Shrapnel-type artillery shell. The meaning of the word shrapnel What is the difference between buckshot and shrapnel

AL. Platonov, Yu.I. Sagun, P.Yu. Bilinkevich, I.V. Parfentsev

Above: grenade and shrapnel (for the soldier on the right) for a 6-inch field mortar mod. 1885, which was actively used during the Russo-Japanese War.

“Still, this captain Shrapnel -
rare bastard.
One glass of it
You can kill a whole platoon.
Of course, we are under shrapnel
learned to attack
but it’s very dreary.”
A. V. Shmalko “Phlegethon”

Henry Shrapnel.

In the literature devoted to the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, quite often when describing the actions of artillery, one type of artillery ammunition is mentioned - shrapnel. So what kind of projectile is this and why has it received such formidable fame?

"Russian encyclopedic Dictionary" laconically defines: "Shrapnel (English shrapnel), an artillery shell, the body of which was filled with spherical bullets (rods, arrows, etc.) that hit open living targets. Torn into given point trajectories; used in the 19th and early 20th centuries, replaced by fragmentation and high-explosive fragmentation shells.” This article attempts to summarize the basic data regarding the design and use of shrapnel.

In any period of development of the armed forces, the goals of increasing the efficiency of shooting were pursued; in particular, demands were placed directly on the artillery to inflict maximum damage on the enemy, which largely depends on artillery shells.

The often mentioned “Charter of military, cannon and other matters relating to military science”, published in Russia in 1621 and compiled by Onisim Mikhailov, who knew the subject well, contained 663 “decrees”, which covered in some detail the issues of the condition, organization and combat use of artillery. This work contained many original thoughts. Thus, “decree 364” spoke about equipping shells with gunpowder and “faceted iron shot” - “a handful of shot per pound of gunpowder.” Apparently, we were talking about a prototype of a grapeshot grenade or shrapnel shell. However, history gave primacy in the invention of the shrapnel artillery shell to a specific person.

Henry Shrapnel was born on June 3, 1761 in Bradford-Avon, Wiltshire in southern England. Like many of his peers, Shrapnel received a military education and devoted himself to service in the British Army. He graduated from military school with the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Artillery.

During this period, artillery guns were predominantly muzzle-loading, with a smooth bore and used mainly the following ammunition: solid cast iron cannonballs; cast iron spherical powder projectiles filled with black smoky gunpowder

(in Russian artillery such ammunition weighing up to a pound, i.e. 16.38 kg, was called “grenades”, and more than a pound – “bombs”); Buckshot. Knowing perfectly well the structure and features of the action of these ammunition, in 1784 Shrapnel proposed improving grenades and bombs by placing spherical bullets mixed with a dose of gunpowder inside their bodies. It was intended to use such ammunition mainly in the battle formations of cavalry and infantry. The British military department accepted the proposed ammunition for service only in November 1803. The transition from “linear” to “perpendicular” tactics, to actions on the battlefield of deep battalion columns, made such shells very relevant.

In April 1804, the British used shrapnel shells for the first time in battles against the Dutch in Suriname (South America). The effect was noticeable. The Dutch suffered very serious losses.

Spherical shells of smoothbore artillery: a) Shrapnel; b) Boxer. A wooden washer (Spiegel) provided the direction of flight of the projectile with the tube forward.

On August 21, 1808, the Battle of Weimar (Portugal) took place, where the British used spherical shells of the Shrapnel design against the French troops, which led to significant French losses in manpower. From this moment on, spherical projectiles filled with bullets and gunpowder, with a powder tube, began to be used by the British in almost all battles of the Napoleonic Wars era. Some historians studying the defeat of Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterlow cite the use of shrapnel shells by the British, among other factors of defeat.

By the 1830s in England, shrapnel becomes the main projectile. To ensure the remote action of such a projectile, tubes with different amounts of gunpowder were used along the trajectory, which changed the burning duration of the powder composition and determined the response time of the explosive charge of black smoky powder. The operational reliability of such tubes was extremely low: often artillerymen refused to use such ammunition in battle. But despite the fact that the shells were still far from perfect, their development and use became a real breakthrough in the development of ammunition, which allowed artillery to solve fire missions on the battlefield more effectively.

Henry Shrapnel was an inventor and worked on many artillery problems, often at his own expense. He finished his service in 1837 and retired with the rank of lieutenant general of the Royal Artillery. Henry Shrapnel died on March 13, 1842. Ten years after his death, relatives turned to the English government with a request to perpetuate the memory of Shrapnel. From that moment to the present day, projectiles filled with spherical bullets, and later with rods, prisms, etc. began to be officially called "shrapnel".

In many developed countries the world, appropriate conclusions were drawn, which subsequently affected the construction order of battle and on the tactics of the warring parties. Many ammunition developers made their own modifications to the design of shrapnel and its fuses, achieving increased efficiency and an increase in the range of targets hit.

In Russia, the “system of 1838” was created and introduced in 1840 for guns. so-called grapeshot grenades and bombs, which are the same spherical projectile of the Shrapnel design.

In 1852-1855. Another English artilleryman, Boxer, developed the first extended diaphragm shrapnel, 2.6 calibers long, with a straight tube that had two parallel channels and ignited the warhead from gases. The tube allowed installation at several distances. The diaphragm provided the direction for the bullets to fly and prevented premature rupture of the charge due to heating.

In the 1860s. To equip grapeshot grenades, a column-mounted spacer tube was introduced. Such a tube had a head with four ignition channels and a body with four longitudinal channels and a firecracker. The longitudinal channels were filled with gunpowder to different lengths, which ensured burning time corresponding to distances of 500, 800, 1000 and 1200 m. The outlet holes of the longitudinal channels were covered with mastic. Before firing, the plug was removed from the ignition channel and the mastic was removed with a chisel from the outlet of the channel whose burning time corresponded to the required firing range.

Columnar spacer tube.

In the middle of the 19th century, the era of smoothbore artillery ended, as it could no longer meet the new requirements for the development of military equipment.

In Russia, during the transition from smooth-bore artillery systems to rifled ones, the first serial guns adopted by artillery order No. 128 of August 10, 1860, were 4-pound rifled guns according to “ French system"(the French adopted such guns in 1858), loaded from the muzzle. The ammunition of these guns included three types of oblong projectiles: a cast iron grenade, shrapnel and buckshot. A design feature of the projectiles, including shrapnel ones, was the use of 12 zinc protrusions (in official documents of the 1850s and 1860s they were called “wings” or “spikes”), placed in two rows on the oblong part of the projectile.

An oblong projectile with ready-made projections for muzzle-loading rifled guns.

The front six protrusions were leading, rested against the inclined combat edge and were intended to impart a rotational movement to the projectile. The rear row of protrusions served to center the projectile in the barrel. The mass of the shrapnel projectile was 6.14 kg, it contained 85 g of explosives and 62 bullets weighing 23 g and each with a diameter of 16 mm. To ensure remote action, the shrapnel projectile was equipped with a 7.5-tube. The propellant charge in the form of a 614 g sample of gunpowder provided a firing range of shrapnel bullets of about 533 m.

Rifled guns loaded from the muzzle had such a serious drawback as the breakthrough of powder gases through the gaps between the surface of the projectile and the surface of the bore. This led to a decrease in the useful work of the powder gases and to unsatisfactory combat accuracy. The reasons listed above, as well as other operational characteristics, constantly forced us to look for another solution, which led to the development and widespread adoption of breech-loaded artillery systems.

In the period from 1865 to 1877, breech-loading artillery systems - guns mod. 1867 (i.e. with a barrel bore model 1867) and guns model. 1877 All field guns mod. 1867 had a horizontal wedge breech and were intended to fire a lead-jacketed projectile. For these guns of all calibers from 2.5 to 6 inches inclusive, two types of shrapnel were used: with a central chamber and with a diaphragm. The total number of bullets placed in diaphragm shrapnel was greater than in center chamber shrapnel.

Shrapnel with a diaphragm consisted of a cast iron body, on which a lead sheath was reinforced on the outside in longitudinal and transverse grooves. Round recesses were made on the inner surface of the projectile body, intended to ensure a tighter fit of the spherical bullets to the walls. For the same purpose, longitudinal helical grooves were sometimes made on the inner surface. The chamber for the expelling charge was located in the bottom of the projectile. A diaphragm was used to separate the expelling charge from the bullets, and a central iron tube was used to transfer fire from the remote tube to the expelling charge.

Shrapnel: a) with a central chamber; b) with a bottom chamber and a diaphragm.

A yellow copper head was attached to the projectile body with screws. When loading, the bullets were poured through the head point or a special hole in the head, they were thoroughly shaken and filled with sulfur. This design of the projectile, called “the first perfect example of shrapnel,” was developed by Russian Army General V.N. Shklarevich.

Both types of shrapnel were intended to destroy infantry and cavalry. There were differences in the effect of the projectiles on the target: for open targets it was preferable to use diaphragm shrapnel, and for closed ones in front - shrapnel with a central chamber. Thus, with diaphragm shrapnel, after the remote tube was triggered, a beam of fire was transmitted to the expelling charge, which led to the ignition of gunpowder. The pressure force of the powder gases from the expelling charge transmitted through the diaphragm caused the screw head threads to break (cut) and the bullets to be thrown forward, while the projectile body remained intact.

In shrapnel with a central chamber, a beam of fire from a remote tube ignited the gunpowder; as a result of the action of the powder gases, the shrapnel body was torn into fragments, which, together with the bullets, hit the target from above.

Russian artillerymen used such shrapnel shells during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. - mostly with guns mod. 1867. It is characteristic that in 1878 Russian factories that produced shells received an order for 791 thousand grenades, 690 thousand shrapnel, 54,150 buckshot. Ammunition for guns mod. 1877 (light and mounted, mountain, battery guns) was to include 50% shock tube grenades and 50% shrapnel and grapeshot.

The ammunition capacity of the 2.5-inch mountain gun mod. In 1885, a shrapnel shell with a steel body entered, the walls of which were much thinner than those of shrapnel with a cast iron body. Accordingly, a larger number of bullets were placed in the steel case.

In connection with the adoption of “long-range” guns mod. 1877 with steel barrels and a progressive steepness of the rifling, the angle of inclination of which gradually increased from the breech to the muzzle, Colonel Babushkin proposed an improved version of the “first sample” shrapnel. The shrapnel body was equipped with a copper driving belt located in the bottom part, and a copper centering belt pressed into a groove at the base of the ogive head. In addition, the shells became longer and more powerful.

Improved design of the “first sample” shrapnel.

However, the groove weakened the head of the projectile, especially the armor-piercing one. Later they abandoned it and switched to an annular centering thickening, which was made in one piece with the projectile body. The design of the body of an artillery shell with a copper leading belt and a centering thickening has been preserved, for the most part, to this day.

The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in the development of world and domestic artillery was characterized by the development and adoption of rapid-fire guns with an “elastic carriage”. Thus, in Russia, after a long period of testing, on February 9, 1900, the “3-dm field gun mod. 1900" with piston valve. In the same year, the gun received its baptism of fire during combat operations in China. In the design solution, the 76-mm gun mod. 1900 represented a sharp qualitative leap compared to field guns mod. 1877. However, this weapon had a number of significant shortcomings that needed to be eliminated. Therefore, soon, namely on March 19, 1903, by the highest command, a new gun with a carriage with a cradle under the name “3-dm field gun mod. 1902." For the above guns, the only projectile adopted was shrapnel.

During this period, shrapnel shells were completed (finally equipped) with spacer tubes. In Russian artillery, a tube with a spacer ring was adopted in 1873. However, in the 1880s. it had to be replaced with more reliable tubes based on the Krupp model, moreover, 12-second ones - in accordance with the increase in the firing range of the 1877 systems. 76-mm shrapnel shells were initially equipped with a 22-second double-action tube, which had a remote and impact action, i.e. e. ensured that the shrapnel shell exploded in the air in front of the target and upon impact with an obstacle, respectively.

It should be noted that the impact action of the tube in accordance with governing documents at that time it was considered auxiliary and should have facilitated the shooting of targets (which was also facilitated by the introduction of a smoke composition into the shrapnel, which made the explosion clearly visible).

Structurally, the impact mechanism was placed in the tail of the tube, and the remote one was located in its head, while they functioned independently of each other. The remote mechanism consisted of an ignition mechanism and two remote rings, of which the upper one was fixed motionless, and the lower one could rotate.

Before the First World War, the scale on the outer surface of the lower spacer ring of the tube was applied by knurling in linear measures, in accordance with the divisions of the sight of 3-inch guns. Later, already during the First World War, knurling of divisions was carried out in angular measures. In addition, on the lower ring there were two marks with the inscriptions: “UD” - for installing the tube for impact action and “K” - for installation on buckshot (the industry produced tubes with factory installation on buckshot). To install a 22-s tube on any division, it was necessary to unscrew the safety cap, and then turn the lower spacer ring with a key until the required division (according to the Shooting Tables) aligns with the mark on the tube body.

General form and a diagram of the device of the 76-mm Sh-354T bullet shrapnel.

As of January 1, 1904, one 3-inch gun was supposed to have 660 shrapnel. The ratio of shrapnel and high-explosive shells in Russian artillery as a whole can be judged by the fact that from 1898 to 1901, at the Ural mining plants, for example, 24,930 bombs and 336,991 shrapnel were produced on orders from the War Ministry. It is characteristic that at this time the idea of ​​shrapnel became the basis for another type of ammunition - anti-personnel mines. An example of this is the shrapnel landmine of Staff Captain Karasev with an expelling charge and shrapnel bullets, which was used in the defense of Port Arthur.

According to the GAU of the Russian Ministry of War, the shrapnel shell was supposed to ensure the completion of all fire missions performed by field artillery. This was affected by the low effectiveness of powder grenades against earthen fortifications, which manifested itself in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and by technological problems when introducing new high explosives into artillery, which did not allow us to evaluate the power of high-explosive grenades and bombs when equipped with new explosives. However, history quite quickly and repeatedly confirmed the harmfulness of this opinion - first during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and then during the First World War of 1914-1918. Although Captain A. Nilus wrote back in 1892: “Shrapnel (shot grenade) can undoubtedly be recognized as the queen between shells; when acting against living targets, it is irreplaceable, but when acting against closed targets and buildings, it is weak.”

Diagram of a 22-second double-action tube.

Russian scientists thoroughly and very fruitfully studied the properties of shrapnel. Among them it is necessary to highlight V.M. Trofimov, who published in 1903. treatise"Effect of shrapnel when fired from a 3-inch field gun." As a result of carefully conducted experiments, Trofimov was able to determine the speed imparted to the bullets by the expelling charge, the bullet's penetration ability, the angle of expansion, the law of distribution of bullets, the number of useful hits, as well as the influence of the internal structure of shrapnel on the distribution of bullets in the cone.

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Russian artillerymen used shrapnel shells to inflict serious damage on the enemy in open spaces, but when manpower was hidden in trenches or simple buildings, the effect of shrapnel bullets was negligible. Due to the thin walls of the body and the weakened head part, the shrapnel did not have an impact effect, and the small powder charge provided a weak high-explosive effect. At the same time, the skillful use of shrapnel forced the Japanese command to conduct offensives at night or at dawn, and during daytime operations to intensively use self-entrenchment in order to avoid the destructive effects of Russian shrapnel. The fire of rapid-fire repeating rifles and the still relatively rare machine guns also forced the infantry to make wider use of cover and thin their ranks when attacking. The effectiveness of shrapnel was also reduced by the introduction of shields for field artillery guns and machine guns. Attempts to increase the penetrating effect of shrapnel bullets by replacing lead with steel were unsuccessful: either the mass of the bullets was insufficient, or it was necessary to reduce their number in the projectile.

The famous Soviet military historian L.G. Beskrovny, based on documents from the Russian Military Department, gives the following figures: in 1904-1905, state-owned and private military factories produced 247,000 light shrapnel (for light field guns), 317,800 light grenades and 45,590 melinite grenades for light field artillery. That is, the war caused an increase in demand specifically for grenades.

After the Russo-Japanese War military leadership Russia conducted an analysis combat use artillery in terms of changing battle tactics, as well as the use of artillery to combat field fortifications and made certain conclusions. As a result, in 1908, fragmentation and high-explosive grenades were included in the ammunition of field guns. However, most of it was still shrapnel. Former leader GAU E.3. Barsukov indicates the following ratios: in a combat set of guns 1/7 in melinite grenades, 6/7 in shrapnel, and in combat sets of howitzers - 2/3 in melinite grenades, 1/3 in shrapnel. The Artillery Journal in 1906 noted that “the number of grenades in different states varies between 1/9 and 1/4 of the total number of shells” and admitted: “It is also very difficult to do without grenades.” So Russian artillery in this regard did not deviate from the general framework.

Consider the effect of shrapnel on a target. In general it depends:

– on the speed of shrapnel at the moment of explosion;

– from the additional speed imparted to the bullets by the expelling charge;

– on the number of bullets and the mass of each bullet in the shrapnel, as well as the ability of bullets to maintain speed in flight;

– from the angle of expansion of bullets when bursting;

– on the law of distribution of bullets over the affected area.

Diagram of the action of a shrapnel projectile and the spread of bullets.

When shrapnel breaks, the bullets acquire additional speed (approximately 77 m/s for 76 mm domestic shrapnel). As a result of the addition of these velocities, the bullets form an expansion cone, the axis of which practically coincides with the tangent to the trajectory at the break point, and the angle is 2? , formed by the top of this cone, is called the bullet expansion angle.

The affected area has the shape of an ellipse, and its size depends on the expansion angle 2? rupture interval I and angle of incidence? c. The choice of shrapnel impact angle depends on the position of the target and the conditions of the terrain at which the shooting is being conducted. For open, unprotected targets, it is advantageous to reduce the angle of incidence, while the depth of damage increases. The rupture interval and the angle of incidence are related to the height of the shrapnel rupture h by the dependence h=Itg? c.

At medium ranges and a normal burst height of 76 mm shrapnel, the depth of the affected area is 150-200 m, and the width is 20-25 m.

Hitting a target with shrapnel bullets is most likely within the so-called lethal interval, at which 50% of the bullets retain lethal energy. For domestic 76 mm shrapnel, the killing interval ranges from 320 m (at a range of 2000 m) to 280 m (at a range of 5000 m). As the burst interval increases, the number of lethal bullets decreases.

Distribution of 76 mm and 120 mm shrapnel bullets.

Depending on the range, the angle of spread of the shrapnel also changed, since it depended on the speed of the projectile and the speed of its rotation. So, when firing from a 76-mm cannon mod. 1902, for example, angle 2? at a distance of 1000 m it was 11°, at 2000 m – 13°, and at 500 m – 17.5°.

As for the design of shrapnel, the killing interval depends on the mass of the bullet. The main material used to make bullets in many countries was lead with the addition of antimony for greater hardness. IN war time with the increase in the production of ammunition and, in particular, shrapnel, steel and cast iron were used as materials for making bullets, which reduced the mass of bullets.

The law of distribution of bullets over an area was established by firing at three shields (simultaneously with determining the angle of expansion), which were installed perpendicular to the direction of fire. After the shot, circles were drawn on the second and third shields, capturing 95% of all bullets, after which the breaking point and the angle of spread of the bullets were determined from the diameters of these circles.

The area of ​​the circle on the third shield was divided by concentric circles into 10 rings of equal width, and for each ring the number of bullets per unit area was determined. As a result of experimental shooting, it was found that shrapnel bullets of different calibers are distributed differently.

For 76 mm shrapnel, the highest density of damage occurred in the 6th and 8th rings, while for 120 mm shrapnel - in the inner (central) rings, decreasing gradually as we approached the outer ring. This phenomenon can be explained by the different arrangement of bullets in the shrapnel different calibers.

Industrially developed countries (England, France, Germany, etc.) right up to the First World War considered bullet shrapnel one of the main ammunition with which artillery was able to perform all its tasks. Modern equipment and technologies were used in the manufacture of this type of ammunition.

Loading shrapnel shells in one of the UK industrial laboratories.

During the First World War, many armies, when using shrapnel, were faced with the problem of its ineffectiveness against sheltered, protected, armored and airborne targets. At the same time, there is information about successful and very effective cases of using shrapnel.

German soldiers who came under shrapnel fire from Russian 3-dm batteries nicknamed them “the scythe of death.” And there was a reason for it. For example, during the Battle of Gumbinnen-Goldan in early August 1914, the 1st Division of the 27th Artillery Brigade, supporting the infantry, concentrated the fire of all batteries on two enemy batteries in open firing positions. Within a few minutes, the German gun crews were destroyed, forcing the German infantry to retreat. Russian infantry counterattacked and captured 12 guns.

Lieutenant General Ya.M. Larionov recalled an episode of the battle of his 2nd brigade of the 26th infantry division near the city of Drengfurt on August 26, 1914: “The German infantry launched an offensive from behind Lake Resauer... The offensive was carried out in dense combat chains, which from a distance seemed like columns. I ordered the commander of the 2nd division to open fire. The artillery of the combat sector of the 102nd Vyatka Regiment also opened fire. The German infantry turned back, carrying away the dead and wounded. Having repulsed the German infantry, the commander of the 2nd division ordered the fire to be transferred to the howitzer battery at the Drengfurt dilapidated tower. But the remote tube turned out to be short.

The division commander ordered to switch to a grenade, but even for a grenade the maximum sight was insufficient.” Here, apparently, the use of the same 22-c tubes in grenades as in shrapnel had an effect; Only since 1916 did Russian field artillery begin to receive 36-s tubes, which made it possible to increase the firing range of a grenade, while shrapnel fire was still carried out with the same 22-s tube.

On the other hand, the journal of the meeting of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross dated September 14, 1914 noted “the extraordinary force of fire, when, for example, after a successful shrapnel volley out of 250 people, only 7 people remain uninjured.”

On August 7, 1914, the 6th battery of the 42nd French regiment under the command of Captain Lombal opened fire with shrapnel from 75-mm cannons from a range of 5000 m at the German 21st Dragoon Regiment in a marching column, destroying the regiment with sixteen shots, putting 700 out of action Human. The famous French artilleryman General F-J. Err wrote about the battles of 1914 on the Western Front: “Our 75-mm cannon again revealed its superiority and freely developed its deadly effect on fairly close and open targets, sometimes causing a real beating of the German infantry.”

As long as shrapnel was used in the conditions and against the targets expected before the war, it gave good results. But the same Err admits that this happened before the German heavy artillery came into action, before the infantry switched to thin formations and the start of “trench” warfare. Infantry formations were thinned out, dugouts and canopies were installed in the trenches to protect against shrapnel, and batteries were more often placed in closed positions. The artillery was required to support the infantry attack, but hopes of shooting over the heads of the troops did not materialize - premature explosions turned out to be too frequent. The effect of cannon shrapnel, to a greater extent than the effect of a grenade, depended on the accuracy of the tube, and the effect of the tube itself with the powder composition was determined by atmospheric pressure, air temperature and the speed of rotation of the projectile) and on the profile of the terrain.

Unitary rounds for field guns with shrapnel shells used during the First World War.

We can cite the following data from a survey of 33,265 wounded evacuated from Moscow in September 1915: bullet wounds (with bone damage) accounted for 70%, shrapnel - 19.1%, shell fragments - 10.3%, bladed weapons - 0.6% . Those. Before the final establishment of positional forms of combat and the widespread supply of steel helmets to the army, the proportion of shrapnel wounds was still quite large.

Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky recalled how Russian soldiers and officers determined whether the Austrians or the Germans occupied the front in front of them: “At the beginning of each artillery exchange, we looked at the color of the explosion and, seeing the familiar pink haze that the Austrian shells produced, sighed with relief.” The pinkish color gave the burst of the Austrian shrapnel, while the shrapnel of the German field guns indicated the point of its burst with a white cloud (as did the Russian one, by the way), and the heavy howitzer - with a greenish-yellow color.

The First World War demonstrated the low effectiveness of shrapnel in hitting many targets, especially in positional warfare. In this regard, the ammunition of field batteries was changed in favor of high-explosive shells at the expense of shrapnel. Thus, in the fall of 1915, the share of high-explosive grenades in the ammunition load of Russian field artillery increased from 15 to 50%.

Russian artilleryman E.K. Smyslovsky cited the following average theoretical percentage of hitting targets when firing 3-inch shrapnel, subject to the most favorable average interval and burst height:

It is not surprising that the use of shelters by the infantry caused a sharp increase in the consumption of shrapnel to kill one soldier.

Almost starting from the first months of the First World War, during the transition to well-developed positional defense in engineering terms, the artillery of all the warring countries faced the problem of how to ensure the effective defeat of the enemy located in field fortifications. In this regard, there was an urgent need to solve two main problems: to increase the angle of incidence of the projectile and the power of the projectile. To solve the above problems, artillery guns such as howitzers were most suitable, since light rapid-fire guns turned out to be ineffective against targets hidden in field structures (even light ones) due to the flatness of their trajectory and - what is more significant - due to the low power of the projectile.

Thus, all the warring states had to begin supplying their artillery with howitzers quite intensively, and by the end of the war of 1914-1918. the percentage of howitzer artillery rose to 40 or more. As for the composition of the howitzers' ammunition, shrapnel was also present there (it was believed that howitzer shrapnel retained its role because it could “look” into the trench). In addition, howitzer shrapnel accommodated more bullets of greater weight, “placed” them thicker and more evenly (closer to the normal distribution law), and when firing at artillery positions it was less intercepted by gun shields.

Shrapnel shells explode over positions. World War I.

The famous German artilleryman G. Bruchmüller, describing the actions of German divisional and corps artillery in 1916 on the Russian Front, mentions the use of 10-cm and 12-cm shrapnel by heavy howitzers of anti-battery warfare groups. But already in 1917, for the Russian and Western fronts, he paid almost no attention to shrapnel, speaking of “fragmentation shots.” Here, however, the fact that the pre-war reserves of shrapnel had run out also played a role.

It is also necessary to note the fact that shrapnel and a remote tube were more expensive to produce than a high-explosive fragmentation grenade and a contact fuse, and this, in conditions of mass production, especially during the war, led to additional government costs when placing orders at private enterprises and abroad . Head of the GAU during the First World War A.A. Manikovsky noted in his work “Combat Supply of the Russian Army in the War of 1914-1918”: “If at a state-owned factory 122-mm howitzer shrapnel cost 15 rubles. per shell, the private plant received 35 rubles. 76 mm, respectively, 10 and 15 rubles.” The cost of a 76-mm, 122-mm and 152-mm high-explosive grenade was 9, 30 and 48 rubles at state-owned enterprises, and 12.3, 45.58, and 70 rubles at private factories. respectively. Taking into account the enormous consumption of shells during the First World War, this was another important argument in favor of the grenade, in addition to its more effective action against sheltered enemy infantry and artillery.

The low combat effectiveness of shrapnel shells in trench warfare, as well as the emergence of new targets - armored cars, airplanes, tanks - contributed to the development of new types of ammunition.

Shrapnel is a type of explosive artillery shell designed to destroy enemy personnel. Named after Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), the British Army officer who created the first projectile of this type.
A distinctive feature of the shrapnel projectile are 2 design solutions:

The presence in the projectile of ready-made destructive elements and an explosive charge for detonating the projectile.

The presence in the projectile of technical devices that ensure that the projectile is detonated only after it has flown a certain distance.

Background of the projectile

Back in the 16th century, when using artillery, the question arose about the effectiveness of artillery against enemy infantry and cavalry. The use of nuclei against manpower was ineffective, because the kernel can only hit one person, and the lethal force of the kernel is clearly excessive to incapacitate him. In fact, infantry armed with pikes fought in tight formations, most effective for hand-to-hand combat. Musketeers were also lined up in several rows to use the “caracol” technique. When a cannonball hit such a formation, it usually hit several people standing behind each other. However, the development of hand-held firearms, an increase in their rate of fire, accuracy and firing range made it possible to abandon pikes, arm all infantry with guns with bayonets and introduce linear formations. The infantry, formed not in a column, but in a line, suffered significantly fewer losses from cannonballs.
To destroy manpower with the help of artillery, they began to use buckshot - metal spherical bullets poured into the barrel of a gun along with a powder charge. However, the use of buckshot was inconvenient due to the loading method.
The situation was somewhat improved by the introduction of grapeshot projectiles. Such a projectile was a cylindrical box made of cardboard or thin metal, into which bullets were placed in the required quantity. Before firing, such a projectile was loaded into the gun barrel. At the moment of the shot, the shell of the projectile was destroyed, after which the bullets flew out of the barrel and hit the enemy. This projectile was more convenient to use, but buckshot still remained ineffective. The bullets fired in this way quickly lost their destructive power and were no longer capable of hitting the enemy at distances of about 400-500 meters.

Henry Shrapnel's Buckshot Grenade

A new type of projectile for destroying manpower was invented by Henry Shrapnel. The grapeshot grenade, designed by Henry Shrapnel, was a durable hollow sphere containing bullets and a charge of gunpowder. A distinctive feature of the grenade was the presence of a hole in the body into which an ignition tube made of wood and containing a certain amount of gunpowder was inserted. This tube served as both an igniter and a moderator. When fired, while the projectile was still in the barrel, the gunpowder in the ignition tube ignited. As the projectile flew, the powder gradually burned in the ignition tube. When this gunpowder burned out completely, the fire transferred to the powder charge located in the grenade itself, which led to the explosion of the projectile. As a result of the explosion, the body of the grenade was destroyed into fragments, which, together with the bullets, scattered to the sides and hit the enemy.

An important design feature was that the length of the ignition tube could be changed immediately before the shot. In this way, it was possible to detonate a projectile in the desired location with a certain accuracy.


At the time of the invention of his grenade, Henry Shrapnel had been in military service with the rank of captain (which is why he is often referred to in sources as “Captain Shrapnel”) for 8 years. In 1803, Shrapnel-designed grenades were adopted by the British Army. They quickly demonstrated their effectiveness against infantry and cavalry. Henry Shrapnel was adequately rewarded for his invention: already on November 1, 1803, he received the rank of major, then on July 20, 1804, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, in 1814 he was assigned a salary from the British government in the amount of 1,200 pounds per year, subsequently he was promoted to general.

Diaphragm shrapnel

In 1871, the Russian artilleryman V.N. Shklarevich developed a diaphragm shrapnel with a bottom chamber and a central tube for the newly appeared rifled guns. Shklarevich's projectile was a cylindrical body divided by a cardboard partition (diaphragm) into 2 compartments. There was an explosive charge in the bottom compartment. The other compartment contained spherical bullets. A tube filled with a slow-burning pyrotechnic composition ran along the axis of the projectile. A head with a capsule was put on the front end of the barrel. At the moment of firing, the capsule explodes and the composition in the longitudinal tube ignites. During the flight of the projectile, the fire is gradually transferred through the central tube to the bottom powder charge. Ignition of this charge leads to its explosion. This explosion pushes the diaphragm and the bullets behind it forward along the projectile, which leads to the head breaking off and the bullets flying out of the projectile.
This design of the projectile made it possible to use it in rifled artillery at the end of the 19th century. In addition, it had an important advantage: when a projectile was detonated, the bullets did not scatter evenly in all directions (like a Shrapnel spherical grenade), but directed along the axis of flight of the projectile, deviating from it to the side. This increased the combat effectiveness of the projectile.
At the same time, this design contained a significant drawback: the burning time of the moderator charge was constant. That is, the projectile was designed for firing at a predetermined distance and was not very effective when firing at other distances. This drawback was eliminated in 1873, when a remote detonation tube with a rotating ring was developed. The difference in the design was that the fire path from the primer to the explosive charge consisted of 3 parts, one of which was (as in the old design) the central tube, and the other two were channels with a similar pyrotechnic composition located in the rotary rings. By turning these rings it was possible to adjust total pyrotechnic composition, which will burn during the flight of the projectile, and thus ensure the detonation of the projectile at a given firing distance. In the colloquial speech of artillerymen, the following terms were used: the projectile is installed (placed) “on buckshot”, if the remote tube is set to the minimum burning time, and “on shrapnel” if the detonation of the projectile should occur at a considerable distance from the gun. As a rule, the markings on the distance tube rings coincided with the markings on the gun sight. Therefore, the gun crew commander, in order to make the shell explode in in the right place, it was enough to command the same installation of the tube and sight. For example: scope 100; tube 100. In addition to the mentioned positions of the remote tube, there was also a position of the rotary rings “on impact”. In this position, the path of fire from the primer to the explosive charge was completely interrupted. The main explosive charge of the projectile was detonated when the projectile hit an obstacle.

History of the combat use of shrapnel shells


Russian 48-line (122 mm) shrapnel shell

Shrapnel artillery shells were used extensively from their invention until the First World War. Moreover, for field and mountain artillery of 76 mm caliber they made up the vast majority of shells. Shrapnel shells were also used in larger caliber artillery. By 1914, significant shortcomings of shrapnel shells had been identified, but the shells continued to be used.

The most significant case in terms of effectiveness of the use of shrapnel shells is considered to be the battle that took place on August 7, 1914 between the armies of France and Germany. During the battle, the commander of the 6th battery of the 42nd regiment of the French army, Captain Lombal, discovered German troops emerging from the forest at a distance of 5000 meters from his positions. The captain ordered the 75mm guns to open fire with shrapnel shells on this concentration of troops. 4 guns fired 4 shots each. As a result of this shelling, the 21st Prussian Dragoon Regiment, which at that moment was being reorganized from a marching column into a battle formation, lost about 700 people killed and about the same number of horses and ceased to exist as a combat unit.

However, already in the middle period of the war, characterized by the transition to the massive use of artillery and positional combat and the deterioration of the qualifications of artillery officers, major shortcomings of shrapnel began to emerge:
low lethal effect of low-velocity spherical shrapnel bullets;
the complete powerlessness of shrapnel with flat trajectories against manpower located in trenches and communication trenches, and with any trajectories - against manpower in dugouts and caponiers;
low efficiency of shooting shrapnel (a large number of high-altitude explosions and so-called “pecks”) by poorly trained officer personnel, who came in large numbers from the reserve;
the high cost and complexity of shrapnel in mass production.

Therefore, during the First World War, shrapnel began to quickly be replaced by a grenade with an instant (fragmentation) fuse, which did not have these disadvantages and also had a strong psychological impact.
Despite everything, shells of this type continued to be produced and used even for purposes other than their intended purpose. For example, due to the fact that cumulative shells (which had greater armor penetration than armor-piercing shells) appeared in the ammunition load of regimental guns of the Red Army only in 1943, before that time, when fighting Wehrmacht tanks, shrapnel was most often used “on impact.”

Shrapnel anti-personnel mines

Anti-personnel mines, the internal structure of which is similar to a shrapnel shell, were developed in Germany. During the First World War, the Schrapnell-Mine, controlled by an electric wire, was developed. Later, on its basis, the Sprengmine 35 mine was developed and put into service in 1936. The mine could be used with push or pull fuses, as well as with electric detonators. When the fuse was triggered, the powder moderator was first ignited, which burned out in about 4–4.5 seconds. After this, the fire switched to an expelling charge, the explosion of which threw the mine’s warhead to a height of about 1 meter. Inside the warhead there were also retardant tubes with gunpowder, through which the fire was transmitted to the main charge. After the gunpowder burned out in the moderators (at least in 1 tube), the main charge exploded. This explosion led to the destruction of the warhead body and the scattering of body fragments and steel balls located inside the unit (365 pieces). The flying fragments and balls were capable of hitting personnel at a distance of up to 15–20 meters from the mine installation site. Due to the peculiarity of its use, this mine was nicknamed “frog mine” in the Soviet army, and “jumping Betty” in the armies of Great Britain and the USA. Subsequently, mines of this type were developed and adopted into service in other countries (Soviet OZM-3, OZM-4, OZM-72, American M16 APM, Italian “Valmara 69”, etc.

Development of the idea

Although shrapnel shells are practically no longer used as anti-personnel weapons, the ideas on which the design of the projectile was based continue to be used:
Ammunition with a similar design principle is used, in which rod, arrow-shaped or bullet-shaped striking elements are used instead of spherical bullets. In particular, during the Vietnam War, the United States used howitzer shells with striking elements in the form of small steel feathered arrows. These shells showed their high efficiency in the defense of gun positions.
The warheads of some anti-aircraft missiles. For example, combat unit S-75 air defense missiles are equipped with ready-made striking elements in the form of steel balls or in some modifications of pyramids. The weight of one such element is less than 4 g, the total number in the warhead is about 29 thousand.

Henry Shrapnel born in England in the city of Bradford on June 3, 1761. In 1784, while serving in the Royal Artillery with the rank of captain, he came up with the idea of ​​using a hollow sphere filled with bullets that exploded in the air to destroy manpower. After the new projectile proved itself in action, the military career of its inventor began to grow rapidly.
Until this point, cavalry and infantry were shot mainly with grapeshot. These were metal spherical bullets poured into the gun barrel along with a powder charge. But buckshot was inconvenient to load, and therefore the regular combat troops quickly appreciated the innovation proposed by Captain Shrapnel. And the captain himself was able to literally test the effectiveness of his invention on his own skin: in 1793, he was wounded by shrapnel during a battle in Flanders. At that time, this projectile had not yet received his name. They began to call it shrapnel only in 1803. At the same time, Shrapnel was promoted to major. This was soon after the new shell showed its power during the capture of Suriname. Already on April 30, 1804, Shrapnel received the rank of lieutenant colonel.
The effect of shrapnel in battle was so impressive that the American writer Francis Scott Key, who observed the British bombardment of Baltimore in 1814, dedicated several lines to shrapnel in his poem, which later became the US national anthem.
After the Battle of Vimeiro in 1808, Napoleon issued an order to collect unexploded shells, dismantle them, study them and start producing similar ones. However, Napoleon failed to discover the English captain's secret. Which apparently largely decided the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo, where shrapnel helped Wellington hold out until the Prussian corps marched. As artillery Colonel Rob believed, “there is no fire more deadly than the action of shrapnel.” And General George Wood, Wellington’s artillery commander, was even more categorical: “Without shrapnel, we would not have been able to return La Haye Sainte to the main position of our defense. This circumstance contributed to a radical turn in the course of the battle.”
The British government awarded Shrapnel an annual pension of 1,200 pounds and assigned him command of a battalion. On March 6, 1827, Shrapnel received the rank of senior colonel of the Royal Artillery, and ten years later, on January 10, 1837, he was promoted to lieutenant general. Henry Shrapnel died on 13 March 1842 at Petrie House, Southampton.

On August 7, 1914, there was a hot battle: the French fought with the Germans, who had just crossed the border and invaded France. Captain Lombal - commander of the French 75-mm cannon battery - examined the battlefield with binoculars. In the distance, about five kilometers away, a large forest could be seen. Columns of German troops appeared from there, and Captain Lombal fired at them.
Suddenly, some yellow spot that appeared to the left of the forest attracted the captain’s attention. The spot expanded, as if spreading across the field. But five kilometers away, even with binoculars it was impossible to see what it was. One thing was clear: this spot did not exist before, but now it has appeared and is moving; obviously these are German troops. And Captain Lombal decided to fire several shells in that direction, just in case. He quickly determined from the map exactly where the spot was located, made calculations to transfer the fire, and gave commands.
With a sharp whistle, the shells rushed into the distance. Each of the battery's four guns fired four shots: Captain Lombal did not want to waste many shells on this incomprehensible target. The shooting continued for just a few tens of seconds.
The stain stopped spreading across the field.
By evening the battle died down. The large forest fell into the hands of the French. And to the left of this forest - in a large clearing - the French found mountains of corpses: about 700 German cavalrymen and the same number of horses lay dead. This was almost the entire 21st Prussian Dragoon Regiment. He caught the eye of a French artilleryman at the moment when he was rebuilding into battle formation, and was completely destroyed in a few tens of seconds by sixteen shells of Captain Lomballe.
The shells that caused such havoc in the German ranks are called “shrapnel.”
How does this wonderful projectile work, and who invented it?
For a long time - back in the sixteenth century - artillerymen thought about this question:
- What is the point of hitting an enemy fighter with a large, heavy cannonball, when a small bullet is enough to incapacitate a person?
And in those cases when it was necessary not to destroy the walls, but to defeat the enemy infantry, the artillerymen began to place a whole bunch of small stones in the gun barrel instead of a cannonball.
Rice. 80. Buckshot reliably protects the cannon from attacking enemy infantry or cavalry

But loading a gun with a bunch of stones is inconvenient: the stones scatter in the barrel; in flight they quickly lose speed. Therefore, soon - at the beginning of the seventeenth century - they began to replace stones with ball metal bullets.

To make it more convenient to load the gun with a large number of bullets, they were placed in advance in a round (cylindrical) box.
This projectile was called “buckshot”. A box of buckshot breaks when fired. Bullets fly out of the gun in a wide sheaf. They are good at hitting living targets - advancing infantry or cavalry, literally sweeping them off the face of the earth.
Buckshot has survived to this day: it is used when firing from small-caliber guns that do not have shrapnel, to repel enemy attacks, and for self-defense (Fig. 80).
But buckshot has a significant drawback: its ball bullets quickly lose speed, and therefore buckshot is effective at a distance of no more than 150-500 meters from the gun (depending on the caliber of the bullets and the strength of the charge).
English artillery captain Shrapnel in 1803 proposed filling a grenade with bullets and in this way sending bullets further than 500 meters. Along with the bullets, he, of course, poured a small explosive charge of gunpowder into his projectile (Fig. 81).
“Buckshot grenade,” as this projectile was called, exploded like any other grenade and showered the enemy, in addition to fragments, with bullets.
A wooden tube containing a powder composition was inserted into the end of this projectile, as into a grenade.
If during shooting it turned out that the tube burned for too long, part of it was cut off for the next shots. And they soon noticed that the shell hits best when it explodes while still in flight, in the air, and showers people with bullets from above.
But the ball projectile held few bullets, only 40-50. Yes, a good half of them were wasted, flying upward (Fig. 81). These bullets, having lost speed, then fell to the ground like peas and did not harm the enemy.
“Now, if only we could direct all the bullets to the target, and not let them scatter in all directions! Moreover, make the shell explode where it is needed, and not where the tube decides to burst it,” dreamed of artillerymen at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
But only at the end of this century was technology able to achieve the fulfillment of both wishes.
The current shrapnel - as it was named after its inventor - is a projectile obedient to the will of the artilleryman.

It carries bullets to the point where it is “ordered” to explode (Fig. 82).
It is like a small flying gun: it fires when the shooter needs it and showers the target with bullets (Fig. 83 and 84).

There are a lot of bullets in an oblong shrapnel: about 260 in a 76 mm shrapnel; in the 107 mm - about 600 ball bullets made of an alloy of lead and antimony.

A dense sheaf of these bullets, with a successful explosion, showers an area about 150-200 meters deep and 20-30 meters wide - almost a third of a hectare.
This means that the bullets of one successfully exploding shrapnel will cover in depth a section of a large road along which an entire company is walking in a column - 150-200 people with machine-gun gigs. The width of the bullets will cover the entire road with its sides.
Shrapnel has one more remarkable property: if the firing commander wants the explosions to be lower and the bullets to fall thicker, it is enough to give the appropriate command, and the shrapnel will explode lower. The sheaf of bullets will be shorter and narrower, but the bullets will fall thicker (Fig. 85).
The mechanism that allows you to control the shrapnel is its “remote tube” (Fig. 86).

There is a device in the spacer tube similar to the one you saw in the fuse. Like there, there is also a firing pin with a primer and a sting. But here they seem to have switched places: the striker is not behind, but in front of the sting; in order to encounter a sting, the primer must move along with the firing pin not forward, but backward. This backward movement of the striker certainly occurs at the moment of the shot. The drummer is a heavy metal cup; when fired, when the projectile moves sharply forward, the firing pin, by inertia, tends to remain in place, settles, and because of this, the primer attached to the bottom of the firing pin is pricked onto the sting.
The explosion of the primer in the spacer tube therefore occurs very early - even before the projectile leaves the gun.
But this explosion is not immediately transmitted to the expelling charge, it only ignites the gunpowder in the “transfer channel” (Fig. 86), and after that the special powder composition pressed into the annular groove of the “upper remote part” of the tube begins to burn slowly (that is, in its upper ring).
Having run along this groove, the flame reaches the gunpowder in the same groove of the “lower remote part”. From there, through the “ignition hole” and the transfer channel, the flame enters the “squib” (or powder chamber). An explosion in a firecracker knocks out the brass circle that covers the bottom of the tube, and the fire is transmitted further into the “central tube” of the projectile, filled with powder cylinders (Fig. 82).
Quickly running along it, the fire explodes the “explosive charge” of shrapnel.
The projectile head breaks off and the bullets fly out from the shrapnel. As you can see, the flame has to travel quite a long way before it finally causes the shrapnel to explode.

But this was done on purpose: while the flame moves along the channels and grooves of the rings, the shrapnel reaches the pre-designated location.
If we just lengthen the path of the flame a little, the shrapnel will explode later. On the contrary, if we shorten the path of the flame, shorten the burning time, the shrapnel will explode earlier.
All this is achieved by a suitable remote tube device.
The lower spacer ring of the tube is turned using a special key, or sometimes simply by hand, and is installed on any division (Fig. 87).
In some tubes, these divisions are applied so that each of them corresponds to a projectile range of 50 meters. By placing the ring with the division “100” against the marks (dashes) on the “plate”, we get a shell explosion at a distance of 50x100 = 5000 meters from the gun. And if we add one more division, the shrapnel will explode 5,050 meters from the gun. This is convenient because the gun sight divisions have the same groove: if we add one sight division, the projectile will fly 50 meters further. There is no need to count for a long time: just command the same installation of the sight and tube, for example: “Sight 100, tube 100.”
Some tubes are cut in seconds: if, for example, you put the ring of such a tube on the “20” mark, the projectile will explode in 20 seconds. Each such division of the tube is divided into five more small divisions. So, if we increase the 20 second setting by one small division, the projectile will explode in 20.2 seconds. The required installation of such a tube is determined using special shooting tables.
The whole secret in any tube is that when we turn the lower ring, setting it to one or another division, then by doing so we also move the through channel of the lower ring.

In order to understand the significance of this, you need to clearly imagine the path of the flame in the spacer tube (Fig. 88).
This path consists of four parts. The first part - the flame runs along the groove of the upper ring of the tube. The second part - the flame runs through a short through channel from the upper ring to the lower one. The third part is the groove of the lower ring. The fourth part is the rest of the way to the “explosive charge”.
Of all these sections of the path, the longest in terms of time are the upper and lower grooves. When setting the flame tube to full burning time, you need to run the upper groove to the very end, only then can it descend through the fire into the lower groove. And again - you need to run through the entire lower groove from beginning to end, so that you can then start further path.
But now we turn the lower ring so that the through channel now connects not the end of the upper groove with the beginning of the lower, but the middle of both grooves. This will immediately greatly shorten the path of the flame: now it no longer needs to run along both grooves from the beginning to the end of each: it is enough to run through half of the upper one and then half of the lower one. The flame path will be halved in time.

By moving the lower ring, it is therefore possible to change the burning time of the tube.
You can not only set the tube for a particular burning time, but also, if desired, get an almost instantaneous explosion of the projectile.

If you install the lower ring with the letter “K” against the marks on the plate, then the through channel will connect the very beginning of the upper groove with the very end of the lower groove, the fire will quickly be transferred from the head of the tube, from the primer, into the inside of the projectile (Fig. 89). The shrapnel will explode 10-20 meters from the gun and shower an area of ​​up to 500 meters in front of the gun with bullets.
This is the so-called “buckshot” installation. This is how shrapnel is installed when it is necessary to repel an attack by infantry or cavalry on guns. Shrapnel acts like buckshot. Some remote tubes are installed directly on the buckshot at the factory.
If you put the letters “UD” against the marks on the lower ring, the fire from the upper ring will not be transferred to the lower one at all: it will be prevented by a jumper, against which the through channel of the lower ring will be located (Fig. 90).
In this case, the remote part of the tube cannot cause the projectile to rupture.
But the tube also has a percussion mechanism, similar to the UGT fuse mechanism (Fig. 91).
When the projectile rupture is not caused by a remote device, it will be caused by another device - the impact device; the shrapnel will explode like a grenade upon impact with the ground.
This is why the shrapnel remote tube is called a “double action” tube.

Not only shrapnel is supplied with a spacer tube. Sometimes they screw a remote tube into a grenade. Then you can cause a grenade to explode in the air (Fig. 92), hit an air target (airplane), or use shrapnel to reach soldiers hiding in trenches and pits. Such a grenade is usually called a "high explosive" or "remote" grenade. It is most often used for shooting at aircraft.
Thus, the remote tube is now widely used - not only in shrapnel, but also in grenades, not only when shooting at ground targets, but also when shooting at air targets.
However, an obedient, generally speaking, remote tube still has its own vagaries: the powder composition burns differently at different atmospheric pressures, and at high altitudes, where the pressure is very low, the tube goes out completely; In addition, the tube is very sensitive to dampness.
To protect against dampness, the tube is covered with a cap, which is removed only before shooting.
But this does not always help: sometimes the remote tube still fails.
That is why samples of a more accurate tube have now appeared, into which a kind of clock mechanism is inserted to keep time, working with an accuracy of a tenth of a second.
Firing projectiles with such “stopwatches” is advantageous in that the clock mechanism operates very accurately and its operation is almost independent of atmospheric conditions.
But such stopwatch tubes are very expensive and difficult to manufacture. They are used mainly where particularly high accuracy is needed - in anti-aircraft artillery.

Shrapnel got its name in honor of its inventor, the English officer Henry Shrapnel, who developed this projectile in 1803. In its original form, shrapnel was an explosive spherical grenade for smooth-bore guns, into the internal cavity of which lead bullets were poured along with black powder.

In 1871, the Russian artilleryman V.N. Shklarevich developed a diaphragm shrapnel with a bottom chamber and a central tube for the newly appeared rifled guns (see fig.1 ). She hasn't answered yet modern concept shrapnel, since I had fixed time combustion tube. Only two years after the adoption of the first Russian remote tube of the 1873 model, shrapnel acquired its complete classic appearance. This year can be considered the year of birth of Russian shrapnel.

The 1873 spacer tube had one rotating spacer ring containing a slow-burning pyrotechnic composition (see fig.2 ). The maximum burning time of the composition was 7.5 s, which made it possible to fire at a range of up to 1100 m.

The inertial mechanism for igniting the tube when fired (combat propeller) was stored separately and inserted into the tube immediately before the shot. The bullets were cast from an alloy of lead and antimony. The space between the bullets was filled with sulfur. Characteristics of Russian shrapnel shells for rifled guns mod. 1877 caliber 87 and 107 mm are presented intable 1 .

Up until the First World War, bullet shrapnel constituted the bulk of the ammunition of field horse artillery guns armed with 76-mm cannons, and a significant part of the ammunition of guns of larger calibers (see fig.3 ). The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, in which the Japanese for the first time used impact fragmentation grenades filled with melinite on a massive scale, shook the position of shrapnel, but in the first period of the World War it still remained the most widely used projectile. The high efficiency of its action against openly located concentrations of manpower has been confirmed by numerous examples. So, on August 7, 1914, the 6th battery of the 42nd French regiment, opening fire with 75 mm shrapnel at a distance of 5000 m at the marching column of the 21st German dragoon regiment, destroyed the regiment with sixteen shots, putting 700 people out of action.

However, already in the middle period of the war, characterized by the transition to the massive use of artillery and positional combat and the deterioration of the qualifications of artillery officers, major shortcomings of shrapnel began to emerge:

Low lethal effect of low-velocity spherical shrapnel bullets;

The complete powerlessness of shrapnel with flat trajectories against manpower located in trenches and communication trenches, and with any trajectories - against manpower in dugouts and caponiers;

Low efficiency of shooting shrapnel (a large number of high-altitude explosions and so-called “pecks”) by poorly trained officer personnel, who came in large numbers from the reserve;

The high cost and complexity of shrapnel in mass production.

Therefore, during the war, shrapnel began to be quickly replaced fragmentation grenade with an impact fuse, which does not have these disadvantages and also has a strong psychological effect. At the final stage of the war and in the post-war period, due to the rapid development of military aviation, shrapnel began to be used to combat aircraft. For this purpose, rod shrapnel and shrapnel with capes were developed (in Russia - 76-mm Rosenberg rod shrapnel, containing 48 prismatic rods weighing 45–55 g, laid in two tiers, and 76-mm Hartz shrapnel, containing 28 capes weighing 85 g each). The capes were steel tubes, filled with lead, connected in pairs by short cables, designed to break the struts and guy wires of airplanes. Shrapnel with capes was also used to destroy wire fences. In a sense, caped shrapnel can be seen as a prototype of modern rod warheads (see fig. 4 and 5 ).

By the beginning of the Second World War, shrapnel had almost completely lost its importance. It seemed that the time of shrapnel was gone forever. However, as often happens in technology, in the 60s there was an unexpected return to the old shrapnel designs.

The main reason was widespread military dissatisfaction with the low effectiveness of impact-fuse fragmentation grenades. This low efficiency had the following reasons:

Low density of fragments inherent in circular fields;

Unfavorable orientation of the fragmentation field relative to the surface of the earth, in which the bulk of the fragments goes into the air and ground. The use of expensive non-contact fuses, which ensure an air burst of a projectile above the target, increases the effectiveness of fragments in the lower hemisphere of expansion, but does not fundamentally change the overall low level of action;

Small depth of destruction during flat shooting;

The random nature of fragmentation of projectile bodies, leading, on the one hand, to a non-optimal distribution of fragments by mass, and on the other hand, to an unsatisfactory shape of the fragments.

In this case, the most negative role is played by the process of destruction of the shell by longitudinal cracks moving along the generatrix of the hull, leading to the formation of heavy long fragments (the so-called “sabers”). These fragments take up to 80% of the hull's mass, increasing efficiency by less than 10%. Many years of research into finding steels that produce high-quality fragmentation spectra, carried out in many countries, have not led to fundamental changes in this area. Attempts to use various methods of specified crushing also turned out to be unsuccessful due to the sharp increase in production costs and a decrease in the strength of the body.

Added to this was the unsatisfactory (not instantaneous) effect of impact fuses, which was especially clearly manifested in the specific conditions of post-war regional wars (water-flooded rice fields of Vietnam, sandy Middle Eastern deserts, swampy soils of the lower Mesopotamia).

On the other hand, the revival of shrapnel was facilitated by such objective factors as a change in the nature of combat operations and the emergence of new targets and types of weapons, including the general trend of transition from shooting at area targets to shooting at specific single targets, the saturation of the battlefield with anti-tank weapons, and the increased role small-caliber automatic systems, equipping infantry with means individual armor protection, the sharply aggravated problem of combating small air targets, including anti-ship cruise missiles. An important role was also played by the appearance of heavy alloys based on tungsten and uranium, which sharply increased the penetrating effect of ready-made destructive elements.

In the 1960s, during the Vietnam campaign, the US Army first used shrapnel with arrow-shaped striking elements (SPE). The mass of steel XLPE was 0.7–1.5 g, the number in the projectile was 6000–10000 pieces. The SPE monoblock was a set of arrow-shaped elements laid parallel to the projectile axis with the pointed part forward. For a more dense installation, alternating laying with the pointed part back and forth can also be used. The XLPE in the block is filled with a binder with reduced adhesive ability, for example, wax. The ejection speed of the block with a powder expelling charge is 150–200 m/s. It was noted that an increase in the ejection speed above these limits due to an increase in the mass of the expelling charge and an increase in the energy characteristics of the gunpowder leads to an increase in the probability of destruction of the glass and to a sharp increase in the deformation of the EPS due to the loss of their longitudinal stability, especially in the lower part of the monoblock, where the advancing load during a shot reaches maximum. In order to protect the SPE from deformation when fired, some US shrapnel shells use multi-tiered laying of the SPE, in which the load from each tier is absorbed by the diaphragm, which in turn rests on the ledges of the central tube.

In the 1970s, the first warheads with swept PE for unguided aircraft missiles (UAR) appeared. An American 70 mm caliber NAR with an M235 warhead (1,200 arrow-shaped PEs weighing 0.4 g each with a total initial velocity of 1,000 m/s), when detonated at a distance of 150 m from the target, provides a kill zone with a frontal area of ​​1,000 sq.m. The speed of the elements when meeting the target is 500–700 m/s. NAR with swept PE from the French company Thomson-Brandt is produced in versions designed to destroy lightly armored targets (weight of one SPE 190 g, diameter 13 mm, armor penetration 8 mm at a speed of 400 m/s). In the 68 mm NAR caliber, the number of SPEs is 8 and 36, respectively, in the 100 mm caliber – 36 and 192. The expansion of the SPE occurs at a projectile speed of 700 m/s at an angle of 2.5°.

BEI Defense Systems (USA) is developing high-speed HVR missiles equipped with arrow-shaped PEs made of tungsten alloy and designed to destroy air and ground targets. In this case, the experience gained in the process of work on the program for creating a detachable penetrating element is used kinetic energy SPIKE (Separating Penetrator Kinetic Energy). The high-speed missile “Persuader” (“Spurs”) was demonstrated, which, depending on the mass of the warhead, has a speed of 1250–1500 m/s and allows it to hit targets at a range of up to 6000 m. The warhead is made in various versions: 900 swept-shaped PE weighing 3.9 g each, 216 arrow-shaped PEs of 17.5 g each or 20 PEs of 200 g each. The dispersion of the rocket does not exceed 5 mrad, the cost is no more than $2500.
It should be noted that anti-personnel shrapnel with arrow-shaped PE, although not included in the list of officially prohibited international conventions weapons, but, nevertheless, are negatively assessed by the world public opinion as an inhumane type of weapon of mass destruction. This is indirectly evidenced by such facts as the lack of data about these shells in catalogs and reference books, the disappearance of their advertising in military-technical periodicals, etc.

Small-caliber shrapnel has been intensively developed in recent decades due to the increasing role of small-caliber automatic guns in all types of armed forces. The smallest known caliber of shrapnel projectile is 20 mm (DM111 projectile from the German company Diehl for Rh200, Rh202 automatic guns) (see fig.6 ). The last gun is in service with the BMP "Marder". The projectile has a mass of 118 g, an initial speed of 1055 m/s and contains 120 balls that pierce a 2 mm thick duralumin sheet at a distance of 70 m from the detonation point.

The desire to reduce the loss of speed of the PE during flight led to the development of projectiles with bullet-shaped elongated PE. Bullet-shaped PEs are laid parallel to the axis of the projectile and during one revolution of the projectile they also make one revolution around their own axis and, therefore, after being ejected from the body they will be gyroscopically stabilized in flight.

Domestic 30 mm shrapnel (multi-element) projectile intended for Gryazev-Shipunov aircraft guns GSh-30, GSh-301, GSh-30K, developed by State Research and Production Enterprise "Pribor" (see fig.7 ). The projectile contains 28 bullets weighing 3.5 g, stacked in four tiers of seven bullets each. The ejection of bullets from the body is carried out using a small expelling powder charge, ignited by a pyrotechnic retarder at a distance of 800–1300 m from the place of the shot. Cartridge mass 837 g, projectile mass 395 g, cartridge case powder charge mass 117 g, cartridge length 283 mm, muzzle velocity 875-900 m/s, probable deviation of muzzle velocity 6 m/s. The bullet spread angle is 8°. The obvious disadvantage of the projectile is the fixed time interval between the shot and the firing of the projectile. Successful firing of such shells requires a highly qualified pilot.

The Swiss company Oerlikon-Contraves produces a 35-mm shrapnel projectile, AHEAD (Advanced Hit Efficiency and Destruction) for automatic anti-aircraft guns equipped with a fire control system (FCS), which ensures detonation of projectiles at an optimal distance from the target (ground-based towed double-barreled Skygard systems » GDF-005, “Skyshield 35”, shipborne single-barrel installations “Skyshield” and “Millennium 35/100”). The projectile is equipped with a high-precision electronic remote fuse located in the bottom of the projectile, and the installation includes a range finder, a ballistic computer and a muzzle input channel for a temporary installation. There are three solenoid rings located at the muzzle of the gun. Using the first two rings located along the course of the projectile, the speed of the projectile in a given shot is measured. The measured value, together with the range to the target measured by the range finder, is entered into the ballistic computer, which calculates the flight time, the value of which is entered into the remote fuse through the ring with a setting step of 0.002 s.

The mass of the projectile is 750 g, the initial speed is 1050 m/s, the muzzle energy is 413 kJ. The projectile contains 152 cylindrical GPEs made of tungsten alloy weighing 3.3 g (total GPE mass 500 g, relative GPE mass 0.67). The release of GGE occurs with the destruction of the projectile body. Relative projectile massWITH q (weight in kg per cube of caliber in dm) is 17.5 kg/cubic dm, i.e. 10% higher than the corresponding value for conventional high-explosive fragmentation projectiles.

The projectile is designed to destroy aircraft and guided missiles at a range of up to 5 km.

From a methodological point of view, it is advisable to classify a multi-element projectile, an AHEAD projectile, and NAR warheads, the charge of which (powder or high explosive) does not impart additional axial velocity, but essentially performs only a separation function, into a separate class of so-called kinetic beam projectiles (KPS), and The term “shrapnel” should be reserved only for the classic shrapnel projectile, which has a body with a bottom expelling charge, providing a noticeable additional GPE velocity. An example of a frameless type KPS design is a projectile with a set of rings of a given crushing, patented by Oerlikon. This set is put on the hollow body rod and pressed under the head cap. A small explosive charge is placed in the internal cavity of the rod, calculated in such a way that it ensures the destruction of the rings into fragments without imparting a noticeable radial speed to them. As a result, a narrow beam of fragments of a given fragmentation is formed.

The main disadvantages of powder shrapnel are the following:

There is no high explosive charge and, as a result, it is impossible to hit hidden targets;

The heavy steel body (glass) of shrapnel essentially performs transport and barrel functions and is not used directly for destruction.

In this regard, in recent years, intensive development of so-called beam fragmentation projectiles has begun. They mean a projectile equipped with a high explosive, with a GGE block located in the front part, creating an axial flow (“beam”). Being an analogue of powder shrapnel in the form of the main field, the projectile compares favorably with it by the presence of a high-explosive action and the productive use of the body metal for the formation circular fragmentation field.

The first serial HETF-T fragmentation-beam tracer projectiles (35-mm DM42 projectile and 50-mm M-DN191 projectile) were developed by the German company Diehl for the Rh503 automatic cannon of the Mauser company, part of the Rheinmetall concern. "(Rheinmetall). The projectiles have a double-action (remote-impact) bottom fuse located inside the projectile body and a head command receiver located in the head plastic cap. The receiver and fuse are connected by an electrical conductor passing through the explosive charge. Due to the bottom initiation of the explosive charge, the block is thrown due to the incident detonation wave, which increases the throwing speed. The lightweight head cap does not obstruct the passage of the GPE block. (Rice. 8 )

Conical block of 35 mm DM41 projectile, containing 325 pcs. spherical GPE with a diameter of 2.5 mm, made of a heavy alloy (approximate weight 0.14 g) rests directly on the front end of an explosive charge weighing 65 g. The mass of the DM41 projectile is 610 g, the length of the projectile is 200 mm (5.7 klb), total weight cartridge 1670 g, mass of gunpowder charge in the cartridge 341 g, initial projectile speed 1150 m/s. The expansion of the GGE occurs in the housing with an angle of 40°. The command for the type of action and the temporary setting are entered in a non-contact manner immediately before charging.

To a certain extent, the critical element of this diaphragm-less design is the direct support of the GGE on the explosive charge. With a block mass of 0.14 x 325 = 45 g and a barrel overload of 50,000, when fired, the GGE block will press on the explosive charge with a force of 2.25 tons, which, in principle, can lead to destruction and even ignition of the explosive charge. Noteworthy is the extremely small mass of the GGE (0.14 g), which is clearly insufficient to hit even light targets. A certain disadvantage of the design is the spherical shape of the GGE, which reduces the packing density of the block and leads to a decrease in the speed of its throwing due to energy losses due to the deformation of the GGE. A comparison of 35-mm AHEAD shells from Oerlikon and HETF-T from Diehl is given intable 2 .

A comparative assessment of projectiles based on the “cost-effectiveness” criterion when firing at air and ground targets does not reveal a tangible superiority of one projectile over another. This may seem strange, given the huge difference in axial flow masses (the AHEAD projectile is an order of magnitude larger). The explanation, on the one hand, lies in the very high cost of AHEAD projectiles (2/3 of the projectile consists of an expensive and scarce heavy alloy), on the other hand, in the sharp increase in the possibility of adapting the HETF-T fragmentation-beam projectile to the conditions of combat use. For example, when operating against anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), both projectiles equally do not provide target destruction of the “instant destruction of a target in the air” type, achieved by penetrating the armor-piercing body and penetrating the GGE into the explosive charge, causing its detonation. At the same time, a direct hit into an anti-ship missile airframe by a Diehl HETF-T explosive projectile when the fuse is set to impact causes significantly more damage than a direct hit from an inert AHEAD, which can be achieved by setting the fuse for the maximum time.

The Diehl company currently occupies a leading position in the development of axial directed fragmentation ammunition. Among its most famous patented developments of fragmentation-beam ammunition are a tank projectile, a multiple-barreled mine, and a cluster warhead descending by parachute with an adaptive split-axial action. (Rice. 9, 10 ).

The developments of the Swedish company Bofors AB are of significant interest. She patented a rotating fragmentation-beam projectile with a GGE flow directed at an angle to the projectile axis. Detonation at the moment when the axis of the GGE block is aligned with the direction towards the target is provided by the target sensor. Bottom initiation of an explosive charge is ensured by a bottom detonator, offset relative to the axis of the projectile and connected wired connection with target sensor. (Fig.11 )

The Rheinmetall company (Germany) has patented a finned fragmentation-beam projectile for a smooth-bore tank gun, intended primarily to combat anti-tank helicopters (US Pat. No. 5261629). A target sensor unit is located in the head compartment of the projectile. After determining the target’s position relative to the projectile’s trajectory, the projectile’s axis is turned toward the target using pulse jet engines, the head compartment is shot using a ring explosive charge, and the projectile is detonated with the formation of a GGE stream directed at the target. Shooting the head compartment is necessary for the unhindered passage of the GGE block.

Domestic patents for fragmentation-beam projectiles No. 2018779, 2082943, 2095739, 2108538, 21187790 (patent holder of the Research Institute of SM MSTU named after N.E. Bauman) cover the most promising areas of development of these projectiles (Fig.12, 13 ). The projectiles are designed both to engage air targets and to engage ground targets in depth, and are equipped with remote or non-contact (range finder) bottom fuses. The fuse is equipped with a percussion mechanism with three settings, which allows the projectile to be used when firing the usual types of action of standard high-explosive fragmentation projectiles - compression fragmentation, high-explosive fragmentation and penetrating high-explosive. Instant fragmentation detonation occurs using the head contact assembly, which has an electrical connection with the bottom fuse. The command that determines the type of action is entered through the head or bottom command receivers.

The speed of the GGE block, as a rule, does not exceed 400–500 m/s, i.e., a very small part of the energy of the explosive charge is spent on its acceleration. This is explained, on the one hand, by the small contact area of ​​the explosive charge with the GPE block, and on the other hand, by the rapid decrease in the pressure of the detonation products due to the expansion of the projectile shell. According to high-frequency optical imaging data and computer modeling results, it is clear that the process of radial expansion of the shell is much faster than the process of axial movement of the block. The desire to increase the proportion of charge energy converted into the kinetic energy of the axial motion of the GPE has given rise to many proposals for the implementation of multi-end structures. (Fig.10 ).

One of the most promising areas of application for beam shells is tank artillery. In conditions of saturation of the battlefield with anti-tank weapon systems, the problem of defending a tank against them is extremely acute. In development trends tank weapons Recently, there has been a desire to implement the principle of “beat an equal”, according to which the main task of a tank is to fight enemy tanks as representing the main danger, and its defense from tank-hazardous weapons should be carried out by accompanying infantry fighting vehicles equipped with automatic guns and self-propelled anti-aircraft guns . In addition, the problem of combating tank-hazardous weapons located in structures, for example, in buildings, during combat operations in populated areas is considered insignificant. With this approach, a high-explosive fragmentation projectile in the tank's ammunition load is considered unnecessary. For example, in the ammunition load of the 120-mm smoothbore gun of the German Leopard-2 tank there are only two types of projectile - the armor-piercing sub-caliber DM13 and the fragmentation-cumulative (multi-purpose) DM12. An extreme expression of this trend has recently been decisions made that the ammunition load of the 140-mm smoothbore guns being developed in the USA (XM291) and Germany (NPzK) will include only one type of projectile - a finned armor-piercing sub-caliber.

It should be noted that the concept based on the idea that the main threat to a tank is posed by the enemy tank is not confirmed by the experience of military operations. Thus, during the fourth Arab-Israeli war of 1973, tank losses were distributed as follows: from anti-tank systems - 50%, from aviation, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, anti-tank mines - 28%, from tank fire only - 22%.

Another concept, on the contrary, comes from the view of a tank as an autonomous weapon system capable of independently solving all combat missions, including the task of self-defense. This problem cannot be solved by standard high-explosive fragmentation projectiles with impact fuses for the reason that when these projectiles are fired flatly to fragment single targets, the dispersion density of the impact points of the projectiles and the coordinate law of destruction are extremely unsatisfactory. The dispersion ellipse, which at a distance of 2 km has a ratio major axes approximately 50:1, elongated in the direction of fire, while the area affected by fragments is perpendicular to this direction. As a result, only a very small area is realized where the dispersion ellipse and the affected area overlap each other. The consequence of this is the low probability of hitting a single target with one shot, according to various estimates not exceeding 0.15...0.25.

The design of a multifunctional high-explosive fragmentation-beam finned projectile for a smooth-bore tank gun is protected by patents No. 2018779, 2108538 of the Russian Federation. The presence of a heavy GGE head block and the associated forward shift of the center of mass increases the aerodynamic stability of the projectile in flight and firing accuracy. The unloading of the explosive charge from the pressure created by the pressing mass of the GPE block during firing is carried out by an insert diaphragm resting on an annular ledge in the housing, or by a diaphragm made integral with the housing.

The block's GPEs are made of steel or a heavy tungsten-based alloy (density 16...18 g/cc) in a form that ensures their tight placement in the block, for example, in the form of hexagonal prisms. Dense packing of the GPE helps maintain their shape during explosive throwing and reduces the energy loss of the explosive charge due to deformation of the GGE. The required expansion angle (usually 10...15°) and the optimal distribution of the GGE in the beam can be achieved by changing the thickness of the headband, the shape of the diaphragm, placing inserts made of easily compressible material inside the GGE block, and changing the shape of the front of the incident detonation wave. The angle of expansion of the block is controlled using an explosive charge placed along its axis. The time interval between detonations of the main and axial charges is generally regulated by the projectile detonation control system, which makes it possible to obtain optimal spatial distributions of GGE and hull fragments in a wide range of firing conditions. The head cap with the head contact assembly, filled inside with polyurethane foam, must have a minimum mass, which ensures a minimum loss of GPE speed during explosive throwing. A more radical method is to reset the head cap using a pyrotechnic device before detonating the main charge or destroying it using a liquidator charge. In this case, the destructive effect of detonation products on the GPE unit must be excluded. The optimal mass of the GPE block varies within 0.1...0.2 of the mass of the projectile. The ejection speed of the GGE block from the housing, depending on its mass, characteristics of the explosive charge and other design parameters, varies in the range of 300...500 m/s, the initial resulting GGE velocity at a projectile speed of 800 m/s is 1100...1300 m/s.

The optimal mass of a single destructive element, calculated according to the condition of defeating manpower equipped with heavy bulletproof vests of the 5th protection class according to GOST R50744-95 “Armored Clothing”, is 5 g. This also ensures destruction of most of the range of unarmored vehicles. If it is necessary to hit heavier targets with steel equivalents of 10... 15 mm, the mass of the GGE must be increased, which will lead to a decrease in the flux density of the GGE. Optimal GGE masses for hitting various classes of targets, levels of kinetic energy, number of GGEs with a block mass of 2.5 kg and field density with a half-opening angle of 10° at a distance of 20 m (radius of the circle of destruction 3.5 m, circle area 38 sq.m) shown intable 3 .

The inclusion in tank ammunition of two types of fragmentation-beam shells, designed respectively to combat manpower and armored vehicles, is hardly feasible, given the limited size of the ammunition (in the T-90S tank - 43 rounds) and the already large range of shells (armor-piercing feathered sub-caliber projectile (BOPS), cumulative projectile, high-explosive fragmentation projectile, 9K119 “Reflex” guided projectile). In the long term, when a high-speed assembly manipulator appears in a tank, it is possible to use modular designs of fragmentation-beam projectiles with interchangeable head blocks for various purposes (patent No. 2080548 of the Russian Federation, Research Institute of SM).

Entering a command that determines the type of action and entering a temporary setting when firing with a trajectory gap is carried out through the head or bottom command receivers. The operation cycle of the detonation control system includes determining the range to the target using a laser range finder, calculating the flight time to the pre-empted detonation point on the on-board computer, and entering this time into the fuse using the AUDV (automatic remote fuse installer). Since the preemptive detonation range is a random variable, the dispersion of which is determined by the sum of the dispersions of the range to the target, measured by the rangefinder, and the path traveled by the projectile at the time of detonation, and these dispersions are quite large, the dispersion of the preemptive range turns out to be excessively large (for example, ±30 m with a nominal lead range of 20 m). This circumstance places quite stringent requirements on the accuracy of the detonation control system (the installation step is no more than 0.01 s with a square deviation of the same order). One of the possible ways to improve accuracy is to eliminate the error in the initial velocity of the projectile. For this purpose, after the projectile has taken off, its speed is measured in a non-contact manner, the specific value obtained is entered into the calculation of the temporary setting, and then the latter is fed using a coded laser beam at a speed of 20...40 kbit/s through the channel of the stabilizer tube into the optical window of the bottom fuse. When shooting at targets that are clearly separated from environment, instead of a remote fuse, a non-contact fuse of the “Range Finder” type can be used.

A design has been proposed for a beam-fragmentation projectile with an axial arrangement of a cylindrical GPE block inside an explosive charge. A promising design is a projectile that creates a beam of GGE with an oval cross-section, spreading along the surface of the earth. Patents No. 2082943, 2095739 propose designs of kinetic fragmentation projectiles, respectively, with a front and rear location of the GGE unit, a shock tube and a charge of detonation-capable dual-use solid fuel. Depending on the conditions of use, this charge is used as an explosive charge (like an explosive) or as an accelerator charge (like a solid rocket fuel). The second main idea of ​​the development is the destruction of the housing into fragments by a blow to its inner surface of the tube, accelerated by the explosion. This scheme provides the so-called destruction without throwing, i.e. destruction of the body without imparting a noticeable radial speed to its fragments, which allows them to be included in the axial flow. The implementation of complete crushing upon impact with a tube was confirmed experimentally. (Fig.14, 15 )

Of significant interest are “hybrid” projectile designs that use both powder and high explosive charges. Examples include a shrapnel projectile with crushing of the body after the ejection of a block of arrow-shaped PE (Patent No. 2079099 of the Russian Federation, Research Institute of SM), a Swedish projectile “P” with a powder ejection of propelling blocks containing an explosive charge, an adaptive projectile with an ejected cylindrical layer of GPE and a “piston”, containing an explosive charge (application No. 98117004, Research Institute of SM). (Fig.16, 17 )

The development of beam-fragmentation projectiles for small-caliber automatic guns (MCAP) is hampered by restrictions imposed by the size of the caliber. Currently, the almost exclusive caliber of the domestic MKAP of the Ground Forces, Air Force and Navy is the 30 mm caliber. 23-mm MCAPs are still in service (the Shilka self-propelled gun, the GSh-6-23 six-barreled aircraft gun, etc.), but most experts believe that they no longer meet modern efficiency requirements.The use of one caliber in all branches of the Armed Forces and the unification of ammunition is an undoubted advantage. At the same time, the rigid fixation of the caliber will already begin to limit the combat capabilities of the MCAP, especially when fighting anti-ship missiles. In particular, studies show that the implementation of an effective fragmentation-beam projectile in this caliber is very difficult. At the same time, calculations based on the criterion of the maximum probability of hitting a target with a burst for a fixed number of bursts and the mass of the weapon system, including the firing installation and ammunition, show that the 30 mm caliber is not optimal, and the optimum is in the range of 35-45 mm. For the development of new MCAPs, the preferred caliber is 40 mm, which is a member of the Ra10 series of normal linear sizes, providing the possibility of interspecific unification (Navy, Air Force, Ground troops), global standardization and expansion of exports, taking into account the widespread use of 40-mm MCAP abroad (towed ZAK L70 Bofors, fighting machine infantry CV-90, shipborne ZAC "Trinity", "Fast Forty", "Dardo", etc.). All of the listed 40-mm systems except Dardo and Fast Forty are single-barrel with a low rate of fire of 300 rounds/min. The Dardo and Fast Forty double-barreled systems have a total rate of fire of 600 and 900 rounds/min, respectively. Alliance Technologies (USA) has developed a 40-mm CTWS cannon with a telescopic shot and a transverse loading circuit. The gun has a rate of fire of 200 rounds/min.

From the above, it is clear that in the coming years we should expect the emergence of a new generation of weapons, 40-mm guns with a rotating barrel block, capable of resolving the contradictions discussed above.

One of the common objections to the introduction of 40 mm caliber into a weapon system is based on the difficulties of using 40 mm guns on aircraft due to high recoil forces (the so-called dynamic incompatibility), which excludes the possibility of extending interspecific unification to the arsenal of the Air Force and tactical aviation of the Ground Forces.

In this case, it should be noted that the 40-mm MCAP will be intended primarily for use in shipborne air defense systems, where restrictions on the total mass of the weapon system are not overly stringent. Obviously, it is advisable to combine guns of both calibers (30 and 40 mm) in the ship’s air defense system with an optimal division of anti-ship missile interception ranges between them. Secondly, this objection is refuted by historical experience. Large-caliber MCAPs were successfully used in aviation during the Second World War and after it. These include domestic aircraft guns Nudelman-Suranov NS-37, NS-45 and the 37-mm American M-4 cannon of the R-39 Airacobra fighter. The 37-mm NS-37 cannon (projectile weight 735 g, muzzle velocity 900 m/s, rate of fire 250 rounds/min) was installed on the Yak-9T fighter (30 rounds of ammunition) and on IL-2 attack aircraft (two guns with 50 rounds of ammunition). cartridges each). In the final period of the Great Patriotic War Yak-9K fighters with a 45-mm NS-45 cannon (projectile weight 1065 g, initial speed 850 m/s, rate of fire 250 rounds/min) were successfully used. In the post-war period, NS-37 and NS-37D guns were installed on jet fighters.

The transition to a 40 mm caliber opens up the possibility of developing not only beam-fragmentation projectiles, but also other promising projectiles, including adjustable, cumulative, with a programmable proximity fuse, with an annular striking element, etc.

A very promising area of ​​application of the principle of explosive axial throwing of GGEs is formed by over-caliber grenades of under-barrel, hand-held and rifle grenade launchers. An over-caliber fragmentation-beam grenade for an under-barrel grenade launcher (patent No. 2118788 of the Russian Federation, Scientific Research Institute of SM) is intended mainly for flat shooting at short distances (up to 100 m) in self-defense. The grenade contains a caliber part with an expelling charge and protrusions included in the rifling of the grenade barrel, and an over-caliber part containing a remote fuse, an explosive charge and a GGE layer. The diameter of the over-caliber part depends on the distance between the axes of the bullet and grenade barrel.

The total mass of the promising beam grenade for the 40-mm underbarrel grenade launcher GP-25 is 270 g, the initial speed of the grenade is 72 m/s, the diameter of the over-caliber part is 60 mm, the mass of the explosive charge (phlegmatized RDX A-IX-1) is 60 g, ready-made striking elements in the form of a cube with an edge of 2.5 mm weighing 0.25 g are made of tungsten alloy with a density of 16 g/cc; laying of GGE is single-layer, number of GGE - 400 pcs., throwing speed - 1200 m/s, lethal interval - 40 m from the breaking point, fuse installation step - 0.1 s (Fig.18 ).

In this article, the development of axial-action fragmentation ammunition is considered mainly in relation to barrel projectiles, which to one degree or another are a development of classical shrapnel. In a broad aspect, the principle of hitting targets with directed streams of GGEs is used in a wide variety of types of weapons (warheads of missiles and missiles, engineering directed fragmentation mines, directed fragmentation ammunition for the active protection of tanks, barreled grapeshot weapons, etc.).

The section is very easy to use. In the field provided, just enter the right word, and we will give you a list of its values. I would like to note that our site provides data from various sources - encyclopedic, explanatory, word-formation dictionaries. Here you can also see examples of the use of the word you entered.

The meaning of the word shrapnel

shrapnel in the crossword dictionary

shrapnel

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov

shrapnel

shrapnel, w. (English shrapnel, named after the inventor).

Artillery shell filled with bullets, used. for shooting at live targets. Shrapnel explosions.

trans. Pearl barley (colloquial fam. joke). Shrapnel soup.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova.

shrapnel

And, well. An explosive artillery shell filled with grapeshot bullets or other destructive agents. I) adj. shrapnel, oh, oh.

New explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

shrapnel

An explosive artillery shell containing round bullets, rods, etc. to defeat openly located enemy personnel.

trans. decomposition Cool pearl barley porridge (usually with a touch of playfulness).

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

shrapnel

SHRAPNEL (eng. shrapnel) an artillery shell, the body of which was filled with spherical bullets (rods, arrows, etc.) that hit open living targets. Exploded at a given point on the trajectory; used in the 19th century. 20 centuries, replaced by fragmentation and high-explosive fragmentation shells.

Shrapnel

an artillery shell filled with round bullets. Designed to destroy mainly living open targets. Named after the English officer G. Shrapnel, who in 1803 proposed equipping an artillery grenade with cast iron grapeshot bullets, which enhanced its effect. For the device of the Sh., see Art. Artillery shells. Sh. exploded in the air at a certain distance from the target, was highly effective and was widely used in World War I (1914–18). In the 30s 20th century Sh. was supplanted by more powerful fragmentation and high-explosive fragmentation shells. At the end of the 60s. 20th century artillery shells of the Sh. type appeared, equipped with arrow-shaped rods, to destroy the enemy’s uncovered manpower. For example, in an American 105-mm projectile there are up to 8 thousand such rods (length 24 mm, weight 0.5 g), which are ejected from the projectile due to centrifugal forces and the pressure of the powder gases of the expelling charge and dissipate in the form of a cone.

Wikipedia

Shrapnel

Shrapnel- a type of artillery shell designed to destroy enemy personnel. Named after Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), the British army officer who created the first projectile of this type.

A distinctive feature of a shrapnel projectile is its detonation mechanism at a given distance.

Shrapnel (disambiguation)

Shrapnel:

• Shrapnel, Henry(1761-1842) - British Army officer who proposed the design of an artillery shell to destroy enemy personnel, which was later named after him.
• Shrapnel- a type of artillery shells designed to destroy manpower.
• "Shrapnel"- pearl barley porridge.
• Shrapnel- Decepticon transformer.

Examples of the use of the word shrapnel in literature.

The Austrians responded to this shrapnel, and the seventh immediately moderated its battle ardor.

Kovalevsky and descended from the ridge, barely having time to shake hands with Urfalov and some of the junior officers, because an Austrian aircraft flew overhead, screeching shrapnel, and behind it another, so that suspicion could arise whether the Austrians had learned about the impending attack and whether they wanted to show that they were ready for it.

Shards shrapnel they slammed into the ground a fathom away from Pukhov and threw gravel and torn soil in his face.

He was still lashing his tail in disagreement, jumping up and down, and the stones were scattered shrapnel, hitting the jubilant miner in the face.

Bunsen and Kirchhoff pioneered spectral analysis in 1854, when all of Europe was watching the unfolding Crimean War, where rifled guns and shrapnel in the cores, and the ships fought under sail.

Then the Russians retreated and settled in the trenches, but shrapnel our multi-barreled mortars covered them from above.

Tin cans with dumplings exploded loudly when they hit the ice, and frozen dumplings, as if shrapnel, scattered in all directions.

They could only be destroyed with grenades, and our artillery sages, destining field guns for battle in the open field, supplied them with only shrapnel.

It was fortunate that they had a connection with Post-Volynsky - they let them know, and from there some battery gave them a spin shrapnel, well, their ardor died down, you know, they didn’t complete the offensive and were wasted somewhere to hell.

Covered by a chain of riflemen, their brigade makes a parade march, while the British artillery, having taken positions on the flanks, showers the Boers with a hail of shells and shrapnel.

The battles on the old Bucharest road, which had long been filled with blood, were apparently especially bloody, judging by the number of dead, now covered with grass, by defensive trenches, large shell craters and smaller ones - from shrapnel.

Their powerful and alarm-filled call included the whistle of a power plant, high and piercing, like a flight shrapnel.

In state-owned factories, the procurement price of one shrapnel- fifteen rubles, and Goujon - thirty-five.

It was bursting over their heads shrapnel, machine guns hit them in the back, and the lava of the Kalmyk regiment flowed along the hillock, cutting off the path to retreat.

The collapsed ice floe hit the foot of the Mansky bull and burst shrapnel, ringing fragments scattered along the river, and again everything froze.