What kinds of shells are there from 18 to 19 century? What are their best uses?

With the arrival of the era of European navigation, artillery began to slowly enter the European field of vision. With the continuous progress of science and technology, technology, tactics and organizational structure, artillery plays a higher and higher role in the war. By the end of the18th century, people no longer regarded artillery as a plaything that only kings could afford. Artillery got rid of the role of guild in the Middle Ages, became more formal and professional, and played an increasingly important role in the war process. At that time, some people even used Napoleon as an excuse to declare: "God fights for the side with the best artillery."

Solid bomb

The most important shells in this period were solid shells made of cast iron. Among all kinds of shells, solid ammunition is the simplest to manufacture and has a good killing effect on most battlefield targets, including field fortifications, so it generally accounts for about 70% of the total number of shells carried by artillery. A solid iron ball weighing several kilograms is a terrible weapon to kill people. Artillery usually likes to shoot columns and phalanxes with solid bullets, or shoot horizontal teams from the side. If the incident angle and height are appropriate, a solid bullet can often knock down dozens of soldiers like bowling and flying needles. Russian artillery Radozsky described that "one soldier's head was cut off, another soldier's abdomen was torn, and the third soldier lost a leg", which is a normal scene after the ravages of solid ammunition.

For Malay, the power of solid bullets is equally terrible. The army of the kingdom of Sardinia once conducted a "live horse experiment", which herded retired old horses together to simulate human formation. 1 horse is equivalent to two people to calculate casualties and test the shooting effect of solid bullets. The tragic death of the horse once again proved the terrible power of solid bullets in dense queues.

The number of deaths calculated by live horse experiment

The French army, which is more "kind to animals", takes the depth of the board as the basis of personnel killing efficiency. According to penetrating 1 meter thick oak board is equivalent to penetrating 46 people, the result is equally shocking.

Jump and fly

At that time, using solid bullets to launch ricochet attack was one of artillery's favorite tactics. Generally speaking, when the ricochet is fired, the elevation angle of the artillery is relatively small, and the amount of explosive in fashion is less, so the ricochet is close when it just landed. However, on the dry and solid ground, the solid projectile with strong kinetic energy will fly up again, forming multiple jumps with low height, resulting in long-distance serial killing. Scharnhorst believes that ricochet shooting is suitable for grassland, sandy land and relatively flat farmland, while swamps, concave roads, ditches or uneven farmland are unfavorable terrain.

Bouquet is also powerful, even after three or four rebounds, it is fatal enough. Even a seemingly slow, "rolling like a cricket" solid bomb, its threat can not be underestimated. In the battle of Egypt at 180 1, a tailor of the 92nd Infantry Regiment of the British army noticed that a solid bullet of the French army was moving slowly. He casually put out his foot, tried to stop the iron ball, and finally lost a whole calf out of curiosity. In the Napoleonic wars, such tragedies can be described as endless.

grenade

Grenade is the main type of howitzer and mortar. It is actually a hollow iron ball filled with gunpowder. Because the bore pressure of the long barrel is too high, it is easy to cause the Grenade to rupture in advance. Usually only howitzers and short barrel mortars can be fired. The gunner needs to predict the flight time before shooting, determine the fuse length, then ignite the charge and ignite the fuse at the same time. The fragments produced by Grenade explosion have limited influence on solid targets, so they are mainly used to kill people or horses.

Derouau is in Vagram. In this campaign, the French army shelled the Austrian army with 102.

The ideal target of a Grenade is a platoon of troops in an open area. If the flight time is accurate, the Grenade will explode not far in front of the target head, and the killing effect is the most obvious. When the target is cavalry, grenades will not only cause considerable damage, but also scare horses. However, in actual operation, gunners often make mistakes when cutting the fuse. The Grenade may explode in the air, or it will not explode after landing, which will undoubtedly reduce the killing effect. There are many warriors who bravely put out the fuse of unexploded grenades in all countries. In addition, if some flammable substances and combustion-supporting substances such as turpentine, resin, animal fat, sulfur and nitrate are poured into the hollow iron ball, it can be made into incendiary bombs for arson. It is often used to attack strongholds in cities and villages, which can destroy houses and cause loss of people and property. When siege artillery is backward, incendiary bombs and solid bombs heated to red-hot state are a few field artillery bombs that can pose a serious threat to the city. They played an important role in Frederick's attack on Dresden and Napoleon's attack on Smolensk.

shell fragment

Shotgun is the last line of defense of most artillery, and its purpose is to kill enemy personnel near the artillery. Cannons and howitzers can both fire shotguns, but the latter is relatively weak. Generally, the outermost layer of a shotgun is a thin cylindrical tin can. The bottom of the tin can is made of iron, containing 20-200 rounds of bullets with a diameter of 10-50 mm. At the moment when the bullet leaves the gun bore, the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the gun is huge, and the shell of the tin can immediately breaks, and the bullets burst out, forming a round cake-shaped barrage in space. Obviously, such fire coverage will cause terrible losses to the enemy forces in dense formation at close range, but the structure of the shotgun also causes great damage to the gun bore when launching. Smola, a famous Austrian artillery officer, pointed out in the Handbook of Royal and Royal Austrian Artillery Officers that the brand-new 6-pound bronze cannon can bear 5,404 solid bullets, but only 208 shotgun bullets. /kloc-In the second half of the 8th century, many European countries replaced the original lead bullet with iron bullet, which had strong rebound ability and easily caused ricochet, effectively increasing the killing efficiency. Due to the different sizes of bullets, shotguns can be divided into two types: heavy shotguns and light shotguns: the former has fewer bullets and heavier weight, which can effectively kill at a long distance; The latter has more bullets and better short-distance effect, but its range is only two-thirds of the former.

The French army once tested the shooting effect of shotguns. Facing the goal of 35 meters (18 fathoms) long and 5.8 meters (18 fathoms) high, the light and heavy shotguns gave the following answers respectively:

Usually, when artillery also enters the effective range of enemy infantry, light shotgun can achieve the best killing effect. At very close range, gunmen often use double guns or one gun plus a solid bullet (the solid bullet is behind) to load. Although this will seriously reduce the service life of the gun bore, its killing effect will be greatly enhanced. In the Battle of Austerlitz, Thiebaud ignored the opposition of artillery officers, and used the method of loading grape-shot and solid ammunition, effectively killing the Austrian Jurcik Brigade.

At that time, tacticians generally believed that the diameter of the shotgun was about one tenth of its flying distance, and eventually a quadrilateral killing zone similar to an arch would be formed. Miller, an engineering officer of the King's German Army Corps, quoted other people's data in his Elements of War Science, pointing out that every time the Austrian shotgun flies 9 1 m (100 yards), its bullet dispersion diameter will increase by 6. 1 m (20 feet). After the British shotgun flies the same distance, the bullet diameter will increase by 9.7 meters (32 feet). As always, scharnhorst has provided conclusive test data ②: the diameter of shotgun bullets is 23 meters (75 pu) at 220 meters (300 pu) and 53 meters (170 pu) at 439 meters (600 pu). If the Lian Heng team with 120 people shoots with artillery at a distance of 150 meters, it can be found by simple calculation that the shotgun can almost completely cover it. However, the penetration of shotguns is far less than that of solid bullets, and the killing effect on columns is naturally slightly inferior.