upPalliser shot, Mark I, for 9-inch Rifled Muzzle Loading (RML) gun Palliser shot is an early British

armour-piercing Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate armour protection, most often including naval armour, body armour, and vehicle armour. The first, major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the t ...

artillery projectile, intended to pierce the armour protection of warships being developed in the second half of the 19th century. It was invented by Sir

William Palliser Sir William Palliser CB MP (18 June 1830 – 4 February 1882) was an Irish-born politician and inventor, Member of Parliament for Taunton from 1880 until his death. Early life Born in Dublin on 18 June 1830, Palliser was the fourth of the eig ...

, after whom it is named.

History

Major Palliser's shot, approved 21 October 1867, was an improvement over the ordinary elongated shot of the time. It was adopted for the larger types of rifled muzzle-loading guns rifled on the

Woolwich Woolwich () is a town in South London, southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was mainta ...

principle (with three rifling grooves). Palliser shot in many calibres stayed in service in the armour-piercing role until phased out of (British) service in 1909 for naval and fortress use, and 1921 for land service. At the

Battle of Angamos The Battle of Angamos () was a naval encounter of the War of the Pacific fought between the navies of Chile and Perú at Punta Angamos, on 8 October 1879. The battle was the culminating point of a naval campaign that lasted about five months i ...

(8 October 1879) the Chilean

ironclad warship An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The firs ...

s fired twenty 250-pound Palliser gunshots against the Peruvian monitor ''

Huáscar Huáscar (; Quechua: ''Waskar Inka'') also Guazcar (before 15271532) was Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire from 1527 to 1532. He succeeded his father, Huayna Capac and his brother Ninan Cuyochi, both of whom died of smallpox during the same year ...

'', with devastating results. It was the first time that such piercing shells were used in combat.

Design

Palliser shot was made of

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

, the head being chilled in casting to harden it, using composite moulds with a metal, water-cooled portion for the head. At times there were defects that led to cracking in the projectiles, but these were overcome with time.

Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

studs were installed into the outside of the projectile so as to engage the rifling grooves in the gun barrel. The base had a hollow pocket but was not filled with powder or explosive: the cavity was necessitated by difficulties in

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or ...

large solid projectiles without them cracking when they cooled, because the nose and base of the projectiles cooled at different rates, and in fact a larger cavity facilitated a better-quality casting. The hole at the base was threaded to accept a copper gas check. This prevented propellant gases from blowing around the projectile, providing

obturation Obturation is the necessary barrel blockage or fit in a firearm or airgun created by a deformed soft projectile. A bullet or pellet made of soft material and often with a concave base will flare under the heat and pressure of firing, filling the ...

as the

driving band Russian 122 mm shrapnel shell, which has been fired, showing rifling marks on the copper driving band around its base and the steel bourrelet nearer the front A driving band or rotating band is a band of soft metal near the base of an artillery ...

had yet to be perfected. Later designs did away with the studs on the projectile body, with the gas checks being set with grooves to impart spin to the projectile. Britain also deployed Palliser

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

s in the 1870s–1880s. In the shell the cavity was slightly larger than in the shot and was filled with gunpowder instead of being empty, to provide a small explosive effect after penetrating armour plating. The shell was correspondingly slightly longer than the shot to compensate for the lighter cavity. The powder filling was ignited by the shock of impact and hence did not require a fuze. While these Palliser shells were effective against unhardened iron, British doctrine held that only shot (i.e. non-explosive projectiles) were suitable for penetrating the new hardened armour being developed in the 1880s; hence the gunpowder filling was discontinued."Treatise on Ammunition" 4th Edition 1887, page 237.

References

Bibliography

{{commonscat * "Treatise on Ammunition" 2nd Edition, 1877. War Office, UK * "Treatise on Ammunition" 4th Edition, 1887. War Office, UK Projectiles Artillery shells