shrapnel v wire?

[nick ward408]

Hi chaps,

Yesterday I gave a presentation at Royal Armoured Corp in Bovington about the battle of Boars Head (30.6.16) in the war diaries it states that one of the biggest reasons of failure for the Royal Sussex that day was the fact the German wire remained pretty much intact despite a three hour artillery barrage.

I stated that shrapnel had little or no effect against barbed wire and that only HE would be effective to cut and move the wire.

I was told I was wrong and that shrapnel had been effective in 1915, anybody have any documentary evidence to support this theory?

cheers

Nick

[59165]

Nick.

I saw a dvd ages ago relating to the failure of Shrapnel against wire in the lead up to several battles.

The doc.makers got a bod from the R.A.to suspend a full 18 pounder shell at the angle of descent & set it off against wire to no result at all.

It's lead versus steel,at the end of the day.H.E.would be the best of the 2 by far,

Dave.

[Joris Ryckeboer]

Some links from my favorites, from the world-wide-web: So this means; as many opinions as writers...

- http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-on-land/73-weapons-equipment-uniforms/638-shrapnel-western-front.html

- http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/shrapnel.htm

- http://wapedia.mobi/en/Shrapnel_shell

and:

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Barbed_Wire/Barbed_Wire_02.htm

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Shrapnel-Shell.html

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46189

[JimSmithson]

It is very clear from accounts form April 1917 that there could be a great variety of success in cutting wire. I am only just beginnig to analyse the sources but the common 2 themes are

i) the availablity of Fuse 106

ii) range

Although the new fuse, allowing HE to be used to destroy wire, was avialable it is becoming evident that it was not in sufficient numbers for all units. The difference between the destruction of the wire on 9th April 1917 in front of 14th and 3rd Divisions is in marked contrast to that in front of 30th and 21st Divisions. There are a number of comments in 30th division of the problems of range for wirte cutting. The infrence here is that they did not have fuse 106 and were using shrapnel. The 18 pounders were then at a range where the angle would have been too steep and thus ineffective.

In the TV documentary they had set up the shrapnel shell with a fairly steep trajectory - thus it failed. It would have been interesting to see the effect with various trajectories.

Jim

[truthergw]

I have seen reports of wire being cut fairly successfully by shrapnel. In the first year or so of the war, there was not much else. I did wonder because it is hard to imagine a shower of lead bullets cutting stranded wire. I thought, without a shred of evidence, if the success was achieved against the supports. Could it be that early wire was mainly on wooden posts and ' knife edges' etc. I could envisage an intense shrapnel bombardment shattering wooden fence posts and leaving the wire lying on the ground where it could be stepped over or crossed with care. Steel posts, pigtails etc, would put an end to that, of course.

[JimSmithson]

Tom

You are very possibly right with the early cases. Also ranges tended to be less as batteries were often forward with the leading troops, some of the firing at Neuve Chapelle being reportedly over open sights. This would have meant the shrapnel hitting the wire (and supporting posts) almost horizontally with the sweeping effect often quoted.

Jim

[Andrew Upton]

Doing a history report on the Somme nine years ago, I saw a quote that said shrapnel was effective in cutting barbed wire if "correctly timed and fused" - kind of relies on a lot of perfection that wouldn't be easy to do under war-time conditions, but was possible.

[apple]

I'm not really much of an expert on this, so you take my response with a grain of salt. Also, I'm sure someone who really knows what they are talking about will reply soon enough. But, from my limited understanding, I understand shrapnel from 18pdrs, as well as, bombs from "Toffee Apple" mortars were, right till the end of the war, the main British weapons used against barbed wire.

The Howitzers and super heavy guns were meant to destroy the trenches, dugouts, and bunkers. While the shrapnel, from my understanding, was targeted at the barbed wire entanglements. The early war ineffectiveness of the 18pdrs was due, as far as I know, to the fuses going off too soon, while the shell was too far from target and the shrapnel balls coming down widely scattered and with little velocity. As gunnery skills improved and better fuses were used, later in the war, the shells were detonating much nearer the target and had a much better effect on the entanglements.

As a corroborating fact, to support my shrapnel trumps wire case, I could point to the fact that shrapnel shells were still the most produced and used (I think???) type of 18pdr ammunition at the end of the war, even though by late 1914 it was clear they weren't effective against dug in troops

[bruce]

Just to throw a spanner in the works......

If the British wanted to find out if shrapnel could cut wire, then they would have carried out tests, probably in Britain. They would thus have tested the schrapnel on British wire.

Was German wire of the same size as British?

Could it be that German wire was a bit thicker, so that British shrapnel didn't cut it?

Just a thought......

Bruce

[squirrel]

Bruce, spot on IIRC. There were some tests done in November 1915 at Calais by 72 Bty RFA using timed shrapnel, HE impact and HE delay. Range was crucial - max effective range using shrapnel was 2700 yards and shrapnel had no effect at all at 3000 yards or over. The tests were done using British wire but the German wire was thicker and heavier.Using shrapnel for wire cutting was only effective if the gunners were trained and experienced.

June 1916 Arty notes state that the 2" mortar with the Newton fuse was best for wire cutting but this front line weapon was vulnerable to retaliatory fire. 18 pdr using shrapnel was most effective between 1800 and 2400 yeads but best with FOO's correcting. Maintenance, overhaul and calibration of guns was vital. Shell bursting 4 feet from the ground at front of wire was best. Error of 5 yards was completely ineffective.

Using HE cratered the ground as well as cutting the wire which made it difficult to cross.

The introduction of the 106 fuze (graze) meant that HE could be used for wire cutting without cratering by 18 pdr's and 4.5" howitzers..

[truthergw]

Throughout the war, there are well authenticated accounts of wire being well cut in places and also of being not cut at all in other places. This suggests to me that at any stage of the war, wire could be cut, so the method could be effective. The variation suggests to me two possible causes. Bad gunnery or bad ammunition. I cannot see a particular gun being supplied during the days of a wire cutting exercise with all bad ammunition. That suggests bad application of the recommended method. I believe HE with a graze fuze was employed to cut wire and I also believe the graze fuze was introduced for cutting wire and to reduce cratering while doing so. What proportions of shell were used, I have no idea. I have seen pictures of very deep belts of wire, at the Hindenburg Line for instance, and I doubt if cutting these was possible. I suspect they would have to have a path blasted through them.

[nigelfe]

We've been around this buoy several times. 18-pr shrapnel was the preferred method of wire cutting throughout the war, as has already been said trials were conducted. HE was used to clear away yhre cut wire debris. The relevant GHQ Arty Note, which I've quoted before gave the numbers needed, 7 rds per yard of wire frontage IIRC.

The problem was to be effective the angle of descent had to be just right to maximise the number of bullets in the shrapnel cone going through the wire and hence increasing the probability of cutting it. Get your torch, put the light out and play around with the height above the floor and the angle of the torch beam centre relative to the floor, you'll get the idea. Since 18-pr only had a single charge this angle of descent manisfested as a range bracket.

Prolonged firing by a gun at the same aiming data does lead to the mpi drifting a bit, hence the need for it to be observed and adjusted as necessary (changing conditions and variations between ammo lots are probably the main causes). It has very little to do with the training of the detachments, as long as the layers do their job and don't lay on a running bubble (not allowed) without the skill to get away with it!

Trials with HE against wire and minefields were conducted in WW2. It didn't work then either.

[Robert Dunlop]

There is a very detailed account of the effectiveness of shrapnel for wire-cutting here, based on the observations made just after July 1st 1916.

Robert

[John B]

Hi chaps,

Yesterday I gave a presentation at Royal Armoured Corp in Bovington about the battle of Boars Head (30.6.16) in the war diaries it states that one of the biggest reasons of failure for the Royal Sussex that day was the fact the German wire remained pretty much intact despite a three hour artillery barrage.

I stated that shrapnel had little or no effect against barbed wire and that only HE would be effective to cut and move the wire.

I was told I was wrong and that shrapnel had been effective in 1915, anybody have any documentary evidence to support this theory?

cheers

Nick

Hi Nick,

I have just come across your post, some what belatedly.

I'm also interested in the Boar's Head.

Would you care to drop me an e-mail?

john@royalsussex.org.uk

[nick ward408]

thanks people,

some very interesting replies, it seems to me perhaps that shrapnel could do the job but dependent on a lot of important factors?

I read that at Neuve Chappelle they had fifteen batteries firing over open sites which would have made spotting the fall of shot easier and more effective? not to mention the amount of rounds fired?

At Boars Head they only had a three hour bombardment.

Any Arty boys who may have a war diary of how many guns and how many rounds were fired on the 29.06.16 at Boars Head may clear up the mystery of why the Southdowns received such a mauling that morning when so many lost their lives through lack of breaks in the wire.

Thanks for all the great replies

Nick

[Robert Dunlop]

Neuve Chapelle was different. The wire was much less thick. This was partly due to the close proximity of the opposing trench lines. There was little room to deploy vast thick belts of wire. The wire defences were relatively sparse in any case, compared to later in the war. One of the lessons of Neuve Chapelle was the importance of improving wire defenses.

Robert

[nigelfe]

The whole matter of British attack fire plans in WW1 is widely not understood and there are various popular misconceptions. In part this is because artillerytactics evolved throughout the war, to a significant extent due the technology dependent techniques evolving. This technology enablement is not well understood by supposedly professional historians and I suggest wasn't well understood by the average infantry officer at the time, never mind Pte Atkins (that's today's gross understatement).

For example the notion that massed heavy guns pummelled the German forward defences for days on end. In reality arty comds had worked out by late 1915 that this wasn't a war winner, hence the move to neutralisation and the covering fire barrage.

7 rds shrapnel per metre of wire front didn't actually take too long, relativey speaking, bearing in mind that there could be an 18-pr for every 30 yards or less.

Shrapnel for wire cutting could be used beyond the ideal range bracket, but the angle descent would have been steeper so the shrapnel cone would be more downwards and hence less bullets maximising their time amongst the wire.

18-prs firing over open sights in the forward area, is not a good idea. It was one of the lessons of Le Cateau. More to the point there would have been a lot of smoke and dust in prolonged firing which would not have assisted the layers to see their targets. Not forgetting that direct fire means each gun needs an easily recognisable aimpoint and for wire cutting they need to be evenly spread.

[SiegeGunner]

One would have thought that the issue of cutting/clearing wire was the sort of problem that would have been given to a special R & D unit to investigate and to explore solutions, but in fact the problem appears to have been tackled throughout the war with conventional shrapnel shells originally designed as anti-personnel weapons. Leaving aside alternative mechanical means of clearing wire (tanks, grapnel systems, etc), I wonder whether ordinary shrapnel shells continued to be used because they worked tolerably well most of the time and were readily available, or because they had been determined by experimentation to be superior to shells packed with projectiles of another shape, theoretically better adapted to cutting wire. It just seems to be the sort of problem that you would expect a Brock or Percy Hobart to get their teeth into and come up with a special 'wire-cutting shell'. In other words, was shrapnel simply the best compromise or was it emphatically the best solution available within the technology of the day.

I wonder also how shrapnel performed against the 'armoured' wire introduced by the Germans later in the war.

[JimSmithson]

Nigel

In 30th Divisional planning for April 9th 1917 it states; " It [divisional artillery] cannot, from where it is of necessity emplaced, cut the German wire. The wire-cutting therefore falls to the heavy artillery." I have not yet managed to get hold of the material outlining what the heavies used etc. but whatever it was, it failed. I do not think they had any quantities of fuse 106 and if they used shrapnel is it not a given that being heavy artillery the angle of shell would have been steep and therefore ineffectual? You are far more expert in this than me!

Jim

[Robert Dunlop]

... given to a special R & D unit to investigate and to explore solutions...

Mick, there were examples of R&D work, though not by 'special' units. When HE first became available to 18 pounders, for example, there were trials to see the effects on wire and parapets. Post-action reviews were very common too. AARs often deal with the effectiveness (or not) of wire-cutting.

Robert

[SiegeGunner]

I was thinking, for example, of the work done by Brock on smokescreen generation and on incendiary bullets for use against airships and tethered balloons. Researching and developing a special wire-cutting shell just seemed an obvious topic for similar attention. Perhaps shrapnel used under the right conditions was already so effective that the work went into optimising the conditions of use rather than into the development of alternatives.

[nigelfe]

As previously pointed out wire cutting trials were undertaken on a beach near Calais.

The problems with HE for wirecutting were, and they interact with each other:

1. The zone (dispersion) of the fall of shot. This meant that unless te wire belt was really very wide a lot of shells would impact outside it, even if the mpi was dead centre in the wire (highly unlikely).

2. The fragment pattern (footprint if you want), this is dictated mainly by the angle of descent, for flat angles the pattern is like butterfly wings out to the side of the burst, but also a bit forward because there's a vector sum of the terminal velocity of the shell and the velocity imparted to the fragments by the HE detonating and bursting the shell. For steeper angles of descent there are more fragments going forwards. There's more about all this on my web site.

3. The number of fragments. I've never looked for WW1 data on this and don't know if it exists. The factors are the power of the HE and the proportion (weight wise) between metal and HE. The impression I have is that WW1 shells had relatively a lot of metal (best modern design are 25% HE, WW2 designs 15% (but UK mostly about 9%), so WW1 maybe 5%?, and the HE detonation speed of amatol was middling by modern standards. This means a slower shockwave front and bigger fragments, bigger fragments means less of them, which means less wirecutters.

4. Add to all this, imapact fuzes always cause a crater on anything other than solid rock, its just a matter of the depth, influenced by the ground resistance, speed of fze function and terminal velocity. Close to 50% of fragments always go into the ground anyway, and another large proportion go upwards and fall under gravity. Not forgetting that wire wasn't very high, (6ft max?). All this further reduces the number of fragments available for usefull work.

Blast won't damage properly laid wire (ie tethered to pickets). My guess is that there were more shrapnel bullets doing work that frags from HE.

[David_Underdown]

Just stumbled across http://www.hellfire-corner.demon.co.uk/fuse.htm which makes interesting reading in light of this thread.

[nick ward408]

Just stumbled across http://www.hellfire-....co.uk/fuse.htm which makes interesting reading in light of this thread.

Holmes? I think you may have solved the problem!!

At Boars Head I am sure there were no TM's! I am sure I have read that the division had none of these weapons at Richebourg only divisional arty(if they did no mention in diaries).

I thank you all for shedding light on a long forgotten battle and why in the ' post mortem' of Southdown diaries, it stated that a major reason for failure,being, the wire remaining intact with little or no entry to the enemy lines.

so many variables on the day? you have shed a great deal of light with all your comments and expertise, but the above reply is very, very interesting.

many thanks

Nick

[nigelfe]

A very interesting article, doing an ATO job a short distance from the the German trenches would need very cool nerves.

The advantages of these muntions were firstly that their shape meant that the fragments went in all dirctions, although about half went into the ground. Second, I suspect the munition was relatively thin-walled (because the firing stresses were far less than those of a gun - much lower velocity and no spinning) so there was a good proportion of HE in the metal/explosive ratio.