# How did cannons kill people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 28, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522 "2001-08-28T14:32:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/21 "2001-08-28T17:49:45Z")
Jomo Mojo–yes, it is true. Dinsdale–well, that’s what happens when you count on films as your source of historical information. Contrary to most films, a cannonball hitting the ground did not cause a group of men to jump in the air, then land peacefully on the ground. Instead, to paraphrase Edmund Blackadder, it caused them to leap 200 feet in the air and scatter their body parts over a large area. [http://www.melfisher.org/chainshot.htm](http://www.melfisher.org/chainshot.htm) has a picture of some chain shot. The site seems to indicate that chain shot was primarily a maritime ammo, but doesn’t rule out land-based use. It also list about a dozen other types of ammo and descriptions. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2001, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/22 "2001-08-28T17:53:22Z")
**Tedster** : > [@](#): > > The plural of Cannon is Cannon. Don’t be pedantic and supercilious. Both forms are perfectly acceptable. **Finagle** ’s got it about the splinters. A cannonball bashing through the hull of a gun deck would send high-velocity wood splinters all through the space, incapacitating all they encountered. It would ruin anyone’s day. Also, remember that in naval battles it’s not so important to kill the individual sailors. If you dismasted the ship or stripped its rigging it would become a sitting duck. If a cannonball caused a hull breach, so that they began venting core plasma^H^H^H^H sinking, so much the better. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2001, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/23 "2001-08-28T18:27:04Z")
[Grapeshot](http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/canister/IIIA31.htm). Another kind of [grapeshot](http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/canister/IIIA30.htm). [Canister](http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/canister/FAOIIIA18.htm). The [contents](http://www.chipublib.org/images/civilwar/6.jpg) of canister shot. [Case shot](http://www.chipublib.org/images/civilwar/10.jpg). Bursting charge with steel shot, producing fragments and projectiles. [Round shot](http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/spherical/IIIA1.htm). Look 3/4 of the way down [this](http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/1797/Victory/guns.html) page for Grape, Chain, and Bar shot. This [page](http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/1797/Victory/guns.html) has some commentary on American Revolutionary War artillery, inluding heated shot. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2001, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/24 "2001-08-28T18:40:04Z")
Ah, bugger. That last link was supposed to point [here](http://www.nps.gov/colo/Ythanout/artillery.html). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2001, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/25 "2001-08-28T20:00:15Z")
Jomo Mojo: Read C.S. Forester’s novel **Leiutenant Hornblower** , which is what they adapted for that A&E two-parter. It gives detailed instructions on using heated shot, should you ever desire to. If you’re interested in that book (the only of the Hornblower stories not told from Hornblower’s POV), then read **The Hornblower Companion** for more details and maps of Scotchman’s Bay. Also read C. Northcote Parkinson’s fictional bio **Horation Hornblower: His Life and Times** for a different take on the events. Neither of these has anything on heated shot, though. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/26 "2001-08-29T03:23:01Z")
> [@](#): > > you see cannon loaded with what appear to be solid balls. When the shot lands, a group of folk in the vicinity go flying. Is this entirely a fictional depiction? As noted, the notion of groups of men being hurled into the air when a round of _solid shot_ hits in their midst is false. Any object struck by the round would be splattered out fanwise, knocking down nearby objects in the path, but the flaming explosions so favored by movie directors could not be accomplished by roundshot (by far the most common round up through the U.S. Civil War). > [@](#): > > Shells were exploding shot, but in Napoleonic times was unreliable enough to be mostly relegated to siege warfare. Any explosive round fired in a Napoleanic war (or earlier, in the U.S. War for Independence or whenever) would have been a _bomb_ fired from what we now call a mortar. The idea of firing explosive rounds from flat-trajectory cannon was not seriously considered until the 1820s, when the French admiral Paixhans began a serious inquiry into the concept. Even so, problems designing functional fuses kept that type of round from being deployed in cannon until the 1850s. Any cannon (not mortar) that fires an exploding round in a movie about the Crimean War, the U.S. invasion of Mexico, or any earlier period is simply an anachronism used for an exciting scene. Now, why Shrapel’s invention did not immediately lead to the exploding shell, I have never seen addressed. However, Shrapnel specifically designed something to use a _small_ charge to scatter the shot inside the ball. If the fuse detonated prematurely (provided it was not just as it exited the cannon muzzzle) it was not really a problem since the small charge was intended only to scatter the shot and even a premature explosion would wind up hitting the same troops over a somewhat wider path. The shells that Paixhans envisioned needed to be more like the bombs, bringing the full force of the explosive charge to bear at a specific target. This required a much greater degree of technical sophistication. ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/27 "2001-08-29T05:38:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mrblue92 \* > **Obviously the rifled cannon shooting a standard ball had the best range, and so was used most frequently-** Rifled guns were not implemented until the American Civil War, a distinction to be made here since the OP questioned the use of cannon in the Napoleonic era, which began 50 years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/28 "2001-08-29T13:11:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sewalk \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by mrblue92 \* > > **Obviously the rifled cannon shooting a standard ball had the best range, and so was used most frequently-** > > Rifled guns were not implemented until the American Civil War, a distinction to be made here since the OP questioned the use of cannon in the Napoleonic era, which began 50 years earlier. \*\* Yea, I knew I should have mentioned that. But the general question was how cannons killed people… Wasn’t there a certain breed of smoothbore cannons that were known as “Napoleons”? ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/29 "2001-08-29T13:22:32Z")
How did they get 7,000-lb “32-pounders” onto the lower gun deck of a ship? Did the crew manhandle them down the hatches (seems impossible)? Did they manhandle the carriages down, then use cranes to swing the cannons themselves in through the gunports? Did they put the whole assembled guns onto the decks while the ship was still under construction, before the upper decks were built? ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2001, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/30 "2001-08-29T13:51:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\*Any explosive round fired in a Napoleanic war (or earlier, in the U.S. War for Independence or whenever) would have been a _bomb_ fired from what we now call a mortar. \*\* Ah, right. I was a little less than rigorous on that description. Thank you for the correction. **Danimal** , the heavy guns were moved aboard ship by lifting them from the pier, barge, or other ship with tackle attached to the end of a boom or yard, and lowering them through the hatches. Not so different from what’s done when loading cargo today, save that the motive power was muscle instead of electricity or hydraulics. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/31 "2001-08-30T01:23:34Z")
> [@](#): > > A cannon question that puzzles me > How did they get 7,000-lb “32-pounders” onto the lower gun deck of a ship? > > Did the crew manhandle them down the hatches (seems impossible)? > > Did they manhandle the carriages down, then use cranes to swing the cannons themselves in through the gunports? > > Did they put the whole assembled guns onto the decks while the ship was still under construction, before the upper decks were built? Danimal, a Tranquilis said. If you read C.S. Forester’s books, he frequently describes moving cannon around. First you took it off the carriage (no same person would want a literal “loose cannon” on board a heaving deck) and place it on netting or something similar that let large group of men lift and carry it. You used block and tackle to take it up through hatches or whatever, and you moved the carriage the same way. Yeah, it was heavy, and hard to lift. I understand that hernias and mashed fingers and limbs were common occurrences aboard ships. ---
**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/32 "2001-08-30T02:09:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fiver \* > \*\ ***Tedster** : > > > [@](#): > > > > The plural of Cannon is Cannon. > > Don’t be pedantic and supercilious. Both forms are perfectly acceptable. > \*\* Don’t be a weenie. Collectively, they are known as cannon. But yes, “Cannons” (plural) is _acceptable_; but still… ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/33 "2001-08-30T04:37:53Z")
To recapitulate and perhaps add a little, all artillery used during the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the period 1792-1815, was smooth bored and mussel loading. There was a variety of ammunition available to gunners. Ammunition for ground forces was: Common shot or solid shot. A cast iron ball. It was used to batter fortifications and against personnel at a distance. Common shell. A hollow cast iron ball with a powder charge and a fuse of some sort. It was fired from a special kind of cannon called a howitzer that had a powder chamber smaller than its bore. The idea was that the discharge of the cannon would ignite the fuse on the shell and a predetermined time later the shell would burst sending chucks of broken cast iron flying around with lethal effect. It did not always work. At Waterloo, Hugomont was set on fire by howitzers firing common shell. Canister. A rigid container of iron or lead balls used for close range anti-personnel work. It could be effective out to 200 or 300 yards depending on the size of the cannon. The objective was to fire just ahead of the target so that the target was blanketed with canister balls coming in on the fly and on the rebound. At Waterloo, Mercer’s Battery broke up French cavalry with double charges of canister. At Friedland (I think), in 1807, French Artillery came up to just outside musketry range and broke up the Russian infantry formations with canister. Grape or grapeshot was primarily naval ammunition. It was rendered obsolescent for field artillery by canister. Mortar bombs were much like common shell but generally bigger and fired from mortars in a high, arching trajectory. Mortars were used against large fixed targets like towns. Hot shot, common shot heated in a furnace until it was hot enough to set fire to wooden structures was primarily used by permanent costal batteries because the equipment was pretty elaborate and because it was so dangerous to deal with the stuff around gun powder. Spherical case, or Shrapnel, named after it inventor, a British artillery officer, was like common shell but had thinner walls and contained a bunch of canister balls and a small bursting charge. In theory it would burst in the air above the target and shower canister balls down on the target. It was long-range canister. Because of unreliable fuses it was not very effective. As far as artillery was concerned the serious killers were common shot and canister. Neither was very dramatic in cinema terms. Canister produced a cloud of dust and common shot just burst its way through. In the French Army Museum in Paris (an institution devoted to showing that Charles DeGaulle single handedly won WWII), there is a breastplate worn by a French cuirassier at Waterloo. There is a four-inch hole in it, the consequence of being struck by a solid shot. ---
**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/34 "2001-08-30T09:09:30Z")
The two semi pertinent cannon things I know… 1. During the French Revolution a reactionary rising in Vendemiaire (Oct. 5, 1795) was suppressed by General Napoleon Bonaparte (the future Emperor Napoleon I) with what he described as “a whiff of grapeshot.” 2. Canister was used to great effect during the Battle of Gettysburg. During the engagement at the Peach Orchard, Captain John Bigelow’s 9th Masschusetts Battery, unsupported by infantry, held off a dangerous Confederate assult using “double canister”… “The federal shells lashed them like an iron whip, searching the bushes and gullies with a hail of metal. Captain Bigelow noted later with professional satisfaction; “Our caseshot and shell broke beautifully.” No one knows just how many of Semmes’ men died there. We do know that J. Howard Wert, a soldier and competent observer, visiting that part of the field after the three days fighting saw wide ponds formed where the channel of the little stream near the house was dammed up by the heaps of Confederate dead; we know that at least 400 men were buried about the Rose Farm buildings.” AND "A South Carolinian of Kershaw’s Brigade recalled, “O the awful deathly surging sounds of those little black balls as they flew by us, through us, between our legs, and over us! Many, of course, were struck down…” Double canister was also used very effectively blunting Pickett’s Charge the next day. Check out Double Canister at Ten Yards : The Federal Artillery and the Repulse of Pickett’s Charge   by David Shultz ---
**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/35 "2001-08-30T12:28:53Z")
I just have to say one thing, not really on this subject. The reason I love this board is because I know I’ll find thorough, well-written and well-documented answers to just about any question. Way to go, Dopers! Keep up the good work. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/36 "2001-08-30T14:58:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spavined Gelding \* > **… mussel loading…** Only Belgians loaded their cannons with seafood, everybody else used muzzle loading ones. [sub]Sorry, couldn’t resist :D[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/37 "2001-08-30T16:11:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*I saw part of a Horatio Hornblower movie where the shore battery was firing cannonballs heated up red hot. They used the hot balls to set attacking ships on fire. Is this for real? \*\* Yes, but it was rare since it took time to heat up the cannon balls. Then you had to hurry because the cannonballs would cool down quickly, so loading and then aiming was rarely an option. Then there was the danger factor, a red-hot cannonball sitting on black powder with not much betwen them except some kind of wadding (also likely to be flammable) It was fairly effective though, once you got the chance to use it. But it had a habit of destroying ships, and this was the era where you would prefer to _capture_ your enemies ship rather than destroy it. The best example I can think of is the end of the battle for Fort Mercer in New Jersey during the American Revolution. Two British ships got stuck in the Delaware, and the Fort defenders, realizing that they had an immobile target they would never have a chance to salvage, set them on fire with ‘heated shotte’. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/38 "2001-08-30T16:52:14Z")
From [The 13th at Waterloo](http://www.pinetreeweb.com/waterloo.htm): > [@](#): > > The brigade then retired and formed in the rear of the infantry. Shortly after the regiment was brought on to the attack by Lord Uxbridge and Lord Hill, and charged a square of the enemy’s infantry, which it completely broke, routed, and dispersed. There were several other attacks, till at length the enemy were completely driven from the position. But the losses of the regiment had been most severe. The continual artillery fire of round-shot, **shell** , and grape, besides musketry, had sadly thinned the ranks. Interesting [collector’s card](http://www.btinternet.com/~britishempire/empire/media/cigarettecards/cigarettewaterloo/cigarettewaterloo25.htm). Shrapnel’s [Spherical Case](http://www.algonet.se/~jim/arty.html#anchor19094) shot: > [@](#): > > Spherical case was one of the secret weapons available to Wellington in 1815. Invented by Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel, RA, and first used in 1803, this half-hollow shell packed with musket-balls and powder would be fused to explode above enemy troop formations, with the intended devastating effect. Wellington had come to appreciate the value of this new munitions in the Peninsula. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/39 "2001-08-30T21:38:33Z")
detop: My children use to say that it didn’t make any difference how they spelled a word as long as it could be understood. I deplored this approach as a surrender to sloth and sloppy living. Now I find my self betrayed by the spell check program which can’t tell the difference between clams and the front end of a gun or a horse’s nose. Strike “MUSSEL,” insert"MUZZLE." Thank you for your support. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522/40 "2001-08-30T23:24:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spavined Gelding \* > \*\*detop: > > My children use to say that it didn’t make any difference how they spelled a word as long as it could be understood. I deplored this approach as a surrender to sloth and sloppy living. Now I find my self betrayed by the spell check program which can’t tell the difference between clams and the front end of a gun or a horse’s nose. Strike “MUSSEL,” insert"MUZZLE." Thank you for your support. \*\* You’re welcome. Like I said I couldn’t help myself picturing a gun loaded with mussels (with probably French fries as wading). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-cannons-kill-people/78522.md?page=1)