Shrapnel - what is it? What does shrapnel look like?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The article explains what shrapnel is, when this type of projectile was used and how it differs from the rest.

War

Humanity is at war almost throughout its existence. In ancient and modern history, there has not been a single century that has passed without this or that war. And unlike animals or our humanoid ancestors, people exterminate each other for various reasons, and not just for the sake of a banal living space. Religious and political strife, racial hatred and so on. With the growth of technological progress, the methods of warfare have changed dramatically, and the bloodiest began precisely after the invention of gunpowder and firearms.

At one time, even primitive muskets and shotguns significantly changed the methods of clashes and tactics. Simply put, they put an end to the era of chivalry with its armor and long battles. After all, what's the point of carrying heavy armor if it won't protect you from a rifle bullet or a cannonball?

For a long time, gunsmiths tried to improve the design of cannons, but this only happened in the second half of the 19th century, when artillery shells became unitary, and barrels became rifled. But the real technological breakthrough in the field of artillery ammunitiondid the shrapnel. What is it and how such shells are arranged, we will analyze in the article.

Definition

Shrapnel is a special type of cannon projectile, which is designed to defeat and destroy enemy manpower. It was named after its inventor, British officer Henry Shrapnel. The main and distinguishing feature of such ammunition was that it exploded at a given distance and showered the enemy forces not with fragments of the shell, but with hundreds of steel balls that scattered in a cone directed by the wide part towards the ground - this is exactly what shrapnel is. What it is, we now know, however, we will consider in more detail the design features and history of the creation of such ammunition.

History

At a time when gunpowder artillery was widely used, one of its shortcomings was very clearly manifested - the cannonball fired at enemies did not have sufficient damaging mass factors. It usually only killed one or a few people. In part, they tried to fix this by loading the cannons with buckshot, but in this case, the range of its flight was greatly reduced. Everything changed when they started using shrapnel. We already know what it is, but let's take a closer look at the design itself.

Initially, such a projectile was a cylindrical box made of wood, cardboard or thin metal, inside of which steel balls and a powder charge were placed. Then it was inserted into a special holean ignition tube filled with slowly burning gunpowder, which was set on fire at the moment of the shot. Simply put, it was a primitive retarder fuse, and by adjusting the length of the tube, it was possible to calculate the height and range at which the projectile would break, and it would throw striking elements at the enemy. Thus, we have sorted out the question of what shrapnel means.

This type of shell proved to be effective very quickly. After all, now it was not necessary to hit anyone at all, the main thing was to calculate the length of the ignition tube and the distance, and there steel buckshots would do their job. The year of the invention of shrapnel is considered to be 1803.

Rifled guns

However, with all the effectiveness of defeating manpower with new types of projectiles, they were far from perfect. The length of the ignition tube must be calculated very accurately, as well as the distance to the enemy; they often misfired due to different composition of gunpowder or its defects, sometimes exploded prematurely or did not ignite at all.

Then in 1871, the artilleryman Shklarevich, on the basis of the general principle of shrapnel shells, made a new type of them - unitary and for rifled guns. Simply put, such a shrapnel-type artillery shell was connected to a powder seed by means of a cartridge case and loaded through the gun breech. In addition, inside it was a fuse of a new type, which did not misfire. And the special shape of the projectile threw spherical bullets strictly along the flight axis, and not in all directions, as before.

True, and this type of ammunition was not deprivedshortcomings. The main thing was that the burning time of the fuse could not be adjusted, which means that the artillery crew had to carry different types of it for different distances, which was very inconvenient.

Adjustable lift

This was fixed in 1873 with the invention of the demolition tube with a swivel adjusting ring. Its meaning was that divisions indicating the distance were applied to the ring. For example, if a projectile was required to be detonated at a distance of 300 meters, then the fuse was turned to the appropriate division with a special key. And this greatly facilitated the conduct of the battle, because the marks coincided with the notches in the artillery sight, and additional devices were not required to determine the range. And if necessary, by setting the projectile to a minimum detonation time, it was possible to shoot from a cannon like from a canister. There was also an explosion from hitting the ground or other obstacle. What shrapnel looks like can be seen in the photo below.

Use

Such shells were used from the very beginning of their invention until the end of the First World War. Despite their advantages over the old solid-cast shells, over time it turned out that shrapnel also had disadvantages. For example, its striking elements were powerless against enemy soldiers who took refuge in trenches, dugouts, and in general any shelters. And poorly trained gunners often set the wrong fuse timing, and shrapnel was an expensive type of projectile to manufacture. What is it, wedismantled.

Because after the First World War, shrapnel was completely replaced by fragmentation shells with a percussion fuse.

But in some types of weapons it was still used, for example, in the jumping German mine Sprengmine 35 - at the moment of activation, the expelling charge pushed a "glass" filled with spherical bullets to a height of about one and a half meters, and it exploded.