John Blackshoe Sends: Serendipity History - West Point and Shrapnel (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 covered a WW1 era artillery shell marked “WEST POINT, KY/ 1918” which lead to looking at connections with West Point, etc. Okay, that was enough about geography and names. Let’s get to the stuff that goes “BOOM!” The shell that initiated this quest is a “Shrapnel shell,” invented by Henry Shrapnel.

Shrapnel shell fired in flight at left, and bursting at right 

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The legacy of two famous artillerists intersect in this artifact from West Point, KY. Both achieved the rank of Major General, both were named Henry, and they really do look somewhat alike. I bet they would have engaged in some fascinating, if arcane, discussions on artillery matters had they ever met.

Major General Henry Shrapnel, Royal Artillery (1761-1842) 

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Major General Henry Knox, U.S. Army (1750-1806) 

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At any range a single round, solid cannon ball (or “shot”) was deadly, but unlikely to strike more than one or a few people. A hollow explosive “shell” fuzed to burst some distance from the cannon would break into maybe 5-10 pieces which increased potential casualties.

At very short ranges, cannons could fire grape shot (bunches of medium size iron balls) or canister (basically a large can filled with lead or iron balls or scrap metal chunks) effectively becoming a huge shotgun. But, ballistics limited the effective range of grape of canister to maybe 200 yards. There was a need for something more effective against groups of troops at ranges of many hundreds of yards.

Around 1804 British ordnance officer Henry Shrapnel designed what was later called “spherical case shot” where a 12 pounder (4.62” diameter) shell would include 78 lead or iron balls (about .50 caliber or ½ inch diameter) mixed with the explosive filling so that there would be dozens of fragments and balls churning up the an area many hundreds of yards from the gun when the shell was exploded by the fuze. But, Shrapnel’s newfangled idea was only reluctantly and slowly adopted for use.

It was a still a relatively new concept during the Napoleonic Wars. At Waterloo, one source (which Sarge may or may not agree with²) claims:

Indeed, there are many military students who are of the opinion that Shrapnel’s murderous creation went a long way to being one of the decisive factors at Waterloo. General Sir George Wood, Wellington’s artillery commander, went so far as to state, “Without Shrapnel’s shells, the recovery of the farmhouse at La Haye Sainte, a key position in the battle, would not have been possible.”¹

 

Spherical Case Shell and Shrapnel Shell

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When breech loading artillery came along, and increased use of elongated (bullet shaped) projectiles, Shrapnel’s concept evolved to what we see in the lower example above. Instead of a spherical burst in all directions. The elongated shells used a small charge behind a pusher plate at the back to blow all the balls out the front, pretty much like a shotgun being fired in the area of the target, with the shell body acting as the barrel, several hundred yards from the gun position. The nose fuze is blown off in the process, and a 4.7 inch shrapnel shell expels 711 balls, each the weight of a .45 auto bullet, to rake an area about a quarter of a football field.

U.S. 4.7 inch “Common” Explosive shell, Shrapnel Shell and 120 x 425mm rimmed cartridge case showing shell in place as a fixed round.

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Ignorance and time have morphed the very specific term “Shrapnel” into a generic name for any fragment from an explosive round, such as splinters, shards or fragments created by explosive shells, while Shrapnel should be reserved for the now rare shells which expel large numbers of spherical shrapnel balls.

The 4.7 inch guns, Model of 1906 were pretty modern (for the time), and could be horse drawn, or pulled by a small bulldozer type tractor. Typical of the single trail designs of the period, elevation was restricted to about -5 to +15 degrees, and only about 8 degrees left to right. Max range was about 8,700 yards with the 45 pound projectile. Only about 209 were completed before the end of WW1, and only about 64 were actually shipped to serve in France. 

So, this souvenir from Camp Zachary Taylor’s artillery range at West Point, KY, is a relatively uncommon artifact from WW1. Part of the fun of collecting or studying historical artifacts is the opportunity (or necessity) of learning their serendipitous history.

 

 

¹ Shrapnel use at Waterloo.

² OAFS: Yes, I'm throwing the challenge flag on that. The Prussian arrival and the repulse of the Imperial Guard had more to do with the recapture of La Haye Sainte than the Shrapnel round, as its French captors were forced to retreat with the rest of their army. Nice story but not really.