"CIVIL WAR RIFLED ARTILLERY ACCURACY, ETC" Topic

My wife is busy watching yet another cooking show on the TV. I decided to retreat to my library and put the time to useful purpose by sharing some information I had acquired on ACW period rifled artillery.

The first point of interest was accuracy of rifled artillery, based upon contemporary service testing. The author take pains to say that the results were as much a function of the primitive state of aiming devices as the inherent accuracy of the guns themselves:

GUN TYPE-----NO/SHOTS---RNG(yds)---MEAN IMPACT FM TARGET CTR
100# Parrot-----35-------1820------23 ft
100# Parrot-----13-------2220------23 ft
30# Parrot-------9-------1030------16 ft
4.5" Ordnance---40-------1820------19 ft
4.5" Ordnance---10-------2220------27 ft
12# Whitworth----5-------2220------25 ft

ARMSTRONG GUN accuracy:
(based upon limited number of shots)
MEAN RANGE---AREA OF RECTANGLE CONTAINING 100% SHOTS FIRED.
1130 yds-----110 ft
1256 yds------57
2146 yds-----144
2360 yds-----126
3568 yds-----457
3908 yds----1875

WHITWORTH GUN accuracy:
(based upon limited number of shots)
MEAN RANGE---AREA OF RECTANGLE CONTAINING 100% SHOTS FIRED.
1159 yds-----128 ft
1290 yds-----298
2368 yds----1766
2471 yds-----530
4223 yds-----508
4400 yds-----600

FUZE RELIABILITY
FUZE TYPE-------------NUMBER TESTED / PCT SERVICEABLE
Parrot Percussion-----5946 / 85%
Parrot Time-----------2820 / 75%
Schenkl Percussion----2141 / 82%
Schenkl Combination----161 / 55%
Dyer Time--------------202 / 71%
Absterdam Percussion---188 / 53%
Tice Concussion---------41 / 73%
Sawyer Combination------88 / 85%
Bormann----------------654 / 77%

Data taken from "Note on Ammunition of the American Civil War 1861-1865"; Col Berkeley R Lewis, Ordnance Corps, USA (Retired); The American Ordnance Association, Washington DC; 1959.

FWIW.

B

I'm not certain what to draw from this data. It appears to be using solid shot for it's testing. That's all well and good, but solid shot is only a part of the consideration.

By the Civil War, US Artillery had not only developed pretty accurate fuses, but reliable powder and metal-working for making shells. A good portion of artillery rounds used were shell & spherical case. Both of these were designed and used as airburst, area denial weapons.

A great deal of training went into trying to accurately place the shell in a position where it was angling towards the target. The reason is that when a shell detonates, the true "danger zone" or "area of effect" is an expanding cone which projects directly in front of the projectile.

The velocity of the projectile counters the rearward force of the detonation, and anything from about the mid-point of the shell has little chance of causing anything but superficial damage to the target. Fragments going backwards are basically stopped and fall straight down, and those from the mid-point back are all counteracted by the projectile's velocity and are thus also slowed, and fall in a somewhat arcing flight to the ground.

Now, getting hit on the head by a few ounces of iron would hurt, probably cause a mild concussion and/or laceration, but it wouldn't be lethal.

The lethal fragments are those exiting straight ahead of the round, and also from about the mid-point forward. They are already traveling at the speed of the round, and the detonation then adds much more energy to them, so that drag doesn't have much effect at all, especially at the short distance above ground where ideally they will detonate.

Which brings me to this point: Games which use "blast markers" shaped in a circle should be using one shaped like a slight oval or lozenge to represent the true path of the fragments from shell and spherical case. For most games it robably isn't too important, especially at the abstract level we are playing. However, the further down the tactical level the game is, IE: The closer to regiment, company and skirmish level, the more consideration should be given to the actual detonation path of the round, vice a simple circle.

Just my 2-cents on the issue and nothing more.

V/R

It was apparently quite accurate enough to hit an elephant, at that range.
-Kle.

These results are based on a limited number of shots at known ranges, and, as such, essentially useless for gaming purposes. The biggest enemy of accuracy in artillery fire is ranging error, not ballistic or pointing error. The average person has a plus-or-minus 20% error in estimating range.

Also note that the results are all from heavy artillery weapons. No 3" Ordnance Rifle, no 1-pdr Parrott, not even anything for the 20-pdr Parrott. But these were the rifled weapons most likely to appear on the battlefield.

And none under fire either.

Dan

The fuze reliability metrics are interesting but probably not applicable for any game using more then a handful of guns. Otherwise I'll echo the comments that the range accuracy isn't all that useful, except as some sort of theoretical cap in some areas of performance. But I do agree 100% that the guns actually had better performance than the current state of ranging and aiming devices really supported….

-Will

Okay here are some target at 600 yards with a Parrot gun.

Also this same crew hit some 50 gal drums at a 1000yds.

More info at my blog: link

Sgt Dutch – Judging from the target screen photo, it appears that some of the rounds failed to take the rifling and tumbled in flight. How often do you encounter that? What type/design of projectile does your team use in the Parrot gun?

B

The keyholed shoots are round that fell short of the target. Basically bounced in. The next group low in the target was the adjustment. The rounds in the black are the final adjustment. All shots fired with original style parrot rifle aiming sight.

The round is cast aluminum. The style is like the original Parrot shells. But there are three lugs that match the bore of the rifling in the base of the shell. As the original used a copper plate in the base to expand into the rifling.

sGT Dutch – Do I understand correctly that these modern lugged aluminum shells do not suffer from the occasional tumbling problems of the originals?

BTW – Read your blog article on the Ellsworth BL rifled artillery piece. Beautiful weapon, judging from the photos. My hat is off to the man who built it. He must have been a magnificent craftsman.

B

Correct. The problem during the civil war was that the copper cup sometime would be expand into the rifle. With the lugs matched the rifling the problem is solved. check out the link.Instead of a lead base. The lugs are cast in the shell
link

Just curious. Wouldn't the ballistics of an aluminum shell differ from that of a cast iron shell? Do you have to take that into account, and how does that affect modern-day shooting of the pieces?

The ammunition lids of Union artillery cassions gave 1500 yards as the effective range of artillery… for both 12lbers and rifled guns.

The technical ability is different from the SOP with use, the practical visibility of targets and common use. Today's infantry rifles have a range of 2000+ yards in most cases, but most firefights occur within 400 yards.

Modern rifles such as the M16/M4 use ammunition that taps out at about 500 yards – good in urban areas but not so much in Afghanistan.

I work with a civil war artillery unit. We use a 10pdr Parrott rifle as one of our guns. On occasions we have an opportunity to do a live shoot.

Our target in 6' high and 2' wide. (1.8m x .6m) at 1,000 yards (911m). To put that into context that is narrower than the blade of the foresight on the gun when it is aimed.

The rules are simple. You get 15 shots, of which one has to be aimed at another target. (This forces you to completely relay the gun at least once.)

Of those 14 shots at the target. We would expect hit the target 11 or 12 times.

We also do a second round of shooting where the target of about 20" x 18" (51cmx46cm). We probably hit this about 20 or 3 times from 15 shots.

YouTube link

YouTube link