Reading bunker hill by Nathaniel philbrick and its a good book so far

He describes in detail how when the defenses were being built on breeds hill that the British ships fired on the provincials with cannons.

He goes into detail about what the cannon ball would do in terms of hitting things but never mentions if it detonated.

My question is, would the ball detonate at some point or was it just a fast moving ball that would wreck everything in its path?

He also mentions a type of projectile that was fired at ships to destroy the sails and the damage those things did to the human body would be terrifying to witness when the unlucky guys digging redoubts on breeds Hill were hit with them.

The projectiles intended to take out sails were basically giant bolos . Two cannon balls attached by chain. They also had rounds that were loaded with shrapnel that were intended for deck clearing and sail damage. Brutal weapons.

As far as detonating cannon rounds I believe those were mainly used in the big motors. The origin of the line in the Star Spangled Banner about bombs bursting in air is in reference to these rounds. If my memory serves there was not a whole bunch of difference in artillery between the revolution and civil wars.

Bunker Hill is a very good book.

Philbrick's research is impressive.

Just bought the book for my kindle a few hours ago thanks to this topic. So far pretty good. I'm not up to par on this time period.

His book, mayflower is an awesome read.

Philbrick is a good intro/gateway, but he takes his sources at face value far too often for my taste. Mayflower was especially troublesome in that regard.

As for artillery, the Revolution was mostly small bore weapons using solid shot. Good fuzes were still new and the shot was expensive. Solid shot was easy to get and did the job. We have to remember, as important as the Revolution is to us, the Brits kept their best tools and most of their best units in Europe. America was treated as a brush-fire war.

Not much difference in artillery between the Rev war and the Civil War with the exception of having larger field pieces and rifled guns.

There were three basic types of "rounds" in the Rev War and the ACW.

Cannon balls are that, they are balls. They don't explode. When fired at fixed objects, forts, buildings, ect, they either lodge in the structure, knock it down or bounce off. When they are fired against soldiers, they go through them. If they were bouncing along the ground and you tried to stop them with your foot, they would take you foot or your leg off. You could actually see them flying though the air.

The next type of projectile is a shell. It is a hollow sphere filled with explosives and round balls. it has a fuse screwed or wedge in a hole. The fuse is cut to a certain length and loaded with the fuse facing out the bore. When it is fired the flames encircle the shell as it leaves the gun thus lighting the fuse. It will fly for the prescribed time then explode sending shrapnel every where. It was intended to explode in the air, not the ground. It is used exclusively against soldiers. There were no impact fuses in the Rev War. If you saw something that exploded on the ground it was a shell that was "fused" to long" It would hit the ground and sputter until it exploded, just like a fire cracker. In the Rev War these fired out of howitzers and mortars because the field pieces were too small of a caliber ( largest was a 6 Pounder) to do much good. It the ACW they were fired out of 12 Pound Napoleons and 3 Inch Ordnance Rifles, as well as the larger Parrot Guns and such which did have impact fuses.

The next projectile was canister. Basically a tin can with lead balls in it. Worked just like a shot gun shell. Intended for close in work against infantry and cavalry. Very , very nasty stuff. If you were a gunner shooting these, you were also in a very bad situation. It also could contain anything from old nails, scrape iron to rocks and glass. Nasty stuff.

You may have heard of grape shot. This is a naval round just like canister except it had large 1 inch iron balls in a bag. It was used to "clear the decks" of opposing ships. You also had chained shots as previously mentioned.

That was my interpretive program at Petersburg National Battlefield 30 years ago.

The rounds that the British Navy were firing At Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill were round ball and shell. It was to far of a range to fire any other type of shot.

Range, rifling, and size of standard pieces were different. Artillery as a big direct fire weapon was the same. Oddly enough, the use of artillery was more revolutionary during the Napoleonic wars than during the Civil War. The rifled musket destroyed much of the utility of light, horse-drawn artillery.

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Range, rifling, and size of standard pieces were different. Artillery as a big direct fire weapon was the same. Oddly enough, the use of artillery was more revolutionary during the Napoleonic wars than during the Civil War. The rifled musket destroyed much of the utility of light, horse-drawn artillery.

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Agreed. However, the technology for the direct fire guns made giant leaps during the ACW.

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Philbrick is a good intro/gateway, but he takes his sources at face value far too often for my taste. Mayflower was especially troublesome in that regard.

As for artillery, the Revolution was mostly small bore weapons using solid shot. Good fuzes were still new and the shot was expensive. Solid shot was easy to get and did the job. We have to remember, as important as the Revolution is to us, the Brits kept their best tools and most of their best units in Europe. America was treated as a brush-fire war.

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They sent one of the largest fleets, if not the largest fleet, ever assembled to put down the rebellion. So I'd disagree.

There were multiple kinds of shot, as stated. If you're ever at Ticonderoga or Guilford Courthouse, they'll let you hold the different shot (reproduction ).

Also, you can read or listen to Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier and get an idea of an artillery barrage when he talks about Red Bank, which was a siege.

I had two ancestors who were patriots at Boston. Pretty cool.

Yes, in 1776, they did. However, they were more concerned with their Indian and Caribbean holdings overall. The entrance of France into the war meant they diverted their best assets to other theaters. And I'm not saying that grape and shell weren't present

A photo of mine from a few years ago. In the Field Artillery Museum at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. A British piece surrendered to Washington by Cornwallis at Yorktown.



Good museum for anyone slightly interested in the subject. An overwhelming number of things on display.

Thanks for the information. I didn't realize the cannonball was just a ball that didn't explode but rather destroyed everything in its path by rolling though whatever was in its path.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to see something like that flying at you.

I want to say i read a specific instance of grapeshotb being used against the redcoats at the siege of Ft Stanix. The redcoats were laying siege and the Americans tried to keep the trenches back.

A live demo firing of a 30 pound Parrot:

Good points on the shot, and they're mostly accurate. Naval guns had a variety of shot. Solid shot was mostly for putting holes (preferably right above the waterline or on the gun decks) of enemy ships, while the bolo-style shot (and some other creative variants) were used to shred sails, which takes away propulsion, then basically Bismarckizes your enemy (a new word I just coined).

Naval tactics is fascinating because there are so many things going on. You've got ships with the weather gauge (a more favorable position vis a vis the wind) and then you have those downwind. Ships lean over opposite to the wind, which means that the ship upwind may have to close its bottom gun turrets (if they're close to the waterline) whereas the downwind ship can keep all of its open, but then has more difficult shot angles. Etc. etc.

Naval ships against shore batteries is different. Generally it's not a good idea, because shore batteries are often well-fortified and have advantages. Brick fort vs. wooden ship generally doesn't work well for wooden ship. And then you have the height advantage, and the corresponding ability of the fort (higher) to depress its guns or fire in arcs vs the ships, which often can't raise their guns high enough (hence the more common use of mortars against fortifications). But at Bunker Hill, ships attacking dirt forts with inexperienced gunners is a decent proposition. Based on what I've read, it's pretty certain they used solid shot. Of course, even if it doesn't explode, they can do some things with it. For example, at sea, they'd sometimes heat it so that it starts a fire after getting stuck in your hull somewhere. They would do this against wooden forts too.

It sounds like a good book and I'd be interested in reading it.

While I won't argue the specifics, I would note that American batteries were fairly ineffective against British ships around New York. I suspect that is because they weren't stationary targets and the goal was to get up river.

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While I won't argue the specifics, I would note that American batteries were fairly ineffective against British ships around New York. I suspect that is because they weren't stationary targets and the goal was to get up river.

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Would have a lot to do with the quality of the men manning the guns. Hitting a target moving laterally and at extended ranges is not an easy task. It took years of gunnery practice for RN gunners to be able to do that and they were the best in the business.

Considering the lack of gunpowder, I doubt the gunners had fired more than a few shots.

By the way, if you ever get to Yorktown, the collection of captured cannons is worth the trip alone.

Yes, lack of training of American gunners was critical. However, I do have to say that one of the geniuses of the revolution was Henry Knox. Just the fact that we had guns there in the first place is amazing.

Yeah Knox owned a bookstore and read about tactics and strategy before hostilities began.

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By the way, if you ever get to Yorktown, the collection of captured cannons is worth the trip alone.

Yes, lack of training of American gunners was critical. However, I do have to say that one of the geniuses of the revolution was Henry Knox. Just the fact that we had guns there in the first place is amazing.

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My son has been asking about actual surviving cannon . We're participating in Colonial Williamsburg in October so well go to Yorktown.

Yorktown is really cool. The park rangers there really know their stuff. I learned so much more about the battle than I ever learned in school. It's amazing all of the things that went right for the Americans and all of the things that went wrong for the British.

Here are my photos from Yorktown from 2009. The tent was one of General Washington's tents.

Yorktown Photo Set

And then there are these two letters. I just love the contrast in tone.

Rex, those are great quotes. In such contrast indeed!

Carronades were especially nasty guns used by the RN in the Rev War. They very large bore guns that fired heavy shot (32 lbs) at very short ranges. They were mostly mounted on the upper decks on pivot mounts because of their light weight. Also used to sweep the opponents decks with grape shoot or "kegs" containing 500 musket balls. The French and Americans did not have these guns.