"Live Shellfire Video" Topic

Hadn't seen this one before, so apologies to all who have as its pretty old now, although only posted on You Tube last year.

YouTube link

That was really cool. And new to me. My grandson will love this! Thanks for posting.

Interesting, especially the sounds.
Thanks for posting

Cool

That is cool, especially the sounds. No air-bursts though.

What cannon were they using? One looks like a 6 pdr. The other with the handles on top looks like a 24-pdr. Is it just me, or did they leave the 24 pdr with the green oxidization! Maybe even the 6 pdr.

Neat, although I was not aware the Rebs used M114s. I guess it was Victorian SciFi.

Very interesting. I especially liked part II on firing the mortars.

Yeah I liked the sounds, particuarly what I took to be the fuse spluttering in flight in the views from the firing position.

I say that as I imagine Borman fuses are a bit hard to come buy these days! :0)

Very neat! Thanks for posting

It really drives home the amount of smoke produced on each shot. If there wasn't a stiff wind, firing a few rounds from a battery would completely blanket it. Also interesting to compare the recoil to when they fire blanks in other videos.

Interesting! It looked as though some of the shots failed to explode (or maybe they used solid shot for ranging) because there was a lot of variation in the size of the explosions.

Just in case anyone missed this one under the thread on Polished Cannons

YouTube link

I wonder on the air burst question if that's down to the fuse used and in some measure shooting down hill.

Given they were more than likely using cut fuses it must have been hard to judge flight and distance particuarly as the target was down hill. Which makes me wonder did gunners actually go for air burst even with time fuses or did they just throw it out there.

The video did show what happens when you don't get an explosion pretty well I thought – it's just a round shot! Which I think we all knew but the dud rounds that hit the vehicle made a good old clang and any infantry on the end of that in the Civil War wouldn't have cared much if it wasn't real solid shot that killed them!

I also liked the observation demo of the puff of smoke before the sound of the gun which we read about. No big mystery as to why that happens but interesting to see from the target perspective.

Given they were more than likely using cut fuses it must have been hard to judge flight and distance particuarly as the target was down hill. Which makes me wonder did gunners actually go for air burst even with time fuses or did they just throw it out there.

Simple – there is a range and time chart inside the lid of the limber chest for different types of gun. They tell you how long to cut the fuse.

link

link

Thank you for bringing this to our attention!
Does anybody have an idea of the range between the firer and target?

138,

May not have been quite that simple.

The Bormann time fuse was calibrated so yes, in theory, you read the Limber chart and punched a hole. However, there were seven elevation/flight time/range combos for Spherical Case and eight for Shell on a Napoleon, for example, none of which were duplicated.

The max time of flight was 5 seconds the minimum 0.75 while the shortest paper fuse was 5 seconds, so you needed a very good eye for distances and some experienced guess work to cut a fuse by hand for say 1.75 seconds (600 yards).

Confederates spent a lot of time cutting fuses as they rightly didn't trust the Bormann copies they had. Porter Alexander estimated only around 20% of which worked. In fact there's documened evidence of batteries at Gettysburg having to use shot instead, where their own men were too close to the enemy to trust things.

Just to add to the fun, since posting above, I've discovered that you were supposed to land Shell on target and have Spherical Case go off 50 – 75 yards short. Indicating that, as might be expected, only Spherical Case was supposed to air burst all the time.

Does anybody have an idea of the range between the firer and target?

As someone who has fired rounds from civil pieces – somewhere between 800 and 1,000 yards (725 – 925m). This is an estimate based on the appearance of the guns and targets.

@138,
Thanks that's interesting – I believe that would put the target at pretty much the limit of effective fire, and from a smoothbore that's pretty accurate fire

Fire can be accurate, it takes more time to lay the gun.

To give you an idea, my battery participates in a live firing event. Using a 10pdr Parrott firing at 1,000 yards against a target 8' x 4' we'd get 13 of 15 shots on target. To give you some idea of the problems at that distance the front blade of the gun sight appears wider than than the target when viewed through the rear sight.

With rifled artillery open sights provide the biggest problem with sniping.

Obviously we have the advantage of not being under any form of returned fire.

This gives you an idea of the scale:

YouTube link

YouTube link

BTW this is NOT a reenactment event so you get lots of modern equipment in the shots.

Some of the things I find fascinating are the sounds of the ball in flight and how long it takes the balls to traverse the 1000 yards.

Certainly one up on competition rifle shooting!