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These were merely hollow cast iron spheres filled with gunpowder and fitted with a time fuze. They were fired from mortars and howitzers only until the introduction of shell guns during the 19th century. Shell have been with us almost as long as shot, the earliest reference to their use being by the Italians in 1376. Early time fuzes were simply pieces of quickmatch cut to length by questimation, inserted into a hole in the shell, and ignited by a linstock or portefire thrust down the barrel of the piece. The howitzer was then fired quickly - the Gunner in the meantime praying to St Barbara that it would not backfire! Both mortar and howitzer barrels were very short in the early days. It is said that at the siege of Limerick in 1639 a Gunner accidentally discovered that the flash of the propellant charge would ignite the fuze by way of the windage allowed in those days. He had forgotten to light the fuze before firing his mortar! The invention of the watch in 1674 made more precise fuzes possible. We shall examine their development later in this paper.
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WL Ruffell Issue 91 September 1996 |
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