Posted 7 years ago
hotairfan
(404 items)
Here are three modern made replica Civil War artillery shells Two of which are made of iron.(except the canister shell, it is a tin can arrangement). I purchased them at a recent auction.
One is, I believe, a round sabot that has a fuse to ignite the powder encased in the hollow shell. It is approx. 4 1/2" in diameter.
Of course, there is no powder in the shell to explode, nor is there any fuse material.
The second shell is a conical explosive shell about 3 1/2" in diameter, that I believe is for a rifled cannon. The bottom has a copper cup that possibly expands against the rifled bbl. upon the initial explosive discharge from the cannon. It also is hollow and has a fuse screwed into the top of the shell.
The third shell was possibly the most damaging to the enemy. It is a canister shot about 5" in diameter. It is filled with maybe a dozen iron balls that traveled in a wide spray over the enemy soldiers.
Artillery accounted for most of the casualties injured or killed in the American Civil War on both the Union and the confederate sides.
Great educational reproductions.
I do take issue with the statement: "Artillery accounted for most of the casualties injured or killed in the American Civil War on both the Union and the confederate sides". What is your source?
I have read extensively on the subject (and written on it as well) and the most lethal Civil War weapon was the rifled musket firing a minie ball. A study of casualty figures of the Civil War will bear this out.
Here is an informative article on the subject:
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/the-bullet-that-changed-history/
scott
Hi scottvez,
I thank you for your reply. You could be, and probably are, correct about the minie ball being the most lethal weapon. I was basing my statement on information that what I was told by a tour guide at the Gettysburg battlefield. I have seen it written nowhere else. thank you for the reference site, very interesting.
The ball with sabot(Pronounced "say-bo") only had the fuse in the ball facing forward. The gas & flames passing around the ball on firing lite the fuse. Hey, it worked ! There were also cups to fit around the fuse to help direct the flame from discharge better to the fuse. The dia.'s you give don't match any common bore diameters I recognize. Probably because they don't want liability if idiots like me use them in real cannons. The rifle projectile could be percussion for contact or fused to explode overhead. Canister, by definition, means 100 projectiles, but in fact could be loaded with (original .69 inch lead balls) or iron balls etc.. The BS misconception about canister being anything, including glass, rocks etc., is just that. BS ! Those things have no ballistic worth & ruin the bores. Same is true about blunderbusses.
Scott, that was a fair write-up for a semi-informed person. A smooth bore musket has a higher velocity than a rifled gun ? Sa wha ?? It's inexperienced, uninformed & imaginative people like that who start & perpetuate the myths like loading blunderbusses & cannons with rocks, glass etc..
Sorry, the 4 1/2 " shell would be about for the 12 pdr. (4.62" bore)
thanks bb2, I knew that you would have the proper data about these shells.
I am not sure about the diameter of the shells, At the time, I only had the scale on my Swiss Army knife to measure the dia.
Did they really have 100 projectiles in canister? Wow!
In the long run, it came to what the canister cyl. could hold of whatever size balls were used.