THE MANY KINDS OF PROJECTILES WE USE.
By John F. Meigs
We have now armor-piercing projectiles, deck-piercing projectiles, semi-armor-piercing projectiles, common forged and cast-steel projectiles, cast-iron projectiles, shrapnel, and so on, in endless variety. As the work the gun, whether ashore or afloat, will have to do can be clearly predicted, it would appear as tho one, or at most two, kinds of projectiles were enough. These two would naturally have, the one a high penetrative power, and the other a large capacity for internal charge, giving great destructive power when the shell is burst. No one who has not examined carefully the effect of bursting a shell in a closed space can have an idea of its destructiveness. A small 6-pounder shell, of about 2¼-inch diameter, containing 3 or 4 ounces of powder, burst in an ordinary room, and, breaking into 20 or 30 fragments, would probably destroy everything in the room.—John F. Meigs, in the Iron and Steel Number of the Scientific American.