[kronckew]

Was enthralled by Errol Flynn's Charge of the Light Brigade, and the movies about the Wooden Ships and Iron men of the age of sail and their weapons, as well as the famous 'last stands' from Leonidas at Thermopylae onwards.

Wastched a movie a few days ago about 21 Sikh warriors in the British army making a last stand in a outpost fort in afghanistan against 10,000 pathans for days, to allow the Brits time to come up the Khyber with reinforcements for the main Skh regiment. They died to a man, but took hundreds of the enemy with them before running out of ammo, and then took quite a few before the died with cold steel.

Grapeshot is fairly large, was arranged around a central wooden rod set in a wooden base sabot, and wrapped in a canvas cover. Cannister was also coming into fashion, with musket balls in a ton 'cannister'. all last ditch shots as you were about to be overrun. You had more chance not to be when breech loaders ballowed faster reloads before they swamped you. Colonel Shrapnel's invention with the bombs bursting in the air were deadly at longer ranges. cased shells with timed shrapnel warheads provides a blast of balls in a wide oval at very long ranges and were the age's cluster bombs. especially useful with the new rapid breech loading recoil damped pieces from the end of the 19c. I seem to recall cannister was used by US & Allied forces in the pacific WW2, Korea, and also in Vietnam.

below are a batch of grape charges for a 9-pounder naval gun, cased cannister, and a cutaway of a shrapnel round shot, and a modern ogival artillery round.