Sunday, February 19, 2006
Telling the Tide Not to Come In
I know that this will not change people's use of the word, but we are using the word shrapnel wrong. Whenever a metal cased explosive goes off, like a grenade or a howitzer or mortar shell, and people are hit by the pieces of the metal case, the press and most people describe what hits the unfortunates as shrapnel. It is not. The precise term would be steel splinters.
In the lat 18th Century, the British needed a long range case shot (musket ball encased with
wooden discs to keep the shot from spreading too soon against rows of soldiers) in its war with France. Lt. Henry Shrapnel of the Royal Artillery developed, in 1803, a round shell filled with musket balls with a fuse and inside charge to burst and send the balls out in all directions only near the enemy troops. Over the next century, as cannons improved, the round shot became a cylinder with a conical top but still filled with musket balls. Think of a flying shotgun shell. The shot that comes out is shrapnel. Lt. Shrapnel rose to the rank of Lt. General and died March 13, 1842.
The last time his shells were used a lot was during WWI; and most notably they were fired during the barrage before the Somme offensive in July, 1916, where they were useless against the wire and German soldiers deep in their bunkers. The shells were totally obsolete by 1935.
There is a new development in some hand grenades (mainly European) to cover a thin metal shell of a grenade with plastic into which has been impregnated hundreds and hundreds of #1 buckshot size pellets. And in Israel and Iraq, the Muslim suicide bombers with vests of explosives often put nails and bolts and things around the explosive vests to make the explosion more deadly. Those two instances involve a sort of shrapnel, but not quite.
In the lat 18th Century, the British needed a long range case shot (musket ball encased with
wooden discs to keep the shot from spreading too soon against rows of soldiers) in its war with France. Lt. Henry Shrapnel of the Royal Artillery developed, in 1803, a round shell filled with musket balls with a fuse and inside charge to burst and send the balls out in all directions only near the enemy troops. Over the next century, as cannons improved, the round shot became a cylinder with a conical top but still filled with musket balls. Think of a flying shotgun shell. The shot that comes out is shrapnel. Lt. Shrapnel rose to the rank of Lt. General and died March 13, 1842.
The last time his shells were used a lot was during WWI; and most notably they were fired during the barrage before the Somme offensive in July, 1916, where they were useless against the wire and German soldiers deep in their bunkers. The shells were totally obsolete by 1935.
There is a new development in some hand grenades (mainly European) to cover a thin metal shell of a grenade with plastic into which has been impregnated hundreds and hundreds of #1 buckshot size pellets. And in Israel and Iraq, the Muslim suicide bombers with vests of explosives often put nails and bolts and things around the explosive vests to make the explosion more deadly. Those two instances involve a sort of shrapnel, but not quite.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:59 AM 
