 |
| Confederate ammunition — solid shot and a charge of grape This view of the Confederate works at Yorktown, in 1862, shows an 11-incl Dahlgren smooth-bore naval gun. Several of these were taken from the Norfolk Navy-Yard. On the ground is a solid shot and a charge of grape. Grape-shot consisted of a number of small projectiles secured together by a series of iron plates containing holes in which the shot is held. In addition to the common cast-iron shells not intended to pierce iron, forged steel shells were used. In the days of smooth-bore guns, bar shot, chain shot, grape-shot, hot shot, shrapnel and canister were in use. Shrapnel are shaped like shell, but have thinner walls and are filled with lead or iron balls. A small bursting-charge breaks up the case in the air and the balls scatter like shot from a shotgun. In canister the balls, larger than those in shrapnel, are sunk in soft wood disks piled up to form a cylinder and the whole covered with a tin case; or, in small calibers, the balls are simply pushed in sawdust and enclosed in a cylindrical tin case. Grape, shrapnel and canister were all three known as case-shot. |
This text is part of:
[177]
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.