A Battery at Close Quarters: A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion

Download or read book A Battery at Close Quarters: A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion written by Henry Moore Neil and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War artillery projectiles were divided as to structure into solid, hollow and case shot. The solid shot were intended to batter down walls or heavy obstructions. Hollow projectiles, called shell and shrapnel, were for use against animate objects; to set fire to buildings and destroy lighter obstructions. Under the head of case shot we had grape and canister. Grape shot is no longer used; being superseded by the machine gun. Canister is simply a sheet iron case filled with bullets and is effective only at very short ranges. The foremost European military writer, Hohenloe, states that in the Franco-Prussian war, the batteries of the Prussian Guard expended about twenty-five thousand shells and one canister, and that this one canister was broken in transport. In the official reports of the recent Russo-Japanese War we find that the Arisaka gun, which was the Japanese field piece, has a range of 6,600 meters. The Russian field pieces were said to give good results at 8,000 meters, or five miles. The Japanese, and later the Russians, made a great feature of indirect fire. Having located a mass of the enemy, probably beyond two ranges of hills, they would stake out a line indicating the direction, then secure the range by the use of shells which gave out a yellowish vapor on bursting. This vapor being observed and signaled by scouts also indicated the necessary angles of departure from the line of stakes and enabled the artillerymen, miles away from actual contact, to complacently try experiments in battle ballistics with very little fear of being interrupted by an enemy.