Canister shot is a kind of anti-personnel artillery ammunition. Canister shot has been used since the advent of gunpowder-firing artillery in Western armies. However, canister shot saw particularly frequent use on land and at sea in the various wars of the 18th and 19th century. Canister is still used today in modern artillery.

Description

Canister shot consists of a closed metal cylinder typically loosely filled with round

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

balls packed with sawdust to add more solidity and cohesion to the mass and to prevent the balls from crowding each other when the round was fired. The canister itself was usually made of

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

, often dipped in a lacquer of

beeswax Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive work ...

diluted with

turpentine Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthene, terebinthine and (colloquially) turps) is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Mainly used as a spec ...

to prevent

corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engi ...

of the metal. Iron was substituted for tin for larger-caliber guns. The ends of the canister were closed with wooden or metal disks. A cloth cartridge bag containing the round's gunpowder used to fire the canister from the gun barrel could be attached to the back of the metal canister for smaller caliber cannon. A sabot of wood, metal, or similar material was sometimes used to help the round during firing from the cannon. Various types of canister were devised for specific models of artillery field pieces. In 1753, the "

secret howitzer The 95 mm howitzer M1753, called secret howitzer or Shuvalov's secret howitzer, was an 18th-century Russian cannon, a type of muzzle-loading howitzer, devised and introduced into service by artillery commander, General Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov ...

", a special gun with an oval bore—intended to spread shot even wider—was briefly introduced into Russian service, but ultimately proved unsuccessful. The Royal Artillery Museum at Woolwich, London, holds examples of two early 18th century experimental French wide bore cannon—flattened tubes intended to scatter canister wide but in one horizontal plane. The

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

developed a canister round, the M1028, for the M1 Abrams' 120mm smoothbore gun in time for the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

. The effect is to turn a large-caliber gun on an armored fighting vehicle into a giant shotgun. This can be used against enemy infantry even when in proximity to friendly armoured vehicles, as the projectiles do not penetrate armour. In addition it can be used to create entry points to buildings, reduce wire obstacles and clear heavy vegetation, as well as strike low flying aircraft and helicopters.

Langrage

At times when the supply of balls was limited, nails, scrap iron or lead, wire, and other similar metal objects were included. The projectile had been known since at least the 16th century and was known by various nicknames in the 17th century such as hailshot or partridge shot. Rounds recovered from Henry VIII's warship ''

Mary Rose The ''Mary Rose'' (launched 1511) is a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her ...

'' (sunk 1545) were wooden cylinders filled with broken flint flakes. When filled with rubbish or scrap (rather than round bullets) the round could be known as scrapshot or langrage. In 1718

Blackbeard Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch, – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known abou ...

aka Edward Teach armed his guns with a range of makeshift weaponry including langrage. Several of his cannons, still loaded with spikes and shot, have been recovered from the wreck site of his flagship, the ''

Queen Anne's Revenge ''Queen Anne's Revenge'' was an early-18th-century ship, most famously used as a flagship by Edward Teach, better known by his nickname Blackbeard. Although the date and place of the ship's construction are uncertain, it was originally believed ...

''. Archaeologists have also retrieved conglomerations of lead shot, nails, spikes and glass from the site. Langrage was also found among the artifact assemblage of the ''Mardi Gras'' shipwreck, 4000 ft (1219 m) deep in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

. The defenders of The Alamo (1836) used old horseshoe nails and chopped up iron horseshoes to make their scrapshot.

Effectiveness

When fired, the canister disintegrates and its shards and projectiles spread out in a conical formation, causing a wide swath of destruction. It was particularly effective during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

and the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, where massed troops at close range (usually less than 400 yards) could be broken up by artillery batteries firing canister. At times, particularly at very close range, artillery crews would fire extremely lethal "double canister," where two rounds were loaded into the gun tube and fired simultaneously using a single charge. At the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, Mercer's Troop,

Royal Horse Artillery The Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) was formed in 1793 as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (commonly termed Royal Artillery) to provide horse artillery support to the cavalry units of the British Army. (Although the cavalry link r ...

, fired a roundshot and a canister from each gun as a double-shot. The roundshot was loaded first with the canister on top. Canister played a key role for

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

forces during their defeat of Confederate troops assigned to support

Pickett's Charge Pickett's Charge (July 3, 1863), also known as the Pickett–Pettigrew–Trimble Charge, was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee against Major General George G. Meade's Union positions on the last day of the ...

during the

Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Po ...

in July 1863. At times, trained artillerists would fire the canister shot towards the ground in front of advancing enemy troops, causing the conical pattern to flatten out as the balls ricocheted and skipped off the terrain. This in effect widened the killing zone. An example of this tactic was on the first day of Gettysburg, where Lt. James Stewart's Battery B, 4th U.S. Artillery on

Seminary Ridge Seminary Ridge is a dendritic ridge which was an area of Battle of Gettysburg engagements in July 1863 during the American Civil War (1861–1865), and of military installations during World War II (1941–1945). Geography Seminary Ridge ...

skipped canister shot at

Alfred M. Scales Alfred Moore Scales (November 26, 1827 – February 9, 1892) was a North Carolina state legislator, Confederate States Army, Confederate General officer, general in the American Civil War, and the List of Governors of North Carolina, 45th G ...

's approaching Confederate

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...

, breaking up their attack and forcing them to take cover in a depression. Canister shot was also used to good effect by U.S. Marine 37mm anti-tank guns in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

to break up Japanese

banzai charge Banzai charge is the term that was used by the Allied forces of World War II to refer to Japanese human wave attacks and swarming staged by infantry units. This term came from the Japanese battle cry , and was shortened to banzai, specificall ...

s. During the Korean War United Nations tanks experienced close-range massed infantry attacks from Communist forces. As a consequence a canister-type tank round was introduced to "sweep" enemy infantry off friendly tanks without harming friendly tank crews, who were behind canister-proof armor. UK weapons known to have fielded a canister round are the 76mm and 105mm tank guns and the 120mm MOBAT and WOMBAT recoilless anti-tank guns.

Similar multi-projectile ammunition

Shrapnel shells were developed from canister during the Napoleonic Wars and were intended to deliver the same canister effect, but at much longer ranges. As a result, its early designation was "spherical case shot". Instead of a tin can filled with metal balls, the shrapnel shells carry a small powder charge to break open the case and disperse the shrapnel.

Grapeshot Grapeshot is a type of artillery round invented by a British Officer during the Napoleonic Wars. It was used mainly as an anti infantry round, but had other uses in naval combat. In artillery, a grapeshot is a type of ammunition that consists of ...

was a geometric arrangement of round shot packed tightly into a canvas bag and separated from the gunpowder charge by a metal disk of full bore diameter. Grapeshot used fewer larger projectiles than were contained within canister or shrapnel shells. Case shot broadly describes any multi-projectile artillery ammunition. The canister round is known as a case, so canister was sometimes called case shot and the term has confusingly become generic for grapeshot and shrapnel shells. However, the term case shot is also used to describe a hollow ball containing a powder charge and bullets. After firing the iron ball the powder would explode, scattering the bullets.

References

* Cole, Philip M., ''Civil War Artillery at Gettysburg'', Da Capo Press, 2002, .

External links