Artillery Through the Ages Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 14--U. S. ARTILLERY TYPES (1861-1865). a--Siege mortar, b--8-inch siege howitzer, c--24-pounder siege gun, d--8-inch Columbiad, e--3-inch wrought-iron rifle, f--10-inch Rodman.]

Siege and garrison cannon included 24-pounder and 8-inch bronze howitzers (fig. 14b), a 10-inch bronze mortar (fig. 14a), 12-, 18-, and 24-pounder iron guns (fig. 14c) and later the 4-1/2-inch cast-iron rifle. With the exception of the new 3-inch wrought-iron rifle (fig.

14e), field artillery cannon were bronze: 6- and 12-pounder guns, the 12-pounder Napoleon gun-howitzer, 12-pounder mountain howitzer, 12-, 24-, and 32-pounder field howitzers, and the little Coehorn mortar (fig. 39). A machine gun invented by Dr. Richard J. Gatling became part of the artillery equipment during the war, but was not much used.

Reminiscent of the ancient ribaudequin, a repeating cannon of several barrels, the Gatling gun could fire about 350 shots a minute from its 10 barrels, which were rotated and fired by turning a crank. In Europe it became more popular than the French mitrailleuse.

The smaller smoothbores were _effective_ with case shot up to about 600 or 700 yards, and _maximum_ range of field pieces went from something less than the 1,566-yard solid-shot trajectory of the Napoleon to about 2,600 yards (a mile and a half) for a 6-inch howitzer. At Chancellorsville, one of Stonewall Jackson's guns fired a shot which bounded down the center of a roadway and came to rest a mile away. The performance verified the drill-book tables. Maximum ranges of the larger pieces, however, ran all the way from the average 1,600 yards of an 18-pounder garrison gun to the well over 3-mile range of a 12-inch Columbiad firing a 180-pound sh.e.l.l at high elevation. A 13-inch seacoast mortar would lob a 200-pound sh.e.l.l 4,325 yards, or almost 2-1/2 miles. The sh.e.l.l from an 8-inch howitzer carried 2,280 yards, but at such extreme ranges the guns could hardly be called accurate.

On the battlefield, Napoleon's artillery tactics were no longer practical. The infantry, armed with its own comparatively long-range firearm, was usually able to keep artillery beyond case-shot range, and cannon had to stand off at such long distances that their primitive ammunition was relatively ineffective. The result was that when attacking infantry moved in, the defending infantry and artillery were still fresh and unshaken, ready to pour a devastating point-blank fire into the a.s.saulting lines. Thus, in spite of an intensive 2-hour bombardment by 138 Confederate guns at the crisis of Gettysburg, as the gray-clad troops advanced across the field to close range, double canister and concentrated infantry volleys cut them down in ma.s.ses.

Field artillery smoothbores, under conditions prevailing during the war, generally gave better results than the smaller-caliber rifle. A 3-inch rifle, for instance, had twice the range of a Napoleon; but in the broken, heavily wooded country where so much of the fighting took place, the superior range of the rifle could not be used to full advantage. Neither was its relatively small and sometimes defective projectile as damaging to personnel as case or grape from a larger caliber smoothbore. At the first battle of Mana.s.sas (July 1861) more than half the 49 Federal cannon were rifled; but by 1863, even though many more rifles were in service, the majority of the pieces in the field were still the old reliable 6- and 12-pounder smoothbores.

It was in siege operations that the rifles forced a new era. As the smoke cleared after the historic bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861, military men were already speculating on the possibilities of the newfangled weapon. A Confederate 12-pounder Blakely had pecked away at Sumter with amazing accuracy. But the first really effective use of the rifles in siege operations was at Fort Pulaski (1862). Using 10 rifles and 26 smoothbores, General Gillmore breached the 7-1/2-foot-thick brick walls in little more than 24 hours. Yet his batteries were a mile away from the target! The heavier rifles were converted smoothbores, firing 48-, 64-, and 84-pound James projectiles that drove into the fort wall from 19 to 26 inches at each fair shot.

The smoothbore Columbiads could penetrate only 13 inches, while from this range the ponderous mortars could hardly hit the fort. A year later, Gillmore used 100-, 200-, and 300-pounder Parrott rifles against Fort Sumter. The big guns, firing from positions some 2 miles away and far beyond the range of the fort guns, reduced Sumter to a smoking ma.s.s of rubble.

The range and accuracy of the rifles startled the world. A 30-pounder (4.2-inch) Parrott had an amazing carry of 8,453 yards with 80-pound hollow shot; the notorious "Swamp Angel" that fired on Charleston in 1863 was a 200-pounder Parrott mounted in the marsh 7,000 yards from the city. But strangely enough, neither rifles nor smoothbores could destroy earthworks. As was proven several times during the war, the defenders of a well-built earthwork were able to repair the trifling damage done by enemy fire almost as soon as there was a lull in the shooting. Learning this lesson, the determined Confederate defenders of Fort Sumter in 1863-64 refused to surrender, but under the most difficult conditions converted their ruined masonry into an earthwork almost impervious to further bombardment.

THE CHANGE INTO MODERN ARTILLERY

With Rodman's gun, the muzzle-loading smoothbore was at the apex of its development. Through the years great progress had been made in mobility, organization, and tactics. Now a new era was beginning, wherein artillery surpa.s.sed even the decisive role it had under Gustavus Adolphus and Napoleon. In spite of new infantry weapons that forced cannon ever farther to the rear, artillery was to become so deadly that its fire caused over 75 percent of the battlefield casualties in World War I.

Many of the vital changes took place during the latter years of the 1800's, as rifles replaced the smoothbores. Steel came into universal use for gun founding; breech and recoil mechanisms were perfected; smokeless powder and high explosives came into the picture. Hardly less important was the invention of more efficient sighting and laying mechanisms.

The changes did not come overnight. In Britain, after breechloaders had been in use almost a decade, the ordnance men went back to muzzle-loading rifles; faulty breech mechanisms caused too many accidents. Not until one of H.M.S. _Thunderer's_ guns was inadvertently double-loaded did the English return to an improved breechloader.

The steel breechloaders of the Prussians, firing two rounds a minute with a percussion sh.e.l.l that broke into about 30 fragments, did much to defeat the French (1870-71). At Sedan, the greatest artillery battle fought prior to 1914, the Prussians used 600 guns to smother the French army. So thoroughly did these guns do their work that the Germans annihilated the enemy at the cost of only 5 percent casualties. It was a demonstration of using great ma.s.ses of guns, bringing them quickly into action to destroy the hostile artillery, then thoroughly "softening up" enemy resistance in preparation for the infantry attack. While the technical progress of the Prussian artillery was considerable, it was offset in large degree by the counter-development of field entrenchment.

As the technique of forging large ma.s.ses of steel improved, most nations adopted built-up (reinforcing hoops over a steel tube) or wire-wrapped steel construction for their cannon. With the advent of the metal cartridge case and smokeless powder, rapid-fire guns came into use. The new powder, first used in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), did away with the thick white curtain of smoke that plagued the gunner's aim, and thus opened the way for production of mechanisms to absorb recoil and return the gun automatically to firing position.

Now, gunners did not have to lay the piece after every shot, and the rate of fire increased. s.h.i.+elds appeared on the gun--protection that would have been of little value in the days when gunners had to stand clear of a back-moving carriage.

During the early 1880's the United States began work on a modern system of seacoast armament. An 8-inch breech-loading rifle was built in 1883, and the disappearing carriage, giving more protection to both gun and crew, was adopted in 1886. Only a few of the weapons were installed by 1898; but fortunately the overwhelming naval superiority of the United States helped bring the War with Spain to a quick close.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 15--Ranges.]

During this war, United States forces were equipped with a number of British 2.95-inch mountain rifles, which, incidentally, served as late as World War II in the pack artillery of the Philippine Scouts.

Within the next few years the antiquated pieces such as the 3-inch wrought-iron rifle, the 4.2-inch Parrott siege gun, converted Rodmans, and the 15-inch Rodman smoothbore were finally pushed out of the picture by new steel guns. There were small-caliber rapid-fire guns of different types, a Hotchkiss 1.65-inch mountain rifle, and Hotchkiss and Gatling machine guns. The basic pieces in field artillery were 3.2- and 3.6-inch guns and a 3.6-inch mortar. Siege artillery included a 5-inch gun, 7-inch howitzers, and mortars. In seacoast batteries were 8-, 10-, 12-, 14-, and 16-inch guns and 12-inch mortars of the primary armament; intermediate rapid-fire guns of 4-, 4.72-, 5-, and 6-inch calibers; and 6- and 15-pounder rapid-fire guns in the secondary armament.

The j.a.panese showed the value of the French system of indirect laying (aiming at a target not visible to the gunner) during the Russo-j.a.panese War (1904-05). Meanwhile, the French 75-mm. gun of 1897, firing 6,000 yards, made all other field artillery cannon obsolete. In essence, artillery had a.s.sumed the modern form. The next changes were wrought by startling advances in motor transport, signal communications, chemical warfare, tanks, aviation, and ma.s.s production.

GUNPOWDER

Black powder was used in all firearms until smokeless and other type propellants were invented in the latter 1800's. "Black" powder (which was sometimes brown) is a mixture of about 75 parts saltpeter (pota.s.sium nitrate), 15 parts charcoal, and 10 parts sulphur by weight. It will explode because the mixture contains the necessary amount of oxygen for its own combustion. When it burns, it liberates smoky gases (mainly nitrogen and carbon dioxide) that occupy some 300 times as much s.p.a.ce as the powder itself.

Early European powder "recipes" called for equal parts of the three ingredients, but gradually the amount of saltpeter was increased until Tartaglia reported the proportions to be 4-1-1. By the late 1700's "common war powder" was made 6-1-1, and not until the next century was the formula refined to the 75-15-10 composition in majority use when the newer propellants arrived on the scene.

As the name suggests, this explosive was originally in the form of powder or dust. The primitive formula burned slowly and gave low pressures--fortunate characteristics in view of the barrel-stave construction of the early cannon. About 1450, however, powder makers began to "corn" the powder. That is, they formed it into larger grains, with a resulting increase in the velocity of the shot. It was "corned" in fine grains for small arms and coa.r.s.e for cannon.

Making corned powder was fairly simple. The three ingredients were pulverized and mixed, then compressed into cakes which were cut into "corns" or grains. Rolling the grains in a barrel polished off the corners; removing the dust essentially completed the manufacture. It has always been difficult, however, to make powder twice alike and keep it in condition, two factors which helped greatly to make gunnery an "art" in the old days. Powder residue in the gun was especially troublesome, and a disk-like tool (fig. 44) was designed to sc.r.a.pe the bore. Artillerymen at Castillo de San Marcos complained that the "heavy" powder from Mexico was especially bad, for after a gun was fired a few times, the bore was so fouled that cannonb.a.l.l.s would no longer fit. The gunners called loudly for better grade powder from Spain itself.

How much powder to use in a gun has been a moot question through the centuries. According to the Spaniard Collado in 1592, the proper yardstick was the amount of metal in the gun. A legitimate culverin, for instance, was "rich" enough in metal to take as much powder as the ball weighed. Thus, a 30-pounder culverin would get 30 pounds of powder. Since a 60-pounder battering cannon, however, had in proportion a third less metal than the culverin, the charge must also be reduced by a third--to 40 pounds!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 16--GUNPOWDER. Black powder (above) is a mechanical mixture; modern propellants are chemical compounds.]

Other factors had to be taken into account, such as whether the powder was coa.r.s.e-or fine-grained; and a short gun got less powder than a long one. The bore length of a legitimate culverin, said Collado, was 30 calibers (30 times the bore diameter), so its powder charge was the same as the weight of the ball. If the gunner came across a culverin only 24 calibers long, he must load this piece with only 24/30 of the ball's weight. Collado's _pasavolante_ had a tremendous length of some 40 calibers and fired a 6- or 7-pound lead ball. Because it had plenty of metal "to resist, and the length to burn" the powder, it was charged with the full weight of the ball in fine powder, or three-fourths as much with cannon powder. The lightest charge seems to have been for the pedrero, which fired a stone ball. Its charge was a third of the stone's weight.

In later years, powder charges lessened for all guns. English velocity tables of the 1750's show that a 9-pounder charged with 2-1/4 pounds of powder might produce its ball at a rate of 1,052 feet per second.

By almost tripling the charge, the velocity would increase about half.

But the increase did not mean the shot hit the target 50 percent harder, for the higher the velocity, the greater was the air resistance; or as Muller phrased it: "a great quant.i.ty of Powder does not always produce a greater effect." Thus, from two-thirds the ball's weight, standard charges dropped to one-third or even a quarter; and by the 1800's they became even smaller. The United States manual of 1861 specified 6 to 8 pounds for a 24-pounder siege gun, depending on the range; a Columbiad firing 172-pound shot used only 20 pounds of powder. At Fort Sumter, Gillmore's rifles firing 80-pound sh.e.l.ls used 10 pounds of powder. The rotating band on the rifle sh.e.l.l, of course, stopped the gases that had slipped by the loose-fitting cannonball.

Black powder was, and is, both dangerous and unstable. Not only is it sensitive to flame or spark, but it absorbs moisture from the air. In other words, it was no easy matter to "keep your powder dry." During the middle 1700's, Spaniards on a Florida river outpost kept powder in gla.s.s bottles; earlier soldiers, fleeing into the humid forest before Sir Francis Drake, carried powder in _peruleras_--stoppered, narrow-necked pitchers.

As for magazines, a dry magazine was just about as important as a sh.e.l.l-proof one. Charcoal and chloride of lime, hung in containers near the ceiling, were early used as dehydrators, and in the eighteenth century standard English practice was to build the floor 2 feet off the ground and lay stone chips or "dry sea coals" under the flooring. Side walls had air holes for ventilation, but screened to prevent the enemy from letting in some small animal with fire tied to his tail. Powder casks were laid on their sides and periodically rolled to a different position; "otherwise," explains a contemporary expert, "the salt petre, being the heaviest ingredient, will descend into the lower part of the barrel, and the powder above will lose much of its goodness."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 17--SPANISH POWDER BUCKET (c. 1750).]

In the dawn of artillery, loose powder was brought to the gun in a covered bucket, usually made of leather. The loader scooped up the proper amount with a ladle (fig. 44), and inserted it into the gun. He could, by using his experienced judgment, put in just enough powder to give him the range he wanted, much as our modern artillerymen sometimes use only a portion of their charge. After Gustavus Adolphus in the 1630's, however, powder bags came into wide use, although English gunners long preferred to ladle their powder. The powder bucket or "pa.s.sing box" of course remained on the scene. It was usually large enough to hold a pair of cartridge bags.

The root of the word cartridge seems to be "carta," meaning paper. But paper was only one of many materials such as canvas, linen, parchment, flannel, the "woolen stuff" of the 1860's, and even wood. Until the advent of the silk cartridge, nothing was entirely satisfactory. The materials did not burn completely, and after several rounds it was mandatory to withdraw the unburnt bag ends with a wormer (fig. 44), else they acc.u.mulated to the point where they blocked the vent or "touch hole" by which the piece was fired. Parchment bags shriveled up and stuck in the vent, purpling many a good gunner's face.

PRIMERS

When the powder bag came into use, the gunner had to p.r.i.c.k the bag open so the priming fire from the vent could reach the charge. The operation was accomplished simply enough by plunging the gunner's pick into the vent far enough to pierce the bag. Then the vent was primed with loose powder from the gunner's flask. The vent prime, which was not much improved until the nineteenth century, was a trick learned from the fourteenth century Venetians. There were numerous tries for improvement, such as the powder-filled tin tube of the 1700's, the point of which pierced the powder bag. But for all of them, the slow match had to be used to start the fire train.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 18--LINSTOCKS.]

Before 1800, the slow match was in universal use for setting off the charge. The match was usually a 3-strand cotton rope, soaked in a solution of saltpeter and otherwise chemically treated with lead acetate and lye to burn very slowly--about 4 or 5 inches an hour. It was attached to a linstock (fig. 18), a forked stick long enough to keep the cannoneer out of the way of the recoil.

Chemistry advances, like the isolation of mercury fulminate in 1800, led to the invention of the percussion cap and other primers. On many a battleground you may have picked up a sc.r.a.p of twisted wire--the loop of a friction primer. The device was a copper tube (fig. 19) filled with powder. The tube went into the vent of the cannon and buried its tip in the powder charge. Near the top of this tube was soldered a "spur"--a short tube containing a friction composition (antimony sulphide and pota.s.sium chlorate). Lying in the composition was the roughened end of a wire "slider." The other end of the slider was twisted into a loop for hooking to the gunner's lanyard. It was like striking a match: a smart pull on the lanyard, and the rough slider ignited the composition. Then the powder in the long tube began to burn and fired the charge in the cannon. Needless to say, it happened faster than we can tell it!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 19--FRICTION PRIMER.]

The percussion primer was even more simple: a "quill tube," filled with fine powder, fitted into the vent. A fulminate cap was glued to the top of the tube. A pull of the lanyard caused the hammer of the cannon to strike the cap (just like a little boy's cap pistol) and start the train of explosions.

Because the early methods of priming left the vent open when the cannon fired, the little hole tended to enlarge. Many cannon during the 1800's were made with two vents, side by side. When the first one wore out, it was plugged, and the second vent opened. Then, to stop this "erosion," the obturating (sealing) primer came into use. It was like the common friction primer, but screwed into and sealed the vent.

Early electric primers, by the way, were no great departure from the friction primer; the wires fired a bit of guncotton, which in turn ignited the powder in the primer tube.

MODERN USE OF BLACK POWDER

Aside from gradual improvement in the formula, no great change in powder making came until 1860, when Gen. Thomas J. Rodman of the U. S.

Ordnance Department began to tailor the powder to the caliber of the gun. The action of ordinary cannon powder was too sudden. The whole charge was consumed before the projectile had fairly started on its way, and the strain on the gun was terrific. Rodman compressed powder into disks that fitted the bore of the gun. The disks were an inch or two thick, and pierced with holes. With this arrangement, a minimum of powder surface was exposed at the beginning of combustion, but as the fire ate the holes larger (compare fig. 20f), the burning area actually increased, producing a greater volume of gas as the projectile moved forward. Rodman thus laid the foundation for the "progressive burning" pellets of modern powders (fig. 20).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 20--MODERN GANNON POWDER. A powder grain has the characteristics of an explosive only when it is confined. Modern _propellants_ are low explosives (that is, relatively slow burning), but _projectiles_ may be loaded with high explosive, a--Flake, b--Strip, c--Pellet, d--Single perforation, e--Standard, 7-perforation, f--Burning grain of 7-perforation type. Ideally, the powder grain should burn progressively, with continuously increasing surface, the grain being completely consumed by the time the projectile leaves the bore, g--Walsh grain.]