Scourge of War Boards

Shrapnel ammunition had been available for many years during the Peninsular war and British artillery crews were skilled at their use and in timing the fuses. I feel that they were effective, and they were considerably more effective than explosive shell, especially with the muddy ground at Waterloo, it was just that not many were supplied in the ammunition train.

Hi Saddletank

According to Mark Adkin's "The Waterloo Companion" about 10% of British stocks of shells were Shrapnel and this is the distribution I have used in my mod. I am not aware of any statistic concerning how many were actually fired on that day but there are historians who reckon they played a decisive part in the Allied victory.

Regards

Mike

I wasn't aware of the exact ratios but if I had to just pluck a number out of thin air I'd have said 10% (!)

I wouldn't say it was a decisive weapon at all. Though it was certainly effective. The decisive events were all of French making IMHO.

I think first shrapnel rounds was effective only if they explode in high between head and foot, because if explode was higher over head or on the ground, 50% of iron balls go up in sky or down in earth. In shrapnel rounds Britons use similar fuse of wooden tubes like in grenades, which you must cut before loading to choose high of explosion, I think it will be hard to choose right high of explosion with this fuse.

HI Jacquinot
We have a saying in UK - what goes up must also come down! Thus the musket balls could still cause damage as they would have velocity from the shell and the explosion.

One French officer was brought to Wellington suffering from multiple shrapnel wounds to his head. I guess it might have wounded more often than it killed but as I posted before there were 150+ musket balls per shell.

Regards

Mike

No, I haven't delved into things extensively enough to start dumping and analyzing data files, but, it seems very interesting. I will have to try that.

I agree with you that if the current game makes shrapnel rounds totally ineffective, then that should be changed.

I've been around board wargames for decades. I've been around computer wargames since 1995. What I've learned from listening to and observing designers is that the designer can never forget that his creation is meant to be a realistic combat simulation, but also a game. Your classic board games are totally balanced, because each side is identical, as in checkers and chess. As such, the best combat simulation games are always balanced. Those that are unbalanced either calculate out at 60 chances against 40 or nobody will play that game.

Scenarios like WL10 and WL20 should, IMHO, be faithful to these ideas that I have posted here.

A final comment about shrapnel rounds. If these rounds consisted of 10 percent of the battery's ammo load, don't forget to calculate that some of these are going to be duds, because of faults and because of the damp conditions.

A final comment about shrapnel rounds. If these rounds consisted of 10 percent of the battery's ammo load, don't forget to calculate that some of these are going to be duds, because of faults and because of the damp conditions.

Of course that logic applies to all ammunition at Waterloo. Shrapnel was less affected by muddy ground that other ammunition types.

I attach an image from an excellent paper on the web by Nick Lipscomb which provides a great deal of evidence concerning the effectiveness of Shrapnel in the Peninsular and at Waterloo.

The grey area on the map of Waterloo shows the effective range of Shrapnel as compared with yellow for Canister.

The full article is here:here

Regards

Mike

Sorry did not attach picture apparently but you can see it in the article to which I gave a link. Very interesting with lots of evidence from British & French officers about the devastating effect of Shrapnel.
Regards

Mike

A final comment about shrapnel rounds. If these rounds consisted of 10 percent of the battery's ammo load, don't forget to calculate that some of these are going to be duds, because of faults and because of the damp conditions.

Of course that logic applies to all ammunition at Waterloo. Shrapnel was less affected by muddy ground that other ammunition types.

Solid shot had no projectile fuse, so, that would certainly be less affected by dampness and duds, than would shrapnel. Canister shot didn't use projectile fuses, either. Shell and Shrapnel both used fuses in the projectile which could not be manually lit. If the projectile's fuse didn't light when the cannon fired, it's a dud and acts like solid shot.

Also, the musket balls in the Shrapnel rounds worked better in the dry rocky ground of Spain where ricochets would cause wounds. In the soft ground at Waterloo, a Shrapnel round musket ball that missed a French soldier would bury itself into the ground, so, ricochets there were minimal.

Certainly the original stock version of the game should have included consideration of these issues.

As I said in an earlier post, however much realism is featured in the game -- it is still a game and must be a somewhat balanced contest.

Finally, seems to me that there should be a Battle of Waterloo scenario for Single Play and another for Muliplayer. I'm not sure that the same scenario parameters would be suitable for both SP and MP, since both modes of play are extremely different.