Shrapnel

“ It was moving with crawling life like the festering of a stagnant pool. Over it burst occasional puffs of shrapnel.
"Ah!" The cry was involuntary from both the watching men. From the woods emerged masses of running tiny grey figures, running, running towards the fort. The open space was covered with them. A moment of tense expectation when the heart seemed to stop—and then, as by a terrible magic, great fountains of dark smoke and darker objects leaped up among those running figures, countless explosions. A canopy of vicious little shrapnel bursts in thousands spread itself over them. ”

“ The men worked like demons, deaf now to all the thunder and roar about them, no eye to the crimson glare that lit up the horizon in front beneath the black piles of smoke like thunder clouds over the front lines, unconscious of the occasional shrapnel that fell near or the fragments from the big shells that burst along the crest and sometimes over towards them. ”

“ Behind the line of red earth lay the British, each man with his rifle cuddled lovingly to his shoulder, a useless weapon that yet conveyed a sense of comfort. The shells were bursting with hideous accuracy—sharp flashes of white light, a loud report and then a murderous rain of shrapnel. ”

“ The anti-aircraft guns were getting into action at last, and the strafe no longer promised to be a one-sided business.
Soon the "air was stiff" with flying shrapnel, while shells of a hitherto unknown type added to the flying-boats' peril. These missiles, on bursting, liberated long tentacles of the lightness of silk that floated in strings of fire in the air.
A burst of shrapnel, seemingly close under the "Avenger's" nose, caused the flying-boat to pitch and roll like a tramp in ballast in a heavy seaway. ”

“ Time Shrapnel.—The power of modern artillery owes even more to the improvement of the projectile than to that of the gun (see Ammunition) . The French, always in the forefront of artillery progress, were the first nation to realize the new significance of the time-fuze and the shrapnel shell. These had been in existence for many years; to the British army are due both the invention and the development of the shrapnel, which made its first appearance in European warfare at Vimeira in 1808. ”

“ The enemy had also employed shrapnel against her with such effect that her bridge and upper works were as indented as a nutmeg-grater; and on almost any part of her decks one could stoop and pick up a handful of shrapnel fragments, so thick they lay. But in a short time the ship had been cleared up, disabled guns had been repaired, and the casualties had been replaced by other men. ”

“ The German guns are speaking early this morning! Before us shrapnel is bursting noisily and spitefully. Over the plain they have thrown a barrage. Nevertheless we have to go through it. Our first section detaches itself; in a line, long-drawn and thin, it moves across the fields towards a small wood which the captain has indicated as the objective. Rifles crackle away to the left. Bullets sing and throw up the dust about the marching section. Then shrapnel bursts right over [83] the men. The undulating line becomes still, taking cover behind a ridge of earth shaped like a gigantic caterpillar. ”

“ The shrapnel, of which also so much was heard in the Great War, the terrible shells which burst a certain time after leaving the gun without striking against anything, took its name from its inventor. The chief peculiarity of shrapnel is that the bullets fall from above in a shower from the shell as it bursts in the air.
But there are many other names which we should not easily guess to come from the names of inventors. People talk of a macadamized road without know [108] ing that these roads are so called because they are made in the way invented by John M'Adam, who lived from 1756 to 1836. ”

“ For true effect I suppose I should not tell you that the shrapnel is bursting about fifty yards the other side of the house, that I am in a room lying on the floor, and consequently that, so long as they go on firing shrapnel, I am perfectly safe.
It's the dismallest of places. Two miles farther back the heavies are banging away over our heads. There are a couple of batteries near the farm. Two miles along the road the four battalions of our brigade are holding on for dear life in their trenches. ”

“ The stupendous war equipment of the German armies, both in guns and in munitions, has since become a commonplace; at that time it was a wonder and a surprise. The War Office went into the war still thinking in terms of the Boer War, when machine-guns were a new miracle and shrapnel was the last word in shells. They found themselves faced with an army in which machine-guns had become a multitudinous commonplace and shrapnel was already the humble servant of the high-explosive shell. ”

“ But although the want of a sufficiently accurate fuze made the Shrapnel system a practical impossibility before the nineteenth century, a man above his fellows might have dreamt dreams of distant case fire ages before. ”

“ I saw one picture on the wall with a hole drilled in by a shrapnel bullet which had gone clean through as though it had been drilled. It hadn't smashed the glass otherwise. From a window of the room, which the officers use as a mess, a neat row of graves is to be seen. Outside there are great shell holes, most of them big enough to bury a horse. Suddenly a shriek and a deafening explosion [pg 079] occurred in the garden. “Sixty-pound shrapnel! Evening hate,” said an artillery sub. We left! We had been sent up to see the guns fire and not to be fired at. ”

“ To shrapnel their thin envelope is as vulnerable as a paper drum-head to a knife; but I have seen them remain up defiantly when shells were bursting within three or four hundred yards, which their commanders seemed to understand was the limit of the German battery’s reach. Again, I have seen a shrapnel burst alongside within range; and five minutes later the balloon was down and out of sight. No balloon observer hopes to see the enemy’s guns. He is watching for shell-bursts, in order to inform the guns of his side whether or not they are on the target. ”

“ Even now the members of Section Y have much to learn. They still persist in remaining in their chairs in the exposed garden when aeroplanes are being fired at directly overhead, when balls of shrapnel have repeatedly dropped into the flower-beds, and when one man was narrowly missed by a long, razor-edged fragment of a shrapnel shell. And this has not even the excuse of a desire to observe—for the novelty of these performances has long since passed—and one hardly ever glances upward. They won't even move for a German Taube, though it might at any minute drop a bomb or two. ”

“ But suddenly, before, behind and on the sides, white smoke clouds appeared bursting shrapnel. Still flying above the enemy's position, we were directly exposed to their artillery fire. Devil with it! The fire [315] grew worse. I knew from the little trembles that the machine was getting blow upon blow, but it never entered my mind that those shrapnel balls meant death to me. Something in man remains unmoved by logic and knowledge—especially when you're in the air. There, of a sudden, a white-yellow fire in front of me. The machine reared up. The major seemed to reel to his feet. ”

“ The shell-fire grew more and more intense. The air was thick and choking with smoke and chemical fumes, and vibrant with the rush and shriek, of the shells, the hum of bullets, and the ugly whirr of splinters, the crash of impacting shells, and ear-splitting crack of the guns' discharge, the 'r-r-rupp' of shrapnel on the wet ground, the metallic clang of bullets and steel fragments on the gun-shields and mountings. ”

“ Shrapnel is designed for use against troops in open country or for clearing covered spaces, destructive effect over a considerable area rather than penetrative power being desired. With this in view the fuze is so adjusted that the projectile bursts in close vicinity to the target and scatters its fragments and the balls, which may be placed either in metal or wooden frames or plates or in a matrix of resin. In naval warfare shrapnel is used against attack by torpedo boats or small boats. See Projectiles, where United States Army 3.2-inch shrapnel is illustrated ”

“ 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. ”

“ The noise of the shells from field guns is exactly like that of a rocket going up. When the shell is coming towards you, there is a sharper hiss in it, like a whip. It gives you a second or two to get under cover and then crack-whizz as the shrapnel whizzes out. ”

“ When a shell passes very near to one its whistle increases to the roar of an express train, and when there is anything like a heavy bombardment on it is only those shells which pass dangerously close that one can hear above the general din.
More disconcerting than the actual burst of the shell is the ‘whirr’ of the splinters or, in the case of shrapnel, the loud ‘miaow’ of the flying bullets. ”

“ A chum of ours died here. We were lying down for a time behind a hedge and one of the heavy shrapnel shells burst a little to the front of us, the forward sweep of the shrapnel landing the bullets right among us. When a shrapnel shell bursts the bullets sweep forward and obliquely to the ground, having a forward range of three hundred yards and a lateral zone of fifty yards. The three hundred odd bullets of the German shell fly like a fan. It will be seen that a shell may burst right over your head without injuring anyone, but the men three hundred yards or so to your rear are hit. ”

“ You feel as though you would like nothing in the world so much as to be suddenly transformed into a woodchuck and have a convenient hole. I remembered that an artillery officer had told me that a burst of shrapnel from a battery two miles away will spread itself over an eight-acre field, and every time I heard the moan of an approaching shell I wondered if it would decide to explode in the particular eight-acre field in which I happened to be. ”

“ These bullets scatter where they strike."
"But why is it called 'shrapnel'?" asked Ralph.
"It was named after a British general, Shrapnel, who invented it about eighty years ago," replied Roland.
Exploding Shrapnel
The moment the guns were unloaded the train backed away, and the men deployed on both sides of the road, the guns being moved forward toward an advantageous position.
The German horsemen could be plainly seen at intervals between the shrubbery, more than a half mile beyond.
"How many men were aboard the train?" asked Alfred. ”

“ I tell you, one lies pretty flat when there's any shrapnel about. Some of the English boys were killed the second day, but we Americans have been fine and lucky—only one killed the whole time, though we have had some very narrow shaves. For instance, Thaw had his bayonet knocked off his rifle by a "sniper" while on sentry-go, and another boy named Merlac had his pipe taken clean out of his mouth by a shrapnel ball in the trenches. ”

“ Meanwhile the small thirteen-pounder aft and the submarine exchanged shots with ceaseless regularity. But the attacking craft appeared to have two guns in action. Her shells came faster and the high explosive was from time to time varied with shrapnel.
Shrapnel is much more unpleasant at sea than on land. One sees it hiss down on the surface of the water like spray from a water-cart. ”

“ He was used to being under fire and he knew that none of these missiles was intended for them, but he could not restrain a quiver of apprehension now and then, lest some piece of shrapnel, falling short, should find him. It was always the shrapnel with the hideous whine and shriek and its tearing wound that they dreaded most. The clean little rifle bullet, which if it did not kill did not hurt much, was infinitely more welcome.
"How long will this go on?" John asked of Bougainville; his voice could be heard as an undertone in the roar of the battle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The chatter of one machine-gun—then another, and another, were added to it. Our shells were bursting occasionally flat in the face of the Germans—one big bearded fellow—they are close enough for those details to be seen now—takes a low burst of our shrapnel full in his eyes. A high-explosive shell bursts on the parapet, and down go three others. But they are firing calmly through all this.
Three or four Germans suddenly get up from some hole in No Man's Land, and bolt for their trench like rabbits. Within forty yards of the German parapet the leading men in our line find themselves alone. ”

“ 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. ”