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Russian 122 mm shrapnel shell. A new British streamlined shrapnel shell, Mk 3D, had been developed for BL 60 pounder gun in the early 1930s, containing 760 bullets. There was some use of shrapnel by the British in the campaigns in East and North East Africa at the beginning of the war, where 18-pdr and 4.5-in (114 mm) howitzers were used.
Up to and including the Battle of the Somme in 1916, British forces relied on shrapnel shells fired by 18-pounder field guns and spherical high-explosive bombs fired by 2-inch "plum-pudding" mortars for cutting barbed-wire defences. The disadvantage of shrapnel for this purpose was that it relied on extreme accuracy on setting the fuze timing ...
When the war began, British field guns (13-pounder and 18-pounder) were equipped solely with shrapnel shells, with an approximate 3:1 ratio of field guns to field howitzers (5-inch and 4.5-inch). The 18-pounder shrapnel shell contained 374 small spherical bullets. A time fuze was set to initiate the shell in the air in front of the target. This ...
Sometime after 1878, "attached gas-checks" were fitted to the bases of the studded shells, reducing wear on the guns and improving their range and accuracy. Subsequently, "automatic gas-checks" were developed which could rotate shells, allowing the deployment of a new range of studless ammunition. Thus, any particular gun potentially operated ...
Typical World War I shrapnel round: 1 shell bursting charge 2 bullets 3 nose fuze 4 central ignition tube 5 resin matrix 6 thin steel shell wall 7 cartridge case 8 propellant. Shrapnel shells are an anti-personnel munition which delivered large numbers of bullets at ranges far greater than rifles or machine guns could attain – up to 6,500 ...
Henry Shrapnel was born at Midway Manor in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, England, the ninth child of Zachariah Shrapnel and his wife Lydia. [1]In 1784, while a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, he perfected, with his own resources, an invention of what he called "spherical case" ammunition: a hollow cannonball filled with lead shot that burst in mid-air.
However, its HE content was less than 2/3 that of the various 60 lb shells and it was some 3-inches shorter. [13] Shrapnel was also varied with bullet weights ranging from 35 to 41 bullets/pound and total loads varying from 616 (Mk ID) to 992 (Mk I) bullets. [13] Chemical shells were used with 60 pounder but not smoke or incendiary.
In World War I gunpowder was still in wide British use : in shrapnel shells as a burster to propel the bullets out of the case; in "igniter pads" at the ends of cordite cartridges to facilitate ignition; as the delay mechanism in time fuzes for artillery; in vent tubes for firing guns. British gunpowder designations were : [17]