Talk:Canister shot

Triple canister

I believe I was told on a visit to Gettysburg in 1986 that triple canister had been used at one point in the battle. I am thinking that this was at the Devil's Den.
So the third round was actually protruding from the barrel.
Varlaam (talk) 06:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC) (Toronto)

I am not a contributor to Wiki but as an ex gunner (red-leg), may I note the difference between "canister" and "case". The former is similar to a shotgun shell - a series of spheres contained within a light cover. This allows the simple storage, carriage and then loading of the projectile which on firing spreads out in front of the muzzle in the same way as the shotgun does. Case shot on the other hand is a shell of iron with spheres inside plus a bursting charge. This is a significant difference. Canister cannot be used with own troops in front - case (or Shrapnel shells) remain solid until the fuze ignites at a predetermined time. 203.173.199.110 (talk) 02:02, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Sangrenel

Wasn't "sangrenel" a common 18th and 19th century term for improvised canister shot, often made using nails, stones, or whatever bits of scrap metal were available, to be fired from a smoothbore muzzleloading artillery piece? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.23.114 (talk) 16:56, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Spread

I came to the article hoping to find information about the angle of spread of canister shot. Does the canister disintegrate in the barrel, so that the shot spreads from the muzzle, or is it constrained by the canister for some distance? Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

The answer, according to experimental data on other sites, seems to be a spread of 1:10, or about 6°, but I don't have a reliable source to insert it in the article. Cyclopaedic (talk) 15:34, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Canister and case

The article starts off saying that canister and case are different, but often confused, and then at the end confuses them and says they are names for the same thing! Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:57, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

They definitely are two different things. Canister is the short-range, shotgun-like round (can filled with balls) while case hot is shrapnel being a shell filled with powder and balls as opposed to regular shell rounds without balls inside. OG a.D. 86 (talk) 22:44, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I’m afraid the second comment only continues the confusion by defining case shot as shrapnel. I believe the definitions must be clear at the outset since this article is the target of links about case shot as well as canister.

My offer is to say “case shot is the more general term. All canister is case shot but not all case shot is canister”.

Unfortunately, the article’s attempt to explain it introduces more confusion. The parting shot of this article—sorry about the inevitable pun—is that “…the term case shot is also used to describe a hollow ball containing a powder charge and bullets. After firing the iron ball the powder would explode, scattering the bullets.”

However, just before that the reader was told that "spherical case shot" (shrapnel) carried “a small powder charge to break open the case and disperse the shrapnel.” Do both statements refer to spherical case shot?

I would like to hear from someone well-versed in the history of British artillery at the time of the Napoleonic wars, where all these terms came together. I think it needs several good illustrations along the lines of “all four of these are case shot“, “these three are canister shot”, “ this one is “spherical case shot”. Perhaps something like a Venn diagram would be helpful. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 02:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)