- fect of cannon balls on an attacking line, especially if the shot is coming in at a shallow angle, as some of it was at Gettysburg.
Not exactly true. Field howitzers were introduced in XVII century and widely used in 7 years war. They shoot bombs genades.
Advantage was that on the maximum distance where cannonball was already not effective explosion could cause a lot of damage. At the beginning of XIX century they were widely used in the most of european armies e.
Typical Hollywood "The audience will never know, so who cares. Just make it look spectacular! Shells explode, the others just bore on through whatever they hit.
A shell was a hollow iron sphere with a gunpower inside and a gunpowder fuze stuck in it. The firing of the cannon lit the fuze, which would have been towards the muzzle as the shell was loaded.
Enough of the hot gas and flame snuck by the shell to light the fuze, which then burned down to light off the shell itself. This didn't necessarily happen when the shell struck the ground or whatever the first time. It could roll along before exploding; it could explode in the air. Mortars and siege guns usually fired shells ever hear of an army "shelling" a fort?
No, it didn't explode, although it could fragment if it hit something harder than itself, and it would throw up a pile of dirt and make a pretty good hole in the gound--maybe that's what looks like an explosion.
Gunners used solid shot just like a big musket, too: only it might bring down a dozen men if fired through packed ranks of soldiers, and it could sure make a mess of an enemy cannon or wagon, or the wall the enemy's hiding behind! Grape and cannister were like shotguns; they were made primarily to cut down troops at short ranges.
Shells would go farther, but they were less accurate than solid shot, and fuze timing was tricky. Solid shot would travel farther and was more accurate, and so it was the choice round for counter-battery fire.
Those cannon were firing heavy rounds at was then, at least a high velocity, and they didn't have the recoil absorbing mechanisms we have now. Physics tells you the guns would have a considerable recoil. Thats why the gunners didn't stand behind the guns when they fired! Wayne E. Worman WWO COM Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress : or at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast.
Scott Orr. COM Woodrow C. Proximity fuzes were developed during World War II. Apparently, a lucky soul could be rather close to an exploding ACW cannonball, and suffer nothing worse than a headache. However, gun-cotton was by used in European breach-loading cannon as a propellant, and presumably as a bursting charge. In a previous article, sdo French fortress at, if memory serves, Llanzas, onSpain's Med.
A better example from the HH books would be in Lieutenant H, where HMS Renown storms a spanish battery at Samana in Hispaniola and then use the furnaces the fire hot shot at spanish ships. In fact, any self-respecting shore battery of the day had a furnace for heating shot. In a previous article, " carib. Worman says: -big snip-. My favorite is "The Pride and the Passion" based on C. After much trial and tribulation, they finally move it over hill and dale, past marauding French cavalry patrols, and get it into position to lead the attack on the French fortress.
When they finally fire this sucker, it gently rocks back on its carriage! Not to be picky, but as I recall it was a Spanish fortress : or : at least it was on Spain's Mediterranean coast.
Spanish fortress on Haiti, if I remember correctly. At least that is the book with the clearest description of the use of hot shot, as Hornblower learns how to make good use of the guns of a captured fortress I don't know how accurate it is Forester is, I tought, considered reasonable accurate in such matters , but it makes interesting reading. Emmanuel Gustin. That is, if you fire the cannonball with enough force to get it feet into the air, it will fall to the ground just as rapidly if it is moving horizontally while falling as it will if only falling.
Toying around with an online cannonball-launching game will not, by itself, make you a physics or ballistics expert. This will, however, give you a chance to gain a sense of how the magnitude and direction of changes to the launch angle and velocity can affect the ultimate path of a projectile, and how early warriors also learned to account for their own mistakes in the course of their bellicose "experiments.
See the Resources for an example of a simple projectile-launching game that allows you to input the launch parameters precisely and observe what happens when you fire another cannonball downrange. Kevin Beck holds a bachelor's degree in physics with minors in math and chemistry from the University of Vermont. Formerly with ScienceBlogs. More about Kevin and links to his professional work can be found at www. How Cannonballs Work. Did pirate cannon balls explode? I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and love the Spaghetti Works.
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