GDG- Arty Anti-personnel Effectiveness

[Richard M Kadas]

Bruce,
  A little research has located tests conducted by a man whose last name was Muller and by British Army Oednance on Napoleonic war smoothbore cannon. If assumptions that the propellant strength,  and consistency had remained constant then ther might be little variance between ACW Napoleons firing cannister and  Wellington Army 12 pounder field arty. firing similar rounds. My other key assumptions are that a cannister round is a thin walled metal container of a diameter consistint with the bore of the weapon firing it, mounted on a sabot., It is filled with a relatively consistent number of identical spherical lead or iton submunitions that are packed in an orderly manner in a sawdust matrix. Furthermore a cannister round is passive in that it does not contain any bursting charge. The firing of the cannon shreds the cannister container so that on exiting the cannon's mouth the submunitions, cannister container remains, and sabot emerge. My analogue is a modern shot gun. From
 data I've collected a cannister round's effective range lies between 300 and 600 yards dependent upon the upward angle of the cannon muzzle. Cannister was either fired directly or reflectively by aiming it to hit the ground some distance in front of its infantry target and have it skip upward ijnto them like a stone skipped across a pond.
  I like you have questions about dispersion of the shot. Do you think that battery fronts were scientifically derived by U.S. Army ordnance to give interlocking field of fire for a battery firing cannister. It is well known that arty batteries frequently had all their horses killed or wounded by opposing infantry. However, given the general absence of infantry target practice or training in marksmanship one might assume that this occurred more frequently in mixed terrain where trees and rocks were available to give infantry cover. In an open area Arty. firing cannister might have the advantage over untrained infantry firing a rifled musket at ranges of 200 -300 yards. If this logic is sound then over 50% of the casualties in the PPT assault may to have come from arty.
  Thanks for the head up re. The History Chanel testing ACW cannon against wooden soldiers. I think that I saw that one which was a while ago since I haven't had ble since 2003.
  DickBatrinque at aol.com wrote:
  Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:



In a message dated 11/26/06 11:21:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
cameron2 at optonline.net writes:

I would imagine that there were contemporary tests done of how cannister 
preformed when fired at various ranges from different types of weapons. 
Whether or how much of this data has survived, I have no idea.




I would think that there were such tests, but I have really seen no evidence 
of results. Even the results of small arms tests are hard enough to come by.


Bruce Trinque
Amston, CT
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