cannon ball ID

[adrian]

Would a small sphere such as mine more likely be a grenade or a very small mortar shell? Did they make them this small??

The smallest mortar in British service was the Coehorn at 4 2/5 " bore.

However that does not help differentiate between a shell or grenade, a 4pr cannon could fire a shell, as could a 3 pr etc. I would suggest that shells were often used as grenades - hence the British (apologies to the rest of Europe etc for using them as an example all the time) had 3pr grenades (same dia as a 3pr common shell) & 6pr grenades (same dia as 6pr common shell) & eventually grenades were purpose made. Just as solid shot were used for the sport of shot putting, eventually shot puts were purpose made.
(but sometimes still found on e-bay being sold as antique cannon balls....)

In summary, its quite likely that what you have could be both, unless you know its country of origin & investigate their cannon calibres which might narrow that probability down if it is not of a cannon caliber.

[M ELEY]

Thanks for the great information, Adrian! I was unaware of the different sizes in land use vs naval use grenades. Your point about diferent countries and diferent ordnances matches what I was mentioning and, if nothing more, makes the point that other sizes existed elsewhere. I had thought about the grenade/mortar shell being used for the same purposes and it was nice to have some clarity that they could have been interchangable in earlier times. Thanks again for that reference!

[fernando]

Great info, Adrian,
Glad to have such material posted here, this time by someone extremely well within the matter.
British standards are quite well for me, for one as, during this period, Portuguese artillery material was much inspired or even provided by Britain.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

... I had thought about the grenade/mortar shell being used for the same purposes and it was nice to have some clarity that they could have been interchangable in earlier times...

Yes, it looks like the distinction between mortars and howitzers is the difference of their trajectory capability rather than the projectiles they used. The same way that cannons could use grenades, as mentioned by Adrian, also howitzers could throw both grenades and shrapnel cases ... and mortars could throw grenades, hot shot, ilumination rounds.

[fernando]

I hope you don't mind the hijacking to your thread, Richmond .

I would say that, one reason for this period grenade fuze holes being larger than others was the need for some to be wide enough to introduce shrapnel, namely (lead) bullets ... resuming that thin holes were to fit simple matchcord and respective grenades to be filled with only gunpowder.

The British introduced the shrapnel grenade in Portugal during the Peninsular War, an invention soon adopted by Portuguese. Apparently Wellington had some doubts about the efficiency of such grenades, on grounds that their projectiles impeled by the bomb explosion didn't have enough velocity to penetrate and kill victims, only injuring them. But he appreciated the use of such shrapnel in heavy cannonry (24 pounder), with visible results in Badajoz.

.

[adrian]

I have not heard of shrapnel grenades, however there were of course shrapnel shells as invented by Henry Shrapnel. His shells were called Spherical Case Shot until some years after Shrapnel's death when his family petitioned successfully to have the shell officially renamed as Shrapnel shell, in about circa 1850. They were fired from guns (cannons) & howitzers & were designed to burst just above & ahead of the target, usually massed foot or horse troops. The velocity of the shell was given to the bullets within that shell, the bursting charge therefore needed to be as small as possible, just enough to crack open the shell at the right moment in flight & not enough to scatter the balls which would open up their pattern & lessen their effect. Much experimentation was done in the 1850s to perfect the charge size & its placement for best results.

I do not believe that shrapnel shells were used as grenades as they would not have been explosive enough & grenades worked best with fragmentation of their outer layer. The museum photo would more correctly be described by the British as a "Spherical Case Shot" or "Shrapnel Shell".
Also the Shrapnel Sac shown would be known is a "Grapeshot", and nowadays we call this type a quilted grapeshot.

[fernando]

Besides the poor grade of my empirical translations, very often terms are not strictly translatable to the letter.
In portuguese the term 'shell' doesn't apply to the ammunition universe. We either have 'grenade' or 'bomb' for what this issue matters.
Also the attribution of 'sac', admittedly not being the primary term in artillery lexicon, has its origin in the fact that grapeshot was indeed wrapped in a canvas sac, tightened with string to apply solidity to its contents.
Eventually ammunitions involved in this issue have have somehow different names in portuguese, which creates some difficulty in shifting them to english; grapeshot is called 'bunch' (like for grape bunch) and caseshot is called 'lanterneta' (from lantern).
What i infer from Welington's words is that he preferred (sacs of) musket bullets (sic) being shot directly by cannons than shrapnel being bursted by howitzer, call it shells/grenades/bombs.

.

[fernando]

Extract of an original list of war material and diverse equipment that was shipped in "English transport Nr. 533", with destination to the brigades of mobile artillery in campaign (Peninsular war).
We can see 5 1/2 inches howitzer ammo called grenades and caseshot called lanternetas.

.