Shrapnel bullet

“ This was the first intimate indication I had of how the offensive exposing the whole bodies of men in a charge against the low-velocity shrapnel bullets and high-velocity bullets from rifles and machine guns must result in the old ratio of only one mortal wound for every five men hit. ”

“ The bullets from the Mausers and the Mannlichers, which have such a high velocity, seem to go through so quickly that they sear the flesh, and thus form an antiseptic path which aids the wound in healing. But the shrapnel bullets are larger and this causes such terrible wounds."
"But they seem actually to tear the flesh," said Alfred.
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"That is caused, not by the bullets which are in the shrapnel, but by the shell itself. If the shell bursts near the soldiers it often strikes the poor fellows and sometimes tears them to pieces." ”

“ The bursting of a shrapnel shell and its spray of low-velocity bullets is also theoretically most destructive, but a roof of 6-inch boards will furnish perfect protection from the bullets. Mother Earth remains the best protection there is from fire. No rifle bullet can penetrate through a 3-foot thickness of sandbags. A 6 or 8-inch high-explosive shell, which is the largest caliber (p. 067) practicable for trench warfare, may burst near a double layer of bags of stone rubble without hurting anyone in a cellar 30 feet underneath. ”

“ The trail of the metallic fragments of the missile from behind forward and their location near the anterior surface of the arm indicate the course of the missile, either a rifle bullet or a shrapnel ball—most probably the latter, as the lead core of the rifle ball, protected by the jacket, does not break up into as many small particles as does the shrapnel ball. ”

“ Among the troops actually engaged the confidence in the effect of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with their experience. Some other method of artillery fire than the curving bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing with men who lie close among boulders and behind cover. ”

“ Missiles have peculiar characteristics, and differ in their capacity for deadliness. For instance, bullets of the most harmless kind are those having a high velocity, those that hit apex-first and do not “keyhole,” and those possessing a hard, smooth sheath with a smooth, rounded surface. After these come missiles of more death-dealing or mutilating nature—the Dum-Dum bullets, with the nickel sheaths around the apex removed in order to expose the lead nucleus, Remington lead or brass bullets, shrapnel bullets, and fragments of shell. ”

“ If shells are accurately fired the tops of trenches may be swept by a constant rain of shrapnel bullets, under which the enemy's riflemen will of necessity suffer when they expose their heads and shoulders to take aim over the parapet. But even in this case the shell fire must be extremely accurate if it is to be of any great use. If shrapnel shells burst well, some thirty yards in front of the enemy, the force of the bullets released by the explosion is terrific ”

“ Being nickel-plated it gives a clean wound, which under ordinary conditions will heal rapidly. If it kills, it kills instantly, and as often as not without pain. Shell fire, however, is very different. Leaden shrapnel bullets are both large, rough-edged, and liable to cause gangrene in those who are not in the best of health. Common shell, charged with high explosives, causes infinite damage; and on board steel-plated ships, or in the vicinity of houses, men are horribly maimed and wounded by fragments of masonry and iron, by flying stones and splintered woodwork. ”

“ They are derived (1) from the Turkish pointed bullet weighing approximately 15.0 grams—it is fired from the German Mauser and has all the ballistic values of the projectile from this weapon; (2) the Bulgarian bullet, blunt nosed or ogival headed and the same as the steel-jacketed bullet of the Austrian Mannlicher; (3) shrapnel balls and fragments of the shrapnel, and (4) fragments of steel shells from field artillery.
During the evolution of reduced caliber rifles experiments were made on cadavers at different ranges. ”

“ With a twang like a giant steel bow a shrapnel shell had burst overhead. They had commenced to spray us in the back with shrapnel from the direction of Hill 60, and one of the bullets that pattered like hail on our clay parapets had struck him.
I had ordered all the men to keep on their overcoats, as the stout woollen cloth of the Canadian great coats will stop the German shrapnel bullets and a lot of high explosive splinters, American experts to the contrary. The thick overcoat and the pack is the next best thing to a coat of mail. ”

“ At ranges up to 1500 m., over 80% of the men struck by fragments and bullets from shrapnel, bursting within 300 m. (and beyond this range from shrapnel bursting within 150 m.) are put out of action. (Par. 30 German F. A. F. R.) . In comparison, artillery projectiles produce a greater number of fatal wounds than infantry projectiles.
It is worthy of note that the packed knapsack affords [126] protection against all shrapnel bullets having a velocity of 100 m. and against half of those having a velocity of 200 m. The overcoat roll stops shrapnel bullets having a velocity of less than 250 m. ”

“ Some of these monsters contained only eleven thousand shrapnel bullets. A strange business for a fifteen- inch naval gun to be firing shrapnel. A year ago no one could have imagined that one day the most powerful British ship, built with the single thought of overwhelming an enemy's Dreadnought, would ever be trying to force the Dardanelles.
The trouble was that she could not fire an army corps ashore along with her shells to take possession of the land after she had put batteries out of action. She had some grand target practice; she escaped the mines ”

“ The second gun was shattered in ten minutes, and then for another hour and a quarter one gun fought the German battery. It was an inferno. The screaming dying horses, the shattered groaning men, the shells in hundreds digging holes of four to five feet deep, and shrapnel bullets by thousands searching the ground made it a Gehenna.
"Men fell fast. The officers were killed or wounded, but the one gun fought on. Driver Osborne, thrice [126] wounded, fetched the ammunition from fifty yards away amidst showers of shrapnel. One shell dropped within six feet, but did not burst ”

“ That risk must, of course, be taken if the enemy's riflemen should harden their hearts for a determined frontal attack upon any position supported by flank fire from guns, but until such a critical moment arrives the men not actually on duty as sentries or outlying pickets will be little harassed by bursting shells or flying splinters or showers of shrapnel bullets, if they dig themselves good pits to lie in, with sufficiently thick coverings overhead. ”

“ The rain of shrapnel bullets which mows the barbed wire in front of a trench, as hail mows ripening grain, will not reach a single man in the trench to the rear, if he keeps his head down.
At first thought it seems utterly inconsistent when bullets carry effectively a mile and a half, and guns carry twenty miles, that infantry should be fighting so close that they can throw bombs at each other from distances of 15 and 20 yards. The very destructiveness of modern weapons has contributed toward this result. ”

“ Shrapnel is all very well when used against an enemy in a formation like quarter-column, and its moral effect is at all times good; but its killing powers [Pg 122] against a thin line of skirmishers, say ten paces apart, advancing across a plain or posted on a ridge are limited to the width of front to which its 256 bullets will, on the explosion of the bursting charge, extend, and are about equal to the damage which might be done by, perhaps, two rifles. The trajectory of a shell is too flat to cause any harm to a Boer or an Afridi behind a rock. ”

“ Shrapnel, especially when handled by the 'Soixante-Quinze,' which, in addition to being the best field-gun in the world, has the best shell with the best time-fuse, is more destructive against advancing troops than machine-gun and rifle-fire [Pg 307] combined, when it is rightly timed. Of course, it is far harder to aim exactly and to time to the second. A shrapnel shell holds 300 bullets and a 'Soixante-Quinze' can fire fifteen shells a minute. That means that one gun can send 4500 bullets a minute into an advancing enemy, the bullets scattering in a fan shape from the burst of the shell. ”

“ Even amid the booming of the anti-aircraft batteries and the sharper staccato reports of the machine guns from various parts of the field, all blending into an unearthly din, the droning of the motors high in the air could be distinctly heard. Like a pyrotechnic display, luminous bullets, searching for the invaders, shot up into the sky, often piercing the low-hanging clouds; and mingling in with them were vicious little spurts of fire which told of the explosion of shrapnel shells. ”

“ It is a shrapnel with a detachable head filled with high explosive. When burst during flight it acts like an ordinary shrapnel, and the bullets fly forward and sweep the ground in front of it; at the same time the head, with its explosive burster, flies forward and acts as a small but efficient high-explosive shell. These projectiles have been introduced for howitzers and for anti-aircraft guns, and some of the nations with new [285] equipments, such as the Balkan States, have them for their field-guns. ”

“ Near the focus of these explosions are a number of men sitting at the bottom of deep holes, and from their occupation it appears that not all the explosions so close to them are caused by hostile shell. They are busily employed in setting off flash bombs just outside their yellow parapet whenever their own artillery fires. And as two more shrapnel from different directions whistle high above the much-decorated guns, and burst over the pits, it is clear that the latter are the targets aimed at. ”

“ I suppose our gallant airmen have more shrapnel fired at them than anyone else, and the loud ‘clump, clump, clump’ of the bursting ‘Archies,’ followed by the whine of three hundred bullets flying from each shell, is an almost continuous tune down the line even on the quietest of days. ”

“ However, there exist dum-dum bullets, as I mentioned before. They are manufactured by the soldiers themselves. If the point is filed or cut off a German infantry bullet, so that the nickel case is cut through and the lead core is laid bare, the bullet explodes when striking or penetrating an object. Should a man be hit in the upper arm by such a projectile the latter, by its explosive force, can mangle the arm to such an extent that it only hangs by a piece of skin. ”

“ There is no flank in his position that can be turned. It is necessary, therefore, for all offensive operations to start by breaking the enemy's line, which presupposes the attack of formidable field entrenchments. Shrapnel, being the man-killing projectile which is used against troops in the open, is primarily used in defence. In offensive operations it is used for searching communication trenches, preventing the enemy's reinforcements intervening in the fight, repelling counter-attacks, and, as an alternative for high-explosive shell, for cutting wire entanglements. ”

“ Let us see for one moment what ten thousand men would be able to do upon such a host in open frontal attack: Let us assume that the ten thousand were armed with a thousand automatic guns, and, say, a hundred rapid-fire field-guns, in addition to the usual magazine shoulder-rifle. As soon as the enemy came in sight, the ten thousand would open on them with their hundred field-guns, pouring into their ranks a perfect storm of shrapnel. ”

“ The dum-dum bullet is a soft-nosed missile which, when it strikes a bone, flattens out and splatters, creating a jagged wound which it is almost impossible to treat or heal. The Germans, in ordinary, use a steel jacketed bullet which possesses high penetrative powers, while the French at the beginning of the war were using the ordinary lead bullet. ”

“ He took his revolver and fired at it, aiming to hit it just in front and below the hammer, its most vulnerable part. Instead, the bullet hits the ground and ricocheting enters the breast of the dead man. He shudders as the body stirs from the force of the shot, although he knows that life has been gone for hours. Everything is plain to him now why his other shots had not taken effect. He was unnerved. How could a man with a hole through his body hope to hit anything. He had heard of men shot through the heart killing their assailants, and had often wondered if he could do it. ”

“ The problem, then, seems to be to combine the shock, or killing power, of the old, big, lead bullet with the high velocity and extreme accuracy of the modern military rifle. With the Mauser and the Lee-Enfield one can hit his man or his beast at a great distance, but the shock of the bullet is much less than that of the old, round, lead one. The military bullet simply drills a little clean hole which disables the soldier, but does not bring down the beast, unless it passes accurately through some vital spot. ”

“ The enemy tried in vain to frighten us by shattering the rocks of Kenzan with long-distance shot. Seen from a distance, the explosion of shrapnel looks like fireworks, but to be under such a shower of fire is not particularly pleasant.
There was one thing that puzzled us very much. Every day, almost at the same hour, they would fire at us with special zeal; their aim was always directed to our headquarters and sometimes they would inflict upon us unexpected damage. ”

“ The attacking side (if both, indeed, in one form or another, do not attempt attack) will be chiefly occupied in obtaining positions on which to place its guns, and the repeating-rifle itself, deadly as is its fire, cannot contend at ranges over a thousand yards, unless the riflemen are heavily intrenched, with the improved shrapnel fire of modern guns. ”