history
by Reg Reynolds
cruel weapon invented at Gibraltar Shrapnel: a hollow projectile containing bullets or the like and a bursting charge, designed to explode before reaching the target, and to set free a shower of missiles. Shrapnel is a word which is ideally suited for the object it describes and yet it wasn’t made up by some clever munitions expert but is in fact the name of a real person — Lt. Henry Shrapnel, Royal Artillery. I first learned about this vicious weapon when I was six-years-old. We were at the beach and it was the first time I remember seeing my father in swimming trunks. He had a deep, two-inch long scar on the thigh of his right leg. I knew he had been torpedoed during World War II but wasn’t aware that he had been wounded. The scar was shaped exactly like a bullet and so I quite naturally asked if it had been caused by a bullet. “No that’s from shrapnel,” he explained.
28
Dad told me how he was aboard ship off the coast of North Africa watching Allied planes bombing shore installations when a stray piece
Lt. Shrapnel came up with the idea of a hollow shell filled with carbine balls and enough gunpowder to cause it to explode
of shrapnel hit him in the leg — a ‘friendly fire’ injury. Fortunately it was only a flesh wound (as they say in the movies) and he suffered no permanent damage. Dad, whose ship was torpedoed shortly after sailing from Gibraltar in November 1942, wasn’t aware of it but the weapon that left him with that interesting looking scar was invented in Gibraltar. The year was 1781 and Gibraltar residents were suffering through the third year of the Great Siege (1779-1783). Young (20 years-old) Wiltshire-born Lt. Shrapnel was observing artillery shelling the Spanish positions on the frontier and was dismayed by the poor results. He reckoned that out of 2,000 rounds of 24-pound shot fired only 26 Spaniards fell. The problem was that round shot would only take out soldiers it actually came in contact with. Grapeshot, smaller shot which scattered when fired, could kill or maim more of the enemy, but was only effective at short range. Lt. Shrapnel came up with the idea of a hollow shell filled with carbine balls and enough gunpowder to cause it to explode. When the hollow shell exploded, the carbine balls would become deadly projectiles spread over a much wider area and at increased velocity. An added cruel touch would be that the bits of the exploding casing would also become deadly ‘shrapnel’. In developing his shell, Lt. Shrapnel married two existing weapons technologies, the canister shot and the delayed-action fuse. Canister shot, in use since the 1400s, burst upon leaving the gun’s muzzle and was originally used in small arms at close range against infantry. Shrapnel’s refinement carried the shell intact to the enemy’s lines, where it detonated above the heads of the troops with much more devastating effect. As so often is the case with revolutionary ideas, the acceptance of the invention, which Lt. Shrapnel had dubbed ‘spherical case’ ammunition, was not immediate. Lt. Shrapnel had some shot specially made at Gibraltar and demonstrated its use to General O’Hara but it wouldn’t be until 20 years later, on 13th April, 1801 at the Battle of Batavia (modern day Suriname), that such shells would be used in combat. They were so effective in the bombardment of Batavia’s Ford Amsterdam that only two shell explosions were required to force a surrender. A Major Wilson who witnessed the action was impressed: “The enemy was so astonished at these shells as not to be able to account how they apparently suffered from musketry at such a great distance.” In 1802 the new weapon made its first appearance in the Royal Artillery Manual under the heading, “A table of practice with Lt. Shrapnel’s new method of firing case shot.” And on 5th May, 1803, Shrapnel, now Captain, gave a demonstration at the Woolwich Armory in the presence of King George III. Not surprisingly no foreigners were invited. Shrapnel was duly promoted to Major and sent to iron works in Scotland to oversee the manufacture of ‘spherical case shot’. The new shells really came into their own during the Peninsular campaign when the Duke of Wellington employed them to good use in several engagements against Napoleon’s armies. They played a major role in the defeat of 8,000 French by 4,000 British at Calabria in 1805. One General remarked at the time, “It is
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • JUNE 2009