Never Call Retreat - Civil War 03
“They knew what would happen in a few seconds. Men dodged, threw themselves into doorways and alleyways.
The rebel charge, swarming forward, was gaining momentum until the men up front saw, through the smoke, the muzzle of a three-inch ordnance rifle, not a hundred feet away, aimed straight at them.
‘Fire!" The ordnance rifle recoiled with a thunderclap roar, the charge of canister bursting from the barrel. As the first tin cleared the muzzle the tin sheathing peeled back, the fifty iron balls b...eginning to spread out, deviating to one side or the other, up or down an inch or so for every foot forward; the second can emerged, peeling back, its shot spreading as well. At a hundred feet the spread would be a deadly cone a dozen feet wide.
The impact was devastating, twenty pounds of iron balls, each weighing a little more than two ounces, each traveling at over seven hundred feet a second. A single ball could decapitate a man, tear off an arm, a leg, go clean through a man, tear apart a second, and drop a third behind him.MoreLess
The rebel charge, swarming forward, was gaining momentum until the men up front saw, through the smoke, the muzzle of a three-inch ordnance rifle, not a hundred feet away, aimed straight at them.
‘Fire!" The ordnance rifle recoiled with a thunderclap roar, the charge of canister bursting from the barrel. As the first tin cleared the muzzle the tin sheathing peeled back, the fifty iron balls b...eginning to spread out, deviating to one side or the other, up or down an inch or so for every foot forward; the second can emerged, peeling back, its shot spreading as well. At a hundred feet the spread would be a deadly cone a dozen feet wide.
The impact was devastating, twenty pounds of iron balls, each weighing a little more than two ounces, each traveling at over seven hundred feet a second. A single ball could decapitate a man, tear off an arm, a leg, go clean through a man, tear apart a second, and drop a third behind him.MoreLess
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