CHAPTER XIII

SHOCK PROJECTILES

The nature of the first Artillery projectiles was determined by the nature of the small-arm missiles in use when cannon were introduced by the Germans. To use the bulky and ponderous projectiles of the machines in these small and feeble pieces was out of the question; nothing remained, therefore, but to adopt the darts, bolts, or quarrels which produced such deadly effect when shot from cross-bows:—

"Of Arblasters grete plenté were, Noon armure myght her stroke withstonde."[505]

_Darts._

The iron darts feathered with brass—"garros ferrés et empanés en deux cassez"—which are mentioned in the earliest document relating to Artillery that has been found in France,[506] dated 1338, belonged unmistakably to the same family as those used for cross-bows. The brazen feathers were nailed to the shaft, and the missile, which weighed about 7 oz.,[507] was wrapped in a leather covering, so as to fit the bore tightly. Experience quickly proved these darts to be quite unsuited for firearms; yet they dragged on a lingering and precarious existence for quite 250 years. In the anonymous _Livre de Canonnerie et Artifice de feu_, Paris, 1561, the title of the seventy-fourth chapter is: “Pour tirer lances ferrées d’une bombarde, canon ou autre baston à feu de cannonerie.”[508] To a return of the powder on board his squadron, dated March 30, 1588, addressed to Government, Sir Francis Drake added a P.S.: “Forgett not the 500 musketts, and at least 1000 arrows”;[509] and on the 8th April following the Privy Council ordered him to be supplied with “muskittes, 200; arrowes for the said muskittes with tamkines for eche, 1000.”[510]

_Round Shot._

On the failure of the darts, informal trials were begun everywhere with balls of stone, iron, bronze, and lead, to discover which material was best suited for ordnance.

Stone shot, which had been used in machines for countless centuries, were on trial for cannon in France in 1346;[511] and, unless a ballad written about this time refers to machines and not to guns, we employed them at the siege of Calais the same year:—

“Gonners to schew their art Into the town in many a parte Schot many a fulle great stone. Thanked be God and Mary mild, They hurt neyther man, woman, nor child; To the houses, though, they did harm.”[512]

Stone shot were in use in Italy in 1364,[513] and in 1378 Richard II. ordered 600 stones to be bought for the cannon in the castle of Brest.[514] They were employed more or less in England and elsewhere until the Great Rebellion, and possibly even later.

The earliest mention of iron shot, perhaps, is that in the Arderne MSS., say 1350;[515] although we should not be justified in inferring from it that they were then in actual use. There were 928 iron shot in the arsenal of Bologna in 1381,[516] but iron seems to have been sparingly employed until the time of Charles VIII. of France, 1483-98.[517] The only iron projectiles mentioned by (or, we may infer, known to) the authors of the Berlin Firebook, 1400-50,[518] and of the _Tractatus de Pugnaculis_ of the same period preserved in the Hof-Bibliothek at Vienna,[519] are iron bullets for handguns. When used against troops in wooden buildings, &c., they both recommend that the balls should be heated red-hot Hot (cannon) balls were introduced much later, in 1579, by Stephen Bathory, King of Poland.[520] It was a simple matter to discharge hot projectiles from a machine, but a delicate operation to load a gun with them without exploding the charge. In fact, it was impracticable until the thick wet wad had been devised.

It appears from Petrarch’s _De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ_,[521] which must have been written in or before 1344, that bronze shot—_glandes æneas_—were then in use among the Italians; and Valturio mentions bronze shells—_pilæ æneæ_—in his work, which, although not published until 1472, was already written in 1463.[522]

A document, dated 29th April 1345, proves that the French were employing lead shot at this time;[523] and the accounts of Robert de Mildenhale, Keeper of Edward III.’s Wardrobe, show that we sent to Calais on the 1st and 2nd September 1346, 73 large leaden shot, 31 small shot, and 6 pieces of lead.[524] Finally, the accounts of John de Sleaford, Clerk of the King’s Privy Wardrobe, prove that in 1372-74 workmen were employed in the Tower in making leaden “pelottes” for guns.[525]

In a battle at Taro, 1491, the Venetians are said to have fired upon the French with shot of all three metals—iron, bronze, and lead.[526]

These trials naturally resulted in the general, but by no means exclusive, adoption of stone as the best material for round shot; because it was found that not only the use of metal balls was considerably more costly than that of stone, but that the heavier charges of powder necessitated by metal shot exerted a destructive effect upon the feeble cannon.

The respective prices per lb. of iron,[527] gun-metal,[528] and lead[529] in the second half of the fourteenth century were .856, 2.44, and .627 pennies, fourteenth century money. Multiplying by 10, to get their approximate prices in our money, we obtain:—

TABLE IX.

_Comparative Prices of Metals, 1375 and 1865._

+-----------+----------------+------------+----------+--------------+ | | Price per lb., | | Price | | | | 1375, | | per lb., | | | Metal. | multiplied | Ratio. | 1865. | | | | by 10. | | _d._ | | | | _d._ | | | | +-----------+----------------+------------+----------+--------------+ | Iron | 8.56 | 8.5 to 5.7 | 1 to 1.5 | {Bar iron of | | Gun-metal | 24.4 | 2.03 | 12 | { average | | Lead | 6.27 | 3.13 | 2 | { quality | +-----------+----------------+------------+----------+--------------+

It will be noticed that the price of bronze, which had been brought to perfection by the ancients, and whose manufacture was independent of modern appliances, only fell to half its old price in five centuries; that the price of lead, which had some dependence on these appliances, fell to a little over one-third; while the price of iron, whose progress depended essentially upon the use of coal, scientific furnaces, &c., fell to between one-fifth to one-ninth.

The weights of (wrought) iron,[530] bronze,[531] and lead balls of 4” diameter are respectively 9.3, 10.18, and 13.8 lbs., and Master Gunner Nye informs us that the weight of a stone ball of this diameter was 3.375 lbs.[532] Therefore the respective prices of the iron, bronze, and lead balls were 7.96, 26.468, and 8.65 pence, exclusive of the cost of manufacture; while the price of the material of the stone ball was much less than a farthing.[533] Again, for powder at 13.664d. per lb.,[534] and charges one-ninth the weight of the shot, the prices of the charges for the stone, iron, bronze, and lead balls are respectively 5.12, 14.07, 15.44, and 20.496 pence. We can therefore form an estimate of the relative cost of one round with balls of the four materials.

TABLE X.

_Comparative Cost of One Round, 4.25″ gun; stone, iron, bronze, and lead balls._

+--------------------+-----------+------------+----------+------------+ | | Stone. | Iron. | Bronze. | Lead. | | | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ | _d._ | +--------------------+-----------+------------+----------+------------+ | Price of 4” ball | 0.25 | 7.96 | 26.468 | 8.652 | | Price of powder | 5.12 | 14.07 | 15.44 | 20.496 | | Cost of one Round | 5.37 | 22.03 | 41.908 | 29.148 | | or in our money |4s. 5-3/4d.|18s. 4-1/4d.| 34s. 11d.|24s. 3-1/2d.| +--------------------+-----------+------------+----------+------------+

These figures do not profess to give the absolute price of one round, but they represent pretty accurately the relative cost of a round with the different projectiles.

The pressures per square inch exerted upon the bore of a gun are directly proportional to the weight of the charges used, and these charges were directly proportional to the weights of the projectiles used. We have therefore the following comparative pressures:—

TABLE XI

_Numbers proportional to the pressures per square inch on the bore of a 4.25″ gun when fired with shot of different materials._

+--------+--------+--------+--------+ | Stone. | Iron. |Bronze. | Lead. | | 3.6 | 10 | 10.9 | 14.5 | +--------+--------+--------+--------+

Table X. shows that the cost per round with stone was much less than with metal shot, while Table XI. shows how great was the disparity between the pressures on the bore in the two cases, which, as the calibre (and therefore the absolute pressure) increased, became a serious matter. With the very small, early guns, the greater cost and heavier strain may not have been sensibly felt. The extra cost in their case was not very considerable, and the increased pressure may not have been even suspected until guns began to burst.[535] But that these disadvantages made themselves unmistakably felt when the guns grew larger is proved beyond a doubt by the fact that “great stone shot and great cannon were introduced together.”[536] Leaden bullets were retained for hand-guns, because it was comparatively easy to strengthen them, and the metal, although dearer per bullet than iron, was much easier to manipulate. Iron shot were doubtless used as a general rule for breaching purposes, for which stone shot were ill adapted, owing to their lightness and liability to break up. We even hear from time to time of the use of bronze and lead cannon balls.

_Case._

There were two ways, in early times, of firing a volley of small shot at troops. The first consisted in mounting a number of small bombards on one carriage and firing them all, or a certain number of them, together. Gattaro speaks of 144 bombards mounted on the same bed, and so arranged as to fire thirty-six at a time.[537] The whole apparatus was called a _ribaudequin_, _barricade_, _orgue_, _orgelgeschütz_, &c.; the two latter names being given to it because it resembled “organ-pipes placed upon a broad carriage.”[538] By the second method the bullets required for the volley were put for convenience in a cartridge case or canister, and fired from a large bombard. The bullets, according to General Köhler, were simply pebbles of flint.[539] During the Indian Mutiny, I forget where, a volley of “Pyramid” or “Pool” balls was fired by the mutineers from a clubhouse upon our storming party with deadly effect.

Essenwein gives plates of an orgue, dated 1390-1400, and of a gun firing case dated 1410.[540] Case was used at the siege of Belgrade, 1439,[541] and at the siege of Scutari, 1478.[542] Orgues were used as late as the Great Rebellion. At the battle of Copredy Bridge, 1644, the Cavaliers took “two baricadoes of wood, which were drawn upon wheels, and in each seven small brass and leather cannon, charged with case.”[543]

_Shrapnel._

Isolated attempts to fire shell from guns (as distinguished from howitzers and mortars) had been made from time to time in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but they proved, one and all of them, abortive. The first methodical and successful shell-fire from guns was carried on during the siege of Gibraltar, 1779-83, at the suggestion of an English Infantry officer.

The distance from our nearest batteries to the Spanish lines when the siege began was 1700 to 2000 yards,[544] and at this range our fire was ineffective. Many of the mortar shell burst at the muzzle from the heavy charges required for these long ranges, a gunner losing his life on one occasion from this cause.[545] The shell that withstood the shock flew wildly; the fuzes were “in general faulty”;[546] many good shell were smothered in the sand of which the Spanish works were constructed; those that burst produced but little effect;[547] and round shot were of no avail against sandbanks twenty-two feet high. As fire against the Spanish works was useless, it only remained to direct it on the working parties. Against them our mortar fire was as ineffective as against the works, and what was to be looked for from guns provided only with round shot and case? Case would not carry one-sixth of the range, and round shot against handfuls of men, scattered here and there, were as worthless as shell. The difficulty was still unsolved when Captain Mercier, 39th Regiment, suggested firing the 5.5-inch shell of the royal mortars, with _short_ fuzes, from the 24-pounder guns which had the same calibre as the mortars, 5.8-inch. A trial was made on the 25th September 1779 with (I believe) the “Rock gun,” which was a 24-pounder; the “calculated fuzes,”[548] it was found, “often burst (the shell) over the heads of the working parties,”[549] and Merciers brilliant proposal was officially adopted.

When the siege was over, and men had time to think, it became clear enough that excellent as was Captain Mercier’s plan as a makeshift during the stress and strain of a siege, it had its weak points. The strong charge necessary to burst the common shell tended to scatter the fragments here and there in all directions, and the fragments were few in number. Experiments were carried on in Prussia in 1761 to determine the bursting charges which broke (mortar and howitzer) shell into the greatest number of pieces. It was found that royal mortar shell (_maximum_ bursting charge, 1 lb. 2 oz.) broke into eight pieces, with a bursting charge of 1 lb., and into nineteen pieces with a bursting charge of 14 oz., these figures being the means of six trials.[550]

In any case, the siege of Gibraltar proved beyond denial that we possessed no recognised and effective projectile against troops in open order beyond the range of case. To fill the void thus disclosed in our ammunition, Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel, R.A., conceived the idea in 1784[551] of a gun-projectile, which he called “spherical case.” As he was quartered in Newfoundland during the siege, it is improbable that he was aware at this time of Capt. Mercier’s plan. At all events he did not follow it, the principle of his invention being radically different from that of common shell. The bursting charge of the latter was a _maximum_, the bursting charge of the former was a _minimum_; the fuze of the latter was bored long, the fuze of the former was bored short; the fragments of common shell were projected by the bursting charge of the shell, the fragments of the shrapnel by the charge of the gun from which it was fired.

This absolutely new and original invention at first met the fate of many other new inventions—it was long disregarded.[552] Not until 1803, when England was in grave danger, did the authorities bestir themselves about it: a trial of Shrapnel’s shell was then ordered, and the Ordnance Committee reported in their favour.[553] How great an invention these shell were may be measured by their inextinguishable vitality: they outlived official apathy; they overcame endless objections; they survived countless modifications; they adapted themselves to rifled guns; and at the present moment they are the best projectiles available against troops in open order beyond the range of case.

The originality of the Shrapnel shell did not, of course, remain unchallenged. Certain officers in France, Germany, and Belgium discovered that the invention was an old one, and that Master Gunner Samuel Zimmermann had employed Shrapnel no later than 1573. His MS., it may be observed, had been removed from Heidelberg to Rome during the Thirty Years’ War; was sent back to Heidelberg in 1816; and was not discovered by Hauptmann Toll until 1852, just ten years after Shrapnel’s death.[554]

Zimmermann’s projectile was not constructed on Shrapnel’s principles.

It consisted of a leaden cylinder, with a time fuze fixed in the end placed next to the charge of the gun. The back half of the cylinder was filled with strong (_röschem_) powder; the front half with bullets; and the missile was intended to act a few hundred paces (_etlich hundert schrytt_) beyond the ordinary range of case, say, at 500-600 yards. A very small bursting charge would have sufficed to burst open a leaden case: why, then, did the Master Gunner use the _maximum_ charge which was possible without unduly diminishing the number of bullets—a charge, too, of specially strong powder? Because he intended the bursting charge not only to open the case, but to accelerate the velocity of the bullets—he could have had no other conceivable reason.

Whatever may have been the merits of this missile, it was certainly not a Shrapnel, as will be seen clearly by placing the details of construction of the two projectiles side by side.

_Zimmermann’s Case_, 1573. | _Shrapnel’s Spherical Case_, 1805. | (_a_) A hollow leaden cylinder. |(_a’_) A hollow iron sphere. (_b_) Thickness of cylinder unknown. |(_b’_) Thickness of sphere a minimum.[555] (_c_) Contained a number of bullets.[556]|(_c’_) Contained a number of bullets. (_d_) Bursting charge a _maximum_. |(_d’_) Bursting charge a _minimum_. (_e_) Bullets accelerated by explosion |(_e’_) Bullets (as far as practicable) of bursting charge. | unaffected by explosion of | bursting charge. (_f_) A very bad fuze. |(_f’_) A tolerably fair fuze.[557] (_g_) Range up to 500-600 yds. |(_g’_) Range up to 3000 yds.

The annals of Artillery will be ransacked in vain for Shrapnel shell before the nineteenth century, because the successful application of Shrapnel’s principle was impossible until an extremely accurate time fuze had been constructed, and no nation possessed a really good fuze before that epoch[558]—nor in truth until long afterwards. The results of the Shrapnel practice in 1819,[559] after Shrapnel and many others had devoted their best energies to the improvement of time fuzes for sixteen years, show how defective they still were. But although the want of a sufficiently accurate fuze made the Shrapnel system a practical impossibility before the nineteenth century, a man above his fellows might have dreamt dreams of distant case fire ages before.

That Zimmermann was groping about blindly in search of the projectile Shrapnel found in 1784, is proved beyond a doubt by the question which the Feuerwerker puts to the Büchsenmeister: “Cannot a case shot be made which will leave the bore whole and burst at a few hundred paces’ distance?”[560] But Zimmermann failed in his search: what he sought did not lie on the road that he took. Like Fronsperger,[561] he placed his fuze next the charge, in consequence of which (as the old man frankly confesses) most of his cylinders burst in the bore: “Gemainlich im Stückh angegangen und zersprungen.” Boillot, a quarter of a century later, had a better knowledge of gunnery: “adviserez que le trou d’icelle (the fuze-hole) soit du costé de la bouche dudit mortier.”[562] Zimmermann filled the front half of his cylinder with bullets and the rear half with strong powder, obviously assuming the stability of the missile in its flight. Now Prof. Greenhill has given us a table showing the _minimum_ twist at the muzzle requisite to give stability of rotation to elongated projectiles. If a common shell’s length be 3 calibres, it requires a twist of 1 turn in 38.45 calibres; if its length be 4 calibres it requires a twist of 1 turn in 27.6 calibres; and so on.[563] How far, then, would Zimmermann’s ill-balanced, smooth-bore cylinder have travelled before it toppled over, with the certain result that, when it did, the large bursting charge would blow the bullets any way but the right way?

Zimmermann’s projectile failed, and his sole merit consists in vaguely foreshadowing the Shrapnel, just as Roger Bacon dimly foresaw balloons and ships driven by machinery—“Marine engines can be constructed and worked by one man which will propel the largest vessels quicker than a ship’s crew of oarsmen.... Flying machines can also be made.”[564] His cylinder no more establishes Zimmermann’s claim to be the inventor, or even the suggester, of Shrapnel shell, than Bourne’s method of shooting “three times in a peece at one lading of her”[565] entitles him to be regarded as the inventor of quick-firing guns.

We should have been spared much unprofitable controversy had foreign critics thought fit to make themselves acquainted with the nature and properties of Shrapnel’s Spherical Case before discussing its history. Its history is simple. It was made in England, the invention of an English Artillery officer who owed nothing to earlier gunners in Germany or anywhere else.