186 
SHRAPNEL FIRE. 
experiments, it was, I believe, found that a bullet which buried itself 
half its diameter in a deal board would penetrate a dead horse. In 
some English experiments, of which I regret that I cannot find 
an account, the lowest effective velocity has been stated at about 
400 f.s. In default of any data sufficiently precise, however, the lowest 
velocity might perhaps be put at 500 f.s. without much fear of its 
being too small. 
The targets usually fired at are 2-in. deal, as used in the Shoe- 
buryness experiments. Throughs are certainly effective bullets; 
lodges may or may not be, but the majority no doubt are; strikes 
may or may not be, but the great majority certainly are not. As a 
rule, therefore, in this paper lodges have been taken into account, 
strikes have not. 
The velocity of the bullets depends, at the commencement of, and 
consequently throughout, their flight, upon the velocity of the shell at 
the moment of opening; and this may have fallen very low from 
«. Long range. 
h. Retardation from ricochet. 
When once they have parted from the shell, their velocity is affected by 
c. Resistance of the air. 
d. Retardation from ricochet. 
We may expect, therefore, to find in actual practice that the bullets 
lose in power— 
(1) As the range increases. 
(2) When the shell bursts after ricochet, or on graze. 
(3) As the point of burst is farther from the object. 
(4) As more of the hits are due to ricochet of the lower half of the 
cone of dispersion. 
(1) At first sight it would appear that the best method of proving 
this fact would be by contrasting the proportion of strikes and lodges 
to throughs at differing ranges. In doing so, however, there would be 
this difficulty : at the shorter ranges the number of bullets which 
ricochet is comparatively very large, and—as will afterwards be shown 
—the retardation due to this cause being very considerable, it would 
increase the proportion to an undue extent. To show it perfectly it 
would be necessary to have ground on which no ricochet could take 
place, and this has never been the case. 
We have, in the practice at Shoeburyness and Okehampton, 16-pr. 
R.M.L. shrapnel fired at 800, 1500, 2000, 3450, and 3970 yds., and 
these we will attempt to contrast where the results are sufficiently 
reliable. 
At the 800 yds. range, only the 150, 100, and 50 yds. bursts are 
taken; those at 200 are omitted, as being beyond the limit of fair 
shell. 
At 1500 yds., the two first rounds of the 50 yds. burst are omitted, 
as the heights above plane are very bad. 
