"a shell explosion" Topic

Long wanted to model a shell explosion, but not too graphically. This is sanitised!. For that reason I have always avoided cannonball strikes and even here, I accept, that the blast has not even reached the cuirassiers yet. But I did not want them hidden in the smoke……nor did I want to show the blood spray that my lads modelled in Catachans several years ago (brilliantly).
I was inspired by these portrayals below, but especially the one of French Infantry shown on TMP before (but can I now find the link?) What I wanted was denser and finer fibres than traditional cotton wool, so I started hunting amongst surgical kit at work, but settled for that infuriating stuff that Perry figures come in. Superfine, yet there is always one more fibre as you paint, but undercoated with black spray, lightly done, works well. Stress no Photoshop here (although incredibly tempting, takes out every rogue fibre). No hidden lighting inside (which does work wonderfully)……. just three shades of orange and bright yellow.
My inspiration is here;
link
link
link
link

Loads of pics here of various stages (I must get back to coaches….or maybe that 71st line?)
imageshack.com/a/ZGlM/1

Some samples;

vey nice!

Which reminds me. Can I ask the experts? The Cuirassiers black leather peaks on the helmets. I always did with brass edging. Whether 1806, 1812,1815….what is right….. steel, brass or nowt?

Not to burst your bubble, but ground burst explosive rounds didn't enter service until the mid 1800's – the American Civil War was one of the first uses of them, rather unsatisfactorily. Napoleonic field guns fired solid shot – no flames – and howitzers fired solid, canister (no flames) and air burst 'shrapnel' – ground bursts only occurred if something had gone wrong.

Hmmmm. I think that might promote some response!

Shrapnel was exclusively "British". So what was Prince Bolkonski staring at in both versions of W and P? Why did folk rush out to extinguish a fuse, if brave enough?

My bubble is intact for now. Now, I admit ground bursts were far rarer than Hollywood suggests. Solid shot dominated, but explosive rounds certainly were available to artillery in Napoleonic era….indeed why else would the French have Howitzers? This was their raison d'etre. Not even sure they could fire solid shot! Canister or Shell…that was it, maybe a carcass.

I wonder how much earlier in fact were shells with groundburst available and certainly in Crimea, well before ACW. First ever VC, a naval one…..chucked it over the side!

Many folk at Waterloo, all three sides, died from shell blasts. Possibly more than from musketry????

Naw mate, got you've got that one wrong…..I think…I hope! Help me folks, where is Summerfield when I need him?

It's a game! I think it looks great!!!

Ground burst of howitzer shells were fairly common, for goodness sake, more by accident than design. Cutting the fuses, gaugimng the elevation and charge for the range etc was far from and exact science!

And yeah, regardless, it looks fantastic!

Blimey, the bug strikes again.

That was not my reply.

I thanked all, said I welcomed feedback (especially if I have made a howler) but thought this time I was right.

I rambled on about shell being DESIGNED (no accident) for ground burst and that airburst was the exception. Concussion killed as much as fragmentation. Shrapnel was different in carrying lethal balls as well as the bursting charge. It was designed for airburst and it was not the blast that killed!

My first response was far more eloquent (but also much more verbose) I went on about a shell exploding in the air making a lot of noise, but achieving little more. Fill it with steels balls…that is different!

Grim but very nicely done!

To be honest, could be much grimmer if realistic! These guys and horses are remarkably intact for a shell burst.
Not a drop of blood seen…………limbs all intact.

Real Waterloo mud on the base and as some of the debris in the shell burst though! The real thing from near Hgmnt!

You could stick it on a wire.

I had to think about that for while……

Oh I see! the explosion! Yes, an airburst…..true.

Still cannot understand that no one has defended me to say that the Napoleonic War saw use of shells designed to explode on the ground next to enemy troops. Other than Shrapnel, any airburst was likely a waste of time…..

Unless I have been wrong all this time……as are all my reference books

It looks great!

Kevin

Deadhead, and interesting net find on Shrapnel shells.

PDF link

Anyway, they are your figures and I think it looks great!

Oops! I guess my remark could be open to other "interpretations". But you got it.

oh mate – Awesome diorama – Love it. Horses shying away.Explosions among the ranks. Fantastic.

Thanks all. Shrapnel link is very good. Now modelling that would be challenge! Airburst and multiple impacts into the ground……….hmmmmmmm.

Anyway. This is "common shell" designed for ground explosion, blast and shell fragments, not strictly "shrapnel"

Except that the cuirassier who features most prominently was meant to be snatching the King's Colour of 69th Foot at QB!

I have the colour party half done, furiously defending against thin air. He might get swapped for the lancer from "A Hard Contest", (an inclusion which never looks right to me), or a wounded Front Rank Carabinier if I can only find decent sized horse…..

yes grenades were designed to explode on the ground – they were usually fired by howitzers.

A grenade did burst into several small parts – while in case I remember correctly sharpnel "shell" contained a number of small balls which caused havoc from above.

Very nice work, as for details on uniforms, a stickler for detail like you would benefit to invest some money in good works, like the Rousselot plates about the cuirassiers.

This was one big grenade! But the idea was exactly the same once it went off………..My reading suggests that cannon of the time, could not fire common shell, only howitzers. Equally howitzers could not fire solid shot. Spherical case, despite DoWs scepticism seems to have been a "game changer""

Indeed, I do have the Rousselot plates and they seem to suggest that the traditional ornate helmet had a brass edge to the peak, this simpler design for 1815 seems to have lacked it. So most the figures you see do have the brass, those in the explosion do not.

Minor detail as you say. Again thanks.

Much impressed. It looks very effective.

Beautiful stuff there Deadhead! I always use dead/wounded guy in EVERY period I game. Matter a fact, I won't put em on the table unless I have casualties ready to go also!
Peter
board2deathterrain.com

Looks terrible! That is meant as a compliment – a bloody great explosion in a regiment IS terrible.

Footslogger, "Effective" is right! Ask the poor horses.

Ceterman, I increasingly litter scenarios with the fallen, too, but am still toning it down. I am not aiming for Saving Private Ryan. Just for reclining still figures, largely intact! Heads, limbs etc where God intended.

Sobieski, I know exactly what you mean. Terrible and much worse than this. Cannonball impact one simply cannot model. There are limits

I wanted to capture movement here and frankly the shell blast is still at an early stage…there has not yet been enough time, the fraction of second, for the figures to be so affected, hit by debris and displaced.

But I did not want them lost in the blast as too much work gone into them. The "flag stealer" will surely come out and be replaced by a spare Front Rank wounded Carabinier. He is the only one, in the range, I bought that I feel I can use!

Finally just thanks again for the comments on this project. It was quicker than expected and the result better than I had imagined frankly!

Common shell was fired by howitzers with the intention of bursting within or near the enemy formation. The bursting charge was gunpowder and the casing thickness was thin to allow fragmentation.

Shrapnel, an exclusively British ammunition, was used with the intention of creating an air burst, refined by the addition of musket balls. Once again, this was fired by the howitzer section of the battery.

The nature and physics of explosions in our minds seems to be heavily influenced by our exposure to them on film and unfortunately the news. Great sheets of flame, clouds of black smoke etc. All this is great visually, but is it accurate for the Napoleonic period?

If you are old enough to remember 'bangers' and other such fireworks then you may recall, when discharged in daylight the vast cloud of grey white smoke that erupted.

This then, I would suggest is our Napoleonic explosion in Miniature. I have attached a couple of U tube links which are both illustrative as well as informative.

YouTube link

YouTube link

Happy modelling.

Chris

Liam. You're going to need a bigger explosion…

That secnd youtube clip shows why firework factory explosions are deadly

How much BP was in a shell? Does that compare to the first clip?

I thought that very interesting and useful. It is a very valid point that we judge all this on Hollywood pyrotechnics.

The small bang lacked any flash, granted not contained, but I suspect grey smoke more than flame is correct….and, if anything a greater scattering of earth and a few shell fragments. Blast and secondary debris did the damage.

Scary how many linked sites give you the exact recipe for such detonations!

Just seen this thread courtesy of another.

What are the densities of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre? If one knew those, and their proportions in gunpowder, then it should not be too hard to work out the weight of black powder inside a 5.5" howitzer shell.

AIUI black powder strictly speaking deflagrates rather than detonates, i.e. it burns extremely rapidly. Apparently one means to get it to do was to wet it while grinding it to make the grain as fine as possible. Smooths the flame front or something.

After the spear and bow, black powder must be one of the longer-lived weapons in history.

This sounds scientific..

In 1969/1970 I had a whole year to turn my Chemistry A level into just a pass, let alone a top grade. It was the only subject I had to do for whole year… to get into medical school, having done outstandingly in Physics and Biology.

But it was 1969/70….. and I had just discovered The Grateful Dead and girls and amateur pharmacology…..I will not say the grade I got…but let us just say………. I must still ask…..

Does deflagration produce a flash? I do take the point that I/we all tend to think of shell explosions as modern HE, or, worse still, Hollywood. I do remember 25pdrs produced much black smoke, a huge eruption of earth, but a definite flash in the middle for an instant…but only an instant.

I cannot accept airburst as being intended for common shell…sorry. Not at all what was ideal. Shrapnel of course.

Excellent. I especially like how there appears to be dirt flying around the explosion.

I got the idea from the links I listed some time ago….right at the top. But must particularly credit;

link

It is indeed the dirt that makes it much more than the black cotton wool and flames. I experimented with particles of transparent nylon bristles passing beyond the smoke, but they were far too visible. What did work was blood sprays from the poor devils hit. The sort of thing you see in Saving Private Ryan. Took them off in the end….very realistic but too graphic

Howitzers fired a BALL that was hollow and was stuffed with a relatively low-explosive-power black powder set off by a fuse or sometimes the friction from hitting something.

Don't confuse this with a projectile which is shaped like a cylinder with one end pointed and the other flat. By WWI, these often had accurate fuzes or even little internal clocks for setting off the charge. These needed rifling to spin like an American football to travel out to a maximum range. If these were not spinning on axis but tumbling end-over-end they would not go very far. Napoleonic "shell" was a roundball with a fuze. Hitting the ground among the bad guys and then exploding was SUCCESS.

YES these were meant to, (most of the time), hit the ground, sit for 1-15 seconds and then explode, sending out a shock compression wave, noise, pieces of metal and occasionaly setting something on fire.

Thanks for that. Someone who agrees with me for a change. A shell in those days was a giant grenade and not as well shaped as a Mills bomb.

An airburst over the target would require a remarkably accurate fuse (OK, Shrapnel could manage it though, but there the burst was before the target was reached). Landing amidst the target will chuck up a lot of debris. Did a shell itself create that many fragments? I do not see the casing disintegrating into dozens of bits of metal, as would be needed for an airburst