From: cowan@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu (P.L. Cowan)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: How were cannon balls constructed?
Date: 26 Jan 93 07:52:17 -0800
Organization: SSRL, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab
NNTP-Posting-Host: ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu

In article <51430006@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com>, tonyz@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com (Tony Zugates) writes:
> I'm not much into ordinance, and thought I might get a quick 
> answer here and save a trip to the library...
> 
> How were the civil war cannon balls constructed?  Were they just
> solid iron balls?  Were they filled with explosives and if they 
> were, how were they fused etc?  
> 
> I have seen lots of civil war movies showing cannon ball explosions
> but always wondered if they were just the result of impacting, or acutally
> contained explosives... 
> 
> Thanks, all.

Perhaps this has been answered privately by someone more knowlegible than I,
but I'll take a shot (no pun intended).

The CW-era artillery used a wide variety of projectiles. Perhaps the most 
familliar were the solid ball, which for obvious reasons are the most likely to
have survived the war to become displayed in piles in front city halls and
courthouses. As I understand it, solid shot was used primarily for
counter-battery fire. 

There also were "shells" which litterally were shells of iron filled with
explosive. The explosion was detonated by a lighted fuse. Shells were also 
used for long-range combat against either artillery (men and horses) or
infantry. I deduce that shells were most effective when detonated in the air
over their target, but to my mind this would require incredible precission in 
"cutting the fuse". One certainly reads accounts of shells bouncing and rolling 
accross the ground before exploding. This is probably why artillerist were
taught to "aim low". CSA shells were notoriously unreliable, with an effective
rate of about 30%. There has been some speculation as to wheather more Union
soldiers or more Confederates were killed with CSA shells. For this reason, it
was rare for the CSA to station batteries above and behind infantry, as did 
the Union (on LRT and Cemetery Ridge for example).

Cannister and double cannister were similar to shells except the outside shell
itself was much thinner and there were iron pellets mixed in with the
explosive. Cannister was used for close-range fighting, primarily against
infantry, and was apparently the most effective mode of killing ones enemy with
a cannon. Double loads of cannister were used against charges when the enemy
was within 100 yard or so.

The projectiles also came in a wide variety of shapes.

The museum at Gettysburg Battlefield has one of the best displays of CW-era
artillery ordinance. If you can't make it there, I recommend that you still
make your trip to the library for a more authoritve explanation.

-- 
Paul Cowan     
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