Cannon Balls

[pwl44m]

Were Cannon Balls explosive and if so , how were they detonated ? I'm thinking with all the knowledge on this forum someone knows. Heck the way some talk, They might have been there.
What sparked my interest was a recent article in the local Rag that a " pair of Civil War-era cannon balls on display at a Georgia College " were destroyed after officials realized they were live. I know they blow up in movies but is that the case in real life.
As an army buddy use to say " dont call Me stupid, call Me ignorrant - it sounds better "

[rjohns94]

They were fuzed. explosion was not always assurred.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g ... n19125098/

[adirondakjack]

Some were, some were not. The explosive type were a hollow iron ball filled with explosive and some type of fuze (lot of types, varying in effectiveness). Thre were also incindiary shells and shells meant to light up the night. Some were just balls meant to punch holes in stuff. None were anything ya wanted anything to do with, and dealing with cannon was a deadly business from either side. They were both nasty weapons which often killed folks in loading accidents as well as being "high value targets".

FWIW, just fer giggles, I made up some exploding rounds for (about 12 gauge) miniature brass cannon. Took a piece of wooden dowel almost bore size and 1 1/2 calibers long, bored it out to form a "cup", made a wooden plug for the open end, drilled the closed end for a fuse, inserted firecracker fuse there, an inch or so of the fuse sticking out the base end of the shell, filled shell with FFG black powder, then glued the top end cap in place. When loaded using a greased paper gasket just around the outside, the fuse at the base end of the "shell" touching the main charge, they worked. Fire the cannon, the shell went maybe 50-75 yards downrange then "pop" in the air. Much fun

[Chas.]

Cannon ball

[Ben_Rumson]

There was something about C W cannon fuses on TV not to long ago that was pretty interesting to me... It was how Confederate fuses changed during the war and how the change affected a famous battle.. It was because another armory had started making the fuses to help supplant the need for more fuses or that an Amory had been lost and a new supplier was used.....Anyway the upshot was that new supply of fuses burned longer than the ones the gunners were used to and exploded the cannon balls too far in back of the target.. This was determined by archeological survey a couple few years ago.

[C. Cash]

As I understand it, the ones with the fuzes/charged balls sometimes went off way too early......in the cannon, killing or injuring the crew, or even as they were passing over the heads of one's own troops, on their way to the enemy. I remember reading that, and have seen a cannon or two in photos where the ball has gone off in the bore.

[AJMD429]

I remember as a kid messing around with something I think they sold as "underwater cannon fuse", and we used it for all sorts of backyard nonsense, some of which was even safe and sensible (like lighting a brush-pile with a 'starter' soup-can of gasoline we'd placed on a flat board then piled the too-wet-to-easily-burn brush on top of it, by using a long bit of fuse, vs. just creeping close and 'tossing' lit matches into the pile until one happened to ignite the gasoline).

Can you still buy that kind of fuse, or is it somehow deemed too 'evil' to sell to John Q. Citizen anymore...?

(...meanwhile of course the terrorists come after us with plastic explosives, LAWS rockets, and so on, but I guess banning cannon fuse will somehow stop them... )

[Mac in Mo]

Doc,

I have seen a table at a local gun show that had a variety of different fuse, as well as a bunch of other stuff that I assumed was for fireworks. I also seem to remember seeing fuse available from Cheaper Than Dirt or one of those types of catalogs.

Kevin

[Bullard4075]

Cannon fuse is in a number of our local sporting goods stores. $5.95 for 20 ft IIRC.

[Cruise]

From my Field Artillery days:

Field Artillery is the "King of Battle"

Infantry is the "Queen of Battle"

Why?

The "King" puts the balls where the "Queen" wants them!!!!

[Old Ironsights]

From my Field Artillery days:

Field Artillery is the "King of Battle"

Infantry is the "Queen of Battle"

Why?

The "King" puts the balls where the "Queen" wants them!!!!

Beat me to it dangit...

[adirondakjack]

I remember as a kid messing around with something I think they sold as "underwater cannon fuse", and we used it for all sorts of backyard nonsense, some of which was even safe and sensible (like lighting a brush-pile with a 'starter' soup-can of gasoline we'd placed on a flat board then piled the too-wet-to-easily-burn brush on top of it, by using a long bit of fuse, vs. just creeping close and 'tossing' lit matches into the pile until one happened to ignite the gasoline).

Can you still buy that kind of fuse, or is it somehow deemed too 'evil' to sell to John Q. Citizen anymore...?

(...meanwhile of course the terrorists come after us with plastic explosives, LAWS rockets, and so on, but I guess banning cannon fuse will somehow stop them... )

All common cannon fuse (same as cherry bomb or M-80 fuse) is waterproof (will continue to burn underwater). Even in PRNY we can buy cannon fuse in 20 ft hanks or 25 yard rolls.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I got my last fuse from Dixie Gun Works. That has been a few years ago though.

[BAGTIC]

I believe most explosive cannonballs were used in mortars for high angle fire. Most 'cannon' balls were solid and were fired at low angles of elevation where they could 'skip' like a stone skips on water. This made if posible for one ball to pass through multiple ranks of infantry and cavalry.

[Ysabel Kid]

I remember as a kid messing around with something I think they sold as "underwater cannon fuse", and we used it for all sorts of backyard nonsense, some of which was even safe and sensible (like lighting a brush-pile with a 'starter' soup-can of gasoline we'd placed on a flat board then piled the too-wet-to-easily-burn brush on top of it, by using a long bit of fuse, vs. just creeping close and 'tossing' lit matches into the pile until one happened to ignite the gasoline).

Can you still buy that kind of fuse, or is it somehow deemed too 'evil' to sell to John Q. Citizen anymore...?

(...meanwhile of course the terrorists come after us with plastic explosives, LAWS rockets, and so on, but I guess banning cannon fuse will somehow stop them... )

As noted, "yes" you can still buy this. Cannon fuse is sold by burn rate, IIRC. Measured in feet per minute, I believe. Most of the stuff I've seen is green in color - maybe it will even appeal to the enviro-nuts!

I agree with your sensible example - we did much the same when I was growing up.

So, can you give us an example of a "non-sensible" episode?

[Ray Newman]

For information on US Civil War artillery fuses:

http://civilwarartillery.com/

As an artillerist said: "Artillery adds elegance to what otherwise would be a vulgar brawl."

[pwl44m]

@ysabel kid , sure can.
many moons ago at about age 12 we took iron pipe and filed a notch in one end to which We screwed on a pipe cap. poured in black powder and stuffed it with rocks.
It gets better,We had forts built 50 feet apart or so ( iirc) and fired the things at each other. I don't remember how We anchored them down but boy did We have fun. Is that non- sensible enough.
remember ( don't call Me stupid, call Me ignorant - it sounds better ) I didn't know

[MrMurphy]

Originally it was all solid cannonballs. Lt. (later General I believe) Shrapnel invented the (duh) Shrapnel round. This was basically a canister round that detonated downrange instead of working like a shotgun shell. Think of it as a flying claymore.

The proper fuse for the distance was inserted, and the point being to detonate a round directly over an enemy column. Regular cannonballs would be fired to bounce and graze through formations of troops.

So yes, it really does "depend". There were at least five or six common cannonball types used on land, and more at sea.

[Old Ironsights]

Almost all "cannon" of the black powder, post castle, period were used for Direct Fire as crew served weapons like we would use an M2 MG today.

One of the best Hollyweird depictions of the proper use of connon in battle was in The Patriot. IIRC it looked like a 4lb ball carroming through ranks of men like a pachinko ball. LOTS of secondary frag from random stones & other gus bones.

Great way to get sepsis and die.

[MrMurphy]

Exactly. Which is why in the Civil War/Crimean War, artillerymen got picked off by musket-firing guys, they hadn't quite wrapped their heads around the idea that muskets were lethal at more than 75 yards, and riding up to shoot at them from 200-300 could get you killed.

In the movie Gettysburg, they have several scenes where an entire artillery park worth of cannons is firing. You see cannonballs zip downrange with what looks like a tracer and a trail of smoke. That (in real life) is a shrapnel shell in flight or one of the other exploding cannonball types.

[Old Ironsights]

They were fuzed. explosion was not always assurred.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g ... n19125098/

A buddy of mine in EOD told me of an incident where a house off base somewhere in the South went BOOM for no apparant reason.

On inquiry, turns out a previous owner of the house had collected a small pile of dug-up cannon balls and had welded them (he didn't have brass monkeys) into a couple of pyramids as decorations for his fireplace.

Well... turns out that the balls were hollow & BP filled - and it just took a LOOONG time for the BP to finally dry out and go boom after many years of being heated in front of the fire.

So, check your balls. If they are lighter than they should be they could become the highlight of your Christmas Fire...

[DixieBoy]

Great topic here, and I'm glad to see that I'm hardly the only one with a "mis-spent youth."

When I was a kid (early and middle 1960's) we used to order all kinds of great stuff from the classifieds in Popular Mechanics. "Underwater fuse" was indeed cannon fuse, and I still remember how my buddies and me griped when it went up from $ 1 for a 100 foot roll, to $ 1 for "only" 60 feet.

We would buy mail order chemicals like Potassium Perchlorate and powdered Aluminum and make up some pretty nifty little backyard bombs. Smoke bombs too, good ones. So many kids did that sort of stuff back then that they even had a nickname for us kids, "basement bombers."

This was long before anybody'd even heard of "terrorism," and we figured that we were pretty much normal kids. I truly feel sorry for kids today, with adults acting like such fools when a kid wants to light off something as simple as an M-80. Nowadays they'll be calling the swat team out, and send the kid off for psychological evaluation. So sad.

Just thought of another instance where the old time artillery is shown close up, and fairly accurately, history wise. In the film The Last of The Mohicans, in the scene where the French are putting Fort William Henry under seige, there is a closeup of a Trench Mortar, and a fellow is lighting the fuse on what the British were calling "exploding shells." Fairly realistic.

This is a great thread. Made me feel like I was not alone in having what I always figured was a pretty normal childhood. - DixieBoy

[donw]

shrapnel, was indeed, invented by a french artillery officer by the name of Shrapnel...

when i came back from overseas, i was in div arty of the 2ad at ft hood...i was astounded at the number and types of arty rounds available and how they were fuzed. having been exposed to these things gave me an eye opening experience about respecting "explosives".

most civil war, exploding, arty rounds were "iffy" at best.

[lthardman]

Solid shot (solid ball) was used at long range against enemy ships or fortified positions and was also used against infantry lined up in formation. Solid shot often hit the ground, bored a tunnel, and popped back up some yards later. Not like a bounce, really, as it would often travel many yards under ground. It could be very devastating. It was like a lethal form of bowling. At Gettysburg, cannon fired from Little Round using solid shot mowed down a fair number of Pickett's men on the final day of the battle, during Picketts Charge.

Certainly there were hollow/fused projectiles used. Some relied upon the explosion in the breach to ignite the fuse, some (early) were lit separately. And they too often would go off in the breach, with devastating results. The aim was to get the shot to expode in the air over troops and rain down shrapnel. However, these rather primitive (by today's standards) "shells" did not pack too much shrapnel. But, history books say the psychological impact was huge.

Most deaths attributed to artillery during the Civil War were the result of canister shot. Essentially, canister turned a cannon into one huge shotgun. It would be extremely lethal at short ranges. Again at Gettysburg, as Picketts men finally reached the infamous copse of trees during their ill fated charge, the Union gunners started loading double charges of canister in their guns. Nobody was left standing after such a blast for fifty yards side to side for up to one hundred yards in front. It was a very savage way to go.

I have some genuine Civil War canister shot. The balls used are the size of a golf ball. You would not want to be in front of one, that is for sure.

[Sixgun]

So many kids did that sort of stuff back then that they even had a nickname for us kids, "basement bombers."

This was long before anybody'd even heard of "terrorism," and we figured that we were pretty much normal kids. I truly feel sorry for kids today, with adults acting like such fools when a kid wants to light off something as simple as an M-80. Nowadays they'll be calling the swat team out, and send the kid off for psychological evaluation. So sad.

DixieBoy,
Yea, I'm with 'ya We used to do all sorts of things like that. My dad used to ask my why there were new shotgun shells taken apart in my bedroom. That powder was great for fireworks! (and other things )

[MrMurphy]

Shrapnel was a British officer if I remember right, as shrapnel rounds gave the defending Brits in the Napoleonic wars a great advantage firing at French columns attacking, since the favorite Brit tactic for several hundred years is to take a hill and make you attack them on it, then shoot the stuff out of you attacking (with arrows or musket/cannonballs later).

[RustyJr]

I wonder if soaking one of those powder filled cannon balls in a bucket of oil would "deactivate" the powder charge and make it safe as decoration? Any body know if this would work or if there is a way to "deactivate" them safely?



RustyJr

[Paladin]

The only way to safely tell if the ball is explosive charged is to X-ray it. I have checked quite a few over the years with the explosive one holed with a conical shape charge that would sometimes let them burn out instead of explode to try o preserve them. About 50% would explode with a rather large explosion. It requires a bomb squad as the fuses, as stated, were very unstable. They run from a steel ball with spikes and percussion caps on each inside the shell to later picric acid, mercury fulminate, and other unstable chemicals that sometimes get worse with age.