American Civil War Artillery Impacts

[Obsolete]

Maybe not restricted to the Civil War, but one thing I'm not too familiar with is how ammunition from that era is supposed to impact.

One thing that always bothered me from one movie to the next is how the explosion is always an exact vertical incline, despite the shell is clearly going horizontal.

I always assumed all movies are going a cheapo route and hoping no one spots the weirdness of their pyrotechnics. However, it's possible they are infact modeling how the exotherm is supposed to behave after all?

[junk2drive]

I wonder the same thing about WWII tank guns firing HE at troops. Does the tank shoot the ground in front of the troops and the impact causes the explosion?

[Feltan]

Quick reply --

Most Civil War artillery shells were fused. They were supposed to air burst and have shrapnel cause the majority of casualties. Some exceptions here, including most naval artillery, but by-and-large if you see air bursts in and around a target area during a land battle then it is relatively/generally accurate.

Tank HE rounds, on the other hand, are mostly impact rounds. Today, in fact, HEAT rounds are the HE round. In the past, there were experiments and regular tank shells that did have fuses (the "beehive" round comes to mind); however, most tank rounds are direct impact fused.

Regards,
Feltan

[ilovestrategy]

Obsolete, I always wondered that too!