176 
SHRAPNEL FIRE. 
If the shrapnel shell of a field gun is burst lying at rest upon 
fairly level ground, the bead and bullets will be found from 35 to 40 yds. 
to the front; the splinters, some to the right, some to the left front, 
nearly as far forward; and the base blown 50 or 60 yds. to the rear. 
If the 16-pr. M.L. shrapnel is burst enclosed between four 9-ft. x 9-ft. 
targets, the whole of the bullets and splinters will be found inside, and 
only two or three small dents will be visible on the targets. The 
same will be the case with the 9-pr. M.L., except that the dents will 
be hardly perceptible. 
Any effect produced by the shell is therefore evidently not due 
to the bursting charge, which may be said to have practically no 
accelerating and but very little disturbing tendency.* 
The destructive effect of the splinters and bullets—that of the 
latter being by far the most important of the two—is simply due to 
the velocity which the shell may have at the time it bursts, and 
which they, as component parts of it, retain. When the shell opens, 
they continue to travel forward with this velocity, and would move 
in lines parallel to what would have been the trajectory of the shell 
if it had not burst, were it not for three causes :— 
1. The disturbing effect of the bursting charge. 
2. The centrifugal force imparted by the rotation of the shell. 
3. A loss of velocity, greater than that which the shell in its 
original condition would have experienced, due to the difference of 
their form and weight. 
The first of these causes of disturbance is, as has been already 
shown, small, and as it is impossible to calculate its effects, it may be 
passed over without further consideration. 
The centrifugal force may, however, be calculated, since the weight 
of the bullets, their position in regard to the centre of gyration, and 
the velocity of rotation are known. The resultant of this force and 
the forward motion imparted by the shell will give the primary 
direction of the bullets, and from this their path may be found. 
They will tend to spread equally in every direction from the centre 
line, and form a cone. The angle of this cone has been calculated 
by Lieut. Goold-Adams for a 16-pr. M.L. shrapnel shell, travelling 
with the muzzle velocity, to be 7J°. Captain Fairfax Ellis estimated 
the cone formed by the shells during the practice at Shoeburyness, 
to which reference has already been made, to be 8° at 800 yds. from 
muzzle; and the writer of the present article arrived at the same 
conclusion independently, by careful measurements of the breadths 
covered by the cones on the diagrams of the same practice. 
It is evident that since the velocity of rotation remains very much 
the same, whereas the velocity of translation suffers considerable 
diminution as the range increases, this cone of dispersion will gra¬ 
dually increase with the range. 
* An accident which happened at Woolwich may he cited in confirmation of this view. A driver 
belonging to a battery there, wishing to show a friend the action of a friction tube, put one in a 
shrapnel shell, and, steadying the latter with his foot, fired it. The only damage done was to his 
foot, which was slightly wounded. The friend escaped without injury. 
