GDG- Arty Anti-personnel Effectiveness

[Richard M Kadas]

Jim,
  Recognizing that statistics is a study of averages makes your argument even stronger. Can we agree that arty casualties ranged between 0 and 40 percent with the higher end of the range occurrung on fields like Malvern Hill, GB, and Antietam where the open nature of the terrain favored the big guns. It was my understabding that standars U.S. cannister rounds were loaded with spherical iron or lead submunitions averaging 1.5 inches in diameter. This gives them about three times the cross sectional area of a rifled musket slug. Don't you think this might cause a bit more wound damage and be pretty obvious to a combat surgeon that it was not caused by a rifle slug?  Guess that I'm still a little leary of the claimed effectiveness of the rifled musket in the hands of generally untrained marksmen. The analogy I use is that I hunted deer effectively in the Ozarks from age ten using a .44 calibre Marlin magnum saddle carbine. It was a great gun for hunting in heavy brush. Its
 round went to ground in under 200 yasrds so I didn't have to worry about killing someone in the next county if I happened to miss.  I was far more effective when I used the piece hunting deer than when I hunted woodchucks. At 100 yards a chuck is a mighty small target using iron sights. IMHO hitting a chuck at 100 yards with a standard commercial .44 magnum round is equivalent to hitting a man at 200 yards using an 1861 model .58 caliber Springfield rifled musket.
  Dick
   
   
   
   
   
   
  i

James Cameron <cameron2 at optonline.net> wrote:
  Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:


<< Jim,
Perhaps we can infer PPT assault casualty mix from U.S. Army data on all 
surgical cases admitted to hospitals 1861-65. Of over 400K cases 58% were 
from gunshot wounds. Of these cases over 80% were to the extremities. It is 
also reported that less than 2% were from edged weapons. Did arty cause the 
missing 40% of all casualties. The reason that 80% of those who made it to 
hospital were extremity wounds is that wounds to the head, thorax, and 
abdomen are more likely to be fatal. Considering that arty is more likely to 
cause massive trauma which makes hospitalization irrelevant. Thus it really 
could have been responsible for the missing 40%. would the big gun fans be 
satisfied with being credited with causing roughly 2/3s as many casualties 
as from gunshot. I'm still trying to find a copy of "Medical and Surgical 
History of the War of the Rebellion (1861-65) that was . printed in 1870 by 
the GPO. It probably has the best data on the effectiveness of ACW arty.
Dick >>

It probably is possible to make a fairly good estimate of percentage 
casualties inflicted by various weapons. And the circumstances of the 
Charge were such that casualties due to artillery fire were almost certainly 
very high. OTOH, artillery fire doesn't necessarily cause massive trauma. 
A cannister ball, or one of the musket balls used in case shot, would 
inflict a wound which might be difficult or impossible to tell from one 
caused by infantry musket fire. 40% of all casualties being caused by 
artillery for the war as a whole seems too high.

Jim Cameron


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