Shrapnel

[nigelfe]

Early shrapnel shells may well have fragmented. By the 20th Century they did not. In WW1 I think you'll find that shrapnel carrier shell bodies were made of higher quality shell than HE ones.

One of the reasons that shrapnel was used for covering fire (ie in the Barrage), was that they could be set to function over (or just in front of) the assaulting troops projecting both their bullets (correct name for 'sharpnel balls') and the fuze and carrier shell forwards. If the carrier shell bodies were fragmenting this wouldn't have been too popular.

"The buffer controls the rearward movement of the recoiling parts and in modern equipment is invariably hydraulic"

"The reuperator is the mechanism that stores sufficient energy to return the recoiled parts to their original firing position and holds them there until the next round is fired." (MP Manson: Guns, Mortars & Rockets, Brassey's, 1997)

[auchonvillerssomme]

Unless of course the 'bullet' was steel, such as in the navy 12inch (Heavy) BL Mark1, then it was referred to as a ball.

As an aside The Treatise of Ammunition corrected to 1877 refers to them as 'balls'

[Tony Ring]

I have read accounts of soldiers heads being taken clean off by flying shrapnel / fragments and sitting here holding the piece that I have, I can see why. The edges are razor sharp !!!!. I presume shrapnel "balls" would just punch a hole through you.

Both unpleasant ways to meet your maker.

I remember reading some of my late fathers letters from when he was shipped home from Eqypt in 1944 after being wounded several times. The fragments in his body from an exploding German 88 shell were identified on his medical notes as multiple pieces of shrapnel. Some were removed - and later lost by me when I was a kid and other remained as too difficult to get at.

Tony