If you read the article a quote from the photographer about a fuse would imply at least some were exploding shells,
Doug Franklin wrote: > Tom C wrote: > > >> To your question... Where then are the craters from the canon balls that >> must have landed *off* the road, in the likely softer soil? >> >> I would guess they don't really weigh THAT much and were moving at a >> relatively low velocity. >> > > How much is "THAT" much? :-) They could easily be ten or fifteen pounds > each, even if they're small. However, they were most likely solid shot. > Anything with a charge in it was "interesting" to harvest. > > Without getting into too much detail, the shot was most often fired from > close to the ground on a fairly low angle. Solid shot in that situation > had a propensity to skip for a while and then roll across the ground for > quite a distance after the first impact, depending on what it hit in the > meantime. It wasn't a good idea to have your ranks lined up very deeply > when facing that sort of artillery. > > Even at low velocity, getting hit with a ten or fifteen pound wad iron > couldn't be much fun. Heck, the muzzle velocity was low enough on some > of those guns that if the shot was anywhere near right at you, you could > watch the ball coming. > > -- Remember, it’s pillage then burn. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
