Last week was the anniversary of the start
of Loos Offensive of World War I.
Notable for the death of Rudyard Kipling’s only son - one of the many
casualties on that field of battle, and the extensive use of shrapnel across
the Loos valley, particularly on crossroads and communications trenches to
prevent enemy movement. On a lighter
note, Kaiser Bill was also captured. Unfortunately, this was not Queen
Victoria's malignant, moustachioed, grandson Willy, but rather a forlorn German
army mule.
Hearing about the anniversary of Loos, renewed
an old interest in artillery.
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| A gun of B Btry, 65th AAA Bn,1958 |
When I was young, my fathers' first command
after OCS was a battery of 120mm anti-aircraft guns. The battery was just outside a Marine base, near Naha, on Okinawa. The 120's were the
penultimate development in anti-aircraft artillery, soon to be made obsolete by
missiles. The gun tube was about 24 feet long and capable of firing a shell at 3100 ft/sec to an altitude of 60,000
feet.
On firing, the guns report was a
deafening CRACK!!! that hurt the ears and sounded like a monstrous high
velocity rifle. The firing of the battery frequently shattered windows on the Marine base. On one occasion when Dad took me out to watch his battery fire,
he gave me the opportunity to fire a Quad-50 machine gun, two of which were
part of the battery.
Back to the shrapnel shell - The Germans
can rightfully claim invention and first use of the shrapnel shell. In the 17th century, they developed a
projectile called the Hagelkugel, or
"hail shell". It was a lead
cylinder with a fuse and bursting charge at one end, the other end was
sealed. Behind the bursting charge was
the "hail" - metal fragments, bullets, or pebbles. When loaded into
the cannon, the fused end of the projectile faced the cannons charge. On firing, the bursting charge of the Hagelkugel released the "hail"
at about 100 yards from the gun.
The Hagelkugel
was used during the 1641 siege of Gennep, in the Netherlands. Unfortunately for German bragging rights,
artillery was an art and early artllerists were extremely secretive. This caused the Hagelkugel to sink into obscurity, allowing an Englishman to claim
invention and have his name forever linked to the Shrapnel Shell.
Henry Shrapnel developed his version of the
Hagelkugel around 1784. Originally known
as “spherical iron cased shot,” it used a primitive wooden fuse - a wood plug
through which a gunpowder fuse ran. The
interior of the iron case was filled with black powder and lead balls. On bursting, the shrapnel was projected
across an area of about 150 yards. The advantage of the shrapnel shell over
grape or canister is that instead of being a short-range antipersonnel
projectile, it could be fired at longer distances as determined by the fuse and
bursting charge. 
It was first employed in 1804 against
settlers in Dutch Guiana, now Suriname. Officially adopted by the English in
1808, the Duke of Wellesley wrote that he considered it an important invention
and that it should be kept secret. Despite
being widely available to British gunners during the Napoleonic Wars, correct use
of the shrapnel shell was poorly understood and it was thought generally unreliable,
largely due to its quirky fuse and the risk of premature explosion.
While modern writers seem fond of stating
the Iron Duke thought it decisive at Waterloo, I find no credible evidence of
that and believe it apocryphal or politically
motivated since the government officially adopted the round. Accounts at the time describe it bursting
short amongst friendly troops, others described it as being indifferent or
ineffective. A Lt. Col. Frith of the
Madras Artillery wrote in 1818 that he had seen it fired into "large
bodies of horse, among whom they were seen to burst, but cannot call to mind a
single man killed by them." While there were battles, like the battle of
Vimiero where the English claimed shrapnel shells contributed to the victory,
reports from the receiving side were mixed ranging from their effect being terrible
to no worse than that of round shot.
Others said the effect varied from round to round. The truth probably lies in some middle ground.
Despite slow acceptance (according to books
of the early-mid 1800's,) Henry Shrapnel received a stipend for his invention
when it was officially adopted and the British government made Shrapnel Shell the official name of the
"spherical cased shot" projectile in 1854 after his family petitioned
for the name change to honor the inventor.
Improvements in the fuse, particularly by
Col. E.M. Boxer, and case design continued.
According to Bormann in "The Shrapnel Shell in England and in Belgium,"
1862, the most notable use of the shrapnel shell to date was during the Crimean
War on the last day of the siege of Sebastopol, 8 September 1855. Officers in a gun position manned by men of
the Royal Naval Brigade, decided to utilize shrapnel shells found in the
battery stores. Eyewitness accounts
reported these 8-inch shells "mowed down...whole lines of Russian troops
as they sprang to the breast works."
A mere 60 years passed from the siege of
Sebastopol to the start of the Loos offensive.
During this period much effort was put forth to improve the shrapnel
shell. Fuses were vastly improved. The
cases for shrapnel projectiles were designed, refined, redesigned and further
refined making the shrapnel delivery pattern increasingly effective.
While originally an anti-personnel weapon,
usage changed during the Great War. The shrapnel shell was found useful in
barrages for cutting barbed wire prior to assaults, and as an early
anti-aircraft shell. Shrapnel shells spurred the development and use of modern
helmets and aircraft armor.
Typically delivered by high velocity guns
like the British 18 pounder, the French 75mm, and the German 10cm, the shells
would give little notice of their arrival. There would be a quick "whizzzz"
followed by a sharp "bang!" The German slang for these rounds was
"Ratsch-bum," the Brits
called them "Whizz-bangs."
Fortunately, for my blog, someone around
the time of the War to End All Wars was kind enough to invent a cocktail named
for that high velocity shrapnel shell---the "Whizz Bang." Sadly,
since the winners write the histories, there is no Hagelkugel or Ratsch-bum to savor,
though the Germans paid homage indirectly to old Henry by creating a "Schrapnel-Aufschlag" or
"Shrapnel Charge." As the Hagelkugel predated the Shrapnel Shell, the
Schrapnel-Aufschlag predates the Whizz Bang by several years.
Unfortunately,
the Schrapnel-Aufschlag is not nearly
as good a drink as the Whizz Bang
and, like the Hagelkugel, condemned to oblivion.
